“That’s why we’re worried now,” said Jasper. “We thought you ought to know as soon as possible. There’s been a whole stream of carriages heading into town across the last day and a half, all of them coming to meet with the mayor. We’re certain, by now, that at least two of them came from Larimont, sent by the Purifiers in the Council. And the one that just arrived...” He slid a glance at Frances Crowe, a teenager who’d looked half-starved when we’d first met, and who’d barely said a word in my presence since then.

As usual even in the warmest weather, her back was covered by a massive, shapeless cape, and her eyes were hidden behind sheets of rippling red hair, but her voice emerged from behind them with soft certainty. “The couple who got out of it both look like Mr. Fabian. And the man is just like him, only older.”

Jasper said, “If they’re his parents...they’re here to visit the mayor, not him.”

My stomach sank. I looked around the crowd of only half-known neighbors and found sympathetic understanding in all of their faces.

My non-magical father had protected me, his love steady and un-diminished, when my unnatural powers had developed. Far too many members of this group hadn’t been so fortunate, though—so everyone in our little makeshift community knew exactly what this kind of news might mean.

I wouldn’t be getting to my workshop today after all.

Unlike me, Dad looked positively delighted to open his door and find a large group waiting on his doorstep five minutes later. Also unlike me, he wasn’t surrounded by any hovering metal weaponry or a single one of the perfectly usable defensive weapons that I had made him absolutely promise to keep on hand whenever I wasn’t around.

“Dad...” I groaned, looking meaningfully at his outstretched, empty hands.

He beamed at me as he beckoned our neighbors forward. “I was hoping you’d bring them all back here, love. Don’t worry—Uriah and I put the kettle on already. There’ll be enough tea for everyone soon enough. We’ll just have to make ourselves cozy by the fire.”

‘Cozy’ was not the word I would have chosen. Our cottage was big enough for two people to move about with ease, but with nearly every member of the local unnatural community clustered inside, the floor was soon completely covered with visitors sitting pressed together and taking up every inch of space. I accidentally caught Uriah’s eye as I lowered myself to the floor by Dad’s armchair—making sure that no one else made the mistake of trying to claim that—and saw all of my own discomfort mirrored in the doleful look on his face as he propped his lanky body upright against the wall, as far away from everyone else as he could manage.