“I not little!” Emma reaches under my arm to try to hit him.

Charlie flinches away, but I draw him back. This is important.

“So you two talk about this? The bright people? The pony?” I peer down at Emma.

She nods, a little reluctantly.

“We’re not supposed to,” Charlie says, staring at his feet. “When I told Daddy about the dreams, he got really, really cross. He said I shouldn’t ever talk about them out loud or they’d watch us all the time and try to hurt us. But if I didn’t talk about them or think about them, they’d go away.”

My breathing comes fast. “How long ago was this?”

Charlie shrugs. “When I was little.”

You’re still little, I want to scream.

I press his hand to my lips and kiss it. “Don’t listen to Daddy. You can talk to me about anything. Anything. Okay?”

A shadow falls on Charlie’s face before he can answer. I turn, and my eye catches on Diana Shaw’s prosthetic leg before I manage to gather my polite smile and look up at her.

There’s strange intensity in her eyes, but that’s par for the course today.

She kneels beside us, with such obvious effort that I nearly object.

“I’m so sorry, it’s just I heard what you were saying,” she hisses, and I shrink a little, wondering what I’ve done wrong. She sits down beside me and beams, not angry—eager. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The spirits of Lute.”

She’s staring holes into Charlie, and he’s staring holes into me, desperate to get away.

I let him. “Go and play, sweetie, not too far.”

Diana watches him go, glowing like an acolyte. “The old lords had the visions. Lord Treadway what died last time, he had the dreams, you know. Same as Saint Joseph had on his rock, but those weren’t no angels. We don’t get to see them, only you Treadways. And you have! You’ve seen them! We didn’t know how it would be this time, after the late lord’s passing, but it looks like everything’s just the way it’s always been. Thank goodness.”

She offers me her hand to squeeze, and I take it, stunned. I’m full of questions, but before I can ask any, she leans in.

“Who are they?” she whispers. Her eyes are perfect circles. “Tell me. Please!”

I can only stare at her. “You don’t know who you’re sacrificing to?”

“No!” Her hand shakes in mine. “We’ve never known.”

She glances over her shoulder, and I see Mary Warren standing with Janet Murrow, both of them watching Diana with a hint of disapproval in their eyes.