Technically, I shouldn’t have been here at all. I was still wanted for any number of things, including destruction of Coast Guard property and however they wanted to classify my break-in to an illegal secret prison.

“If they’re not home, we’ll wait.” I knocked again.

The door opened. The man in the doorway flinched when he recognized me.

“Mister Blackburn. Are your wife and son home this morning?”

He didn’t answer right away. I didn’t need Nidhi’s insight to recognize the conflict on his face. The last time he’d seen me was after the Joint Committee hearing, when I’d refused to help his son Caleb.

He’d probably heard the news about me and New Millennium. He kept looking past me, checking up and down the street like he was searching for the police. “What do you want?”

Beneath his exhaustion and pain, I heard hope. Hope, and the fear of letting himself hope. “I’m here to help your boy. Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” He nodded hard, then stepped to one side. “Come in.”

A corpulent corgi waddled up to sniff us both. The dog barked once, then trotted off, its duty as a watchdog done.

“Louise?” Mr. Blackburn called out. “Get Caleb and get out here!”

Paper jack-o’-lanterns decorated the walls. A family photo above the couch showed Mr. Blackburn and his wife, along with their son Caleb and a second boy, this one a few years older. I guessed he was the artist who’d created the Halloween decorations.

Mrs. Blackburn emerged from the hallway, Caleb following close behind. She froze when she saw me.

“He says he’s here to fix Caleb,” her husband said.

She put a hand down to keep Caleb behind her. “Is it safe?”

I sat down on the old carpet and pulled out a polished wooden pen. “This used to be a sword named Woundhealer. Its power comes from a book by a man named Fred Saberhagan. It will heal his heart, and any other injuries. That’s all. No side effects, no follow-up. Nothing but a healthy boy with a long life ahead of him.”

“How did you find us?” she asked.

I cocked my head. “Magic librarian, remember?”

They looked at one another, communicating as effectively without words as Talulah did with her telepathy. The father nodded and said, “Do it. What do you need? Will it hurt?”

“It shouldn’t hurt at all. Could you take Caleb’s shirt off for me?” I winked at Caleb. “It might tickle, though.”

A scar down the center of Caleb’s chest showed where surgeons had tried to fix his heart. Caleb clung to his mother’s hand with one of his own and sucked the knuckles of his other. He seemed not so much anxious as resigned. How many times had this kid been poked and prodded and examined in his short life?