We all look to Longsight, to our great leader, but he is staring, open-mouthed, shocked. He seems diminished somehow. His performance today has not gone to plan. Instead, it is Jack Minnow who steps to the mic, and he and Mel stand tall together.

“Go back to your homes,” he calls. “Do not panic. We will find the answers and we will not rest until the evildoer has been brought to justice. This I swear to you.”

There are no cheers now; the people stumble away, casting fearful glances backwards. You can tell people not to panic, but it only makes the fear greater. Because in our town someone has committed the unforgivable.

And Mayor Longsight? He watches his worshippers wash away in the rain. Their adoration has run through his fingers, their awe has turned to dread. His face is all fury – his spotlight was stolen, and to him, that is another unforgiveable act.

Chapter Twenty-one

Back in Mel’s study, I pace. It is the blanks, it must be. Only they would commit this sacrilege, this terrible thing. And only one person will be blamed for bringing them here – me. I’m surprised a lynch mob isn’t outside already, baying for my blood.

Mel bursts in, breathless and flushed.

“Start packing,” she tells me, flinging a bag at me.

“I don’t have anything to pack.” I say, bewildered. “I have nothing, remember? Anyway, where do you think we’re going?”

“Featherstone, of course,” she says, matter-of-factly. She glances at me, shoving her notebook into her bag. “They took the books, didn’t they? Or do you have other ideas?”

“No,” I admit. I take the armful of clothes Mel hands me and stuff them into a bag. “No one else would steal a skin book. The crime has Sana written all over it.”

“Agreed.” Mel hands me a bar of soap.

“What do you think going to Featherstone will achieve?” I ask curiously.

“Well,” she says, wrapping a shawl around herself. “I think we need to go there in the capacity of peacemakers.” She smiles at my surprised face. “Longsight’s new teachings, as extraordinary as they are, have done one thing. Distracted the people from the blanks. This could actually be a chance for peace, if Sana doesn’t blow it.” She chews her lip. “We have to take it, Leora. The prophecy wants us to.”

I want to say that I don’t think Sana will be so easily convinced into peace, but I know we have to try. We must attempt to fix the void between the blanks and marked – maybe this is what the story of the sisters was telling us to do.

But how does this fit in with Longsight, and his strange new powers?

“Mel,” I say, “do you really think he came back from the dead? Do you think his marks vanished? Was it a miracle?”

She is suddenly still and now I see it, the thing that has been driving her. Fear.