He nodded, barely. I continued: “I lived with my father and grandparents in the Golden Vale, in the southern dairy-farming district. It was beautiful there. Not like Scion citadels.” I wrung out the linen, soaked it again. “But then Abel Mayfield got greedy. He wanted Dublin. That was when the Molly Riots started. Mayfield’s Massacre.”

“Mayfield,” Warden said, looking at the window. “Yes, I remember him. An unpleasant character.”

“You met him?”

“I have met every Scion leader since 1859.”

“But that would make you at least two hundred years old.”

“Yes.”

I tried not to falter in my work.

“We thought we were safe,” I said, “but in the end, the violence spread south. We had to leave.”

“What happened to your mother?” Warden kept his eyes on mine. “Was she left behind?”

“She died. Placental abruption.” I sat back. “Where’s the next bite?”

He pulled open his shirt. The wound ripped down his chest. I couldn’t tell if it was teeth or claws or something else that had made it. His muscles locked when I dabbed water on the torn skin. “Continue,” he said.

So I wasn’t such a boring human. “We moved to London when I was eight,” I said.

“Out of choice?”

“No. My father was conscripted by SciSORS that year.” I took his silence to mean that he didn’t know the shorthand. “Scion: Special Organization for Research and Science.”

“I know it. Why was he conscripted?”

“He was a forensic pathologist. Used to do lots of work for the Gardaí. Scion told him to find a scientific explanation for why people become clairvoyant. And why spirits linger after death.” I sounded bitter, even to my own ears. “He thinks it’s an illness. He thinks it can be cured.”

“Then he cannot sense your clairvoyance.”

“He’s amaurotic. How could he?”

He didn’t comment. “Did you have your gift from birth?”

“Not fully. I could sense auras and spirits from when I was very small. Then I was touched by a poltergeist.” I sat back to wipe my brow. “How long do you have left?”

“I am uncertain of that. Salt staves off the inevitable, but not for long.” He was quite blasé about this. “When did you develop the ability to dislocate your spirit?”

The talking was keeping me calm. I decided to be truthful, if only because he probably knew everything about me. Nashira had known I was from Ireland; they must have all sorts of records. He might be testing me, seeing if I’d lie to him.