Sammi and the others looked at the metal door. It showed no signs of moving or bowing, but it was now mostly free of silt where the impacts had shaken it away. With the sun beating down on the metal surface, what had once been a walk-in fridge would quickly become an oven.

Sammi tried to extend her senses to feel the three Kin trapped inside. There was nothing there. She could close her eyes and sense Lilou and Bone, both of them in slightly different ways. Lilou, who was full Kin, was like a glowing red brand in her mind, seared onto her perception. Bone was more of a smudge, like heat haze in darkness, still there but very difficult to see.

The three Kin were blank spaces. Not even hollows, but pure absences. As if they were dead.

“They’re not coming back,” she said, and the adults all turned to her. “I’m sorry, Bone, or whatever your name is. Your father’s not there anymore.”

Bone blinked, then dashed to the door. He didn’t quite touch it.

“I won’t let you kill them. I’ve spent my life working to protect Kin. The agency I work for thinks I hunt them, and it’s the best cover to ensure they’re hidden away, kept secret. But this is personal, and I won’t let you kill them.”

“We might have more than them to worry about soon.”

“What do you mean?” Bone asked. “Who? What?”

Lilou looked around them at the valley, as if seeking something in the sunlight. There was nothing out of place, nothing abnormal, and yet Sammi could feel a change on the air.

“You really think she’ll come?” she asked quietly.

“I think she’ll try, if she knows what happened here,” Lilou said.

“You have to scare her like that?” Angela asked Lilou.

“Would you rather I just not say anything?” Lilou asked. “She’s over being treated like a kid, Angela. Sorry, Sammi, I know it’s not your choice, but I’m just telling it like it is. You have fairy blood in you from somewhere down the line, and however diluted, its power is glowing through. That thing you just did might only be the start of it. Magic like that leaves a mark, a scar, like those lightning strikes left patterns on your arm. And Grace might see and feel those scars. If she does there’s no telling...”

Lilou’s voice started to fade. Sammi blinked, her vision blurring, as a distance grew between her own solid core and everything else. Reality seemed to be drifting away. She reached for it but could not lift her hands. She cried out, but did not even hear her own voice, and could not be certain that she had spoken at all.

Even the intermittent banging of the trapped Kin trying to escape quietened to less than an echo.