“It’s been that way for at least a hundred years,” Lelia says, making her way around the trunk. “When the pioneer types first got here, they needed a place for their animals, to keep them safe, so like any good conquerors, they found something ancient and beautiful and set it on fire to solve their problems.”

“Why didn’t that kill the tree?” I ask.

“Because redwoods are badasses,” Lelia says.

“They wear their hearts on the outside,” Rush adds, running her blue-polished fingertips down the bark like rain.

“What Rush means is that everything about a redwood that’s alive is in the first few inner inches of xylem and phloem and all that stuff you probably don’t remember from biology class,” Lelia says.

“Lelia is our resident tree expert,” June says, her round cheeks glowing with pride.

“Wait until you see a redwood with a faerie ring around it,” Lelia says. “It starts with this upward growth from the roots — it looks like a dark cloud of twigs and branches — and it creates a full circle around the trunk of a tree. People used to think you could walk through a faerie ring and end up in some kind of enchanted world. You should go in one sometime, Danny. It’s terrifying, by which I mean the best.”

“Lelia knows everything about plants and animals, anything in the natural world,” June says, still in best friend bragging mode, which makes me weirdly jealous. I don’t think anyone has ever talked about me that way.

“No humans or domesticated creatures,” Lelia adds. “I’m sorry, puppies are cute, but they are not magic.”

There’s that word again. “I know we’re on some epic hunt for what I can do, but . . . what do all of you do?”

Hawthorn points at each of them in turn, starting with Lelia and June, then moving on to herself and Rush. “Naturework, athame, scrying, song.” As if those are as solid and possible as lesbian, bi, pan, queer.

I want a word like that.

I want a word that’s mine.

“What about Imogen?” I ask. “What could she do?”

“Everything,” Rush says.

“Whatever she wanted,” Hawthorn says.

Two different answers, and both impale me with jealousy. Whatever power these Grays think I have, it can’t be as big as that.

“Imogen has an affinity for water,” Lelia says.

“Wait, I thought you did naturework.”

“Overlap is allowed,” Hawthorn says, suppressing an eye roll. “This isn’t a sports team; we’re not taking positions.”