“What are you doing here?” he asked, his expression wavering between joy and fear. He had grown in just the short time since he left, she thought. Or maybe distance was helping her to see him as he’d always been.

“It’s a very long story.”

“Where’s Mama?” He looked at the gathered people, as if expecting to see her face among them.

“She couldn’t make it, Tate. I’m so sorry.” She almost added that she was safe, but the truth was, she didn’t know that. And she couldn’t lie to her brother again.

“Why don’t we go to the house to talk?” Lupin said after a moment. “Honey on warm bread makes everything a little easier.”

Leelo studied her, trying to decide if she recognized her face at all. She could be Vance’s older sister, she thought, or any one of the incantu who had left over the course of Leelo’s life. So many broken families, and yet, for the people like Lupin who found new families, perhaps life on the mainland was not the worst thing that could happen to someone.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Leelo said as they walked toward the house. She still couldn’t believe that she was no longer on Endla, that she was on the mainland among outsiders. “I’m so grateful that he’s safe and healthy.”

“We’re happy to do it,” Lupin said, ruffling Tate’s hair.

Leelo pointed to the bundle of netting in Tate’s arms. “You don’t wear one of those when you tend to the bees?”

Lupin shook her head. “I don’t need it.”

“She sings to the bees,” Tate explained as Lupin drifted ahead to catch up with Story.

“What do you mean?” Leelo asked. “She’s incantu.”

“She says she doesn’t have Endlan magic, but I’ve watched her. The bees go into some kind of trance when she sings. They land on her, but they never sting her.”

Leelo thought on this as they made their way up to a neat log cabin with red geraniums in the windows, just like Leelo’s house. She wondered if she’d misunderstood magic this entire time, if maybe Endlan magic, as she thought of it, wasn’t Endlan at all. Maybe everyone had a little magic in them, if you knew where to look.

Lupin’s mother, Marta, welcomed the group into the house, serving up fresh bread and honey that melted in Leelo’s mouth. As the two families caught up with each other and Jaren explained what had happened to him, she shook her head at how wrong she’d been about outsiders.

“Is Mr. Rebane home?” Stepan asked Marta when they finished eating.

“He should be back any minute,” she said, then turned to Tate. “If we’re lucky, your father will be with him.”

Leelo nearly choked on her last bite of bread. “What?”