When they were back at the house, Prue checked that the parlour was empty, then she and Edwin went inside and closed the door.

Prue sat on the sofa, taking deep breaths. “I can’t believe this is happening. I just can’t,”

“Your poor parents, Prue,” Edwin said, pacing back and forth.

“He won’t hesitate to set that creature on them. What are we going to do?”

Prue kicked herself for coming to the Guild at all, for leaving the farm and putting everything at risk. She longed for that feeling of normal, of not having a worry in the world. Like it had been when Francis was alive.

She shook her head sadly. “What choice do we have but to make Craftsman Primrose think we are going along with it? But we need our own plan, and quick. I just don’t understand how he created the stag-man we saw in the forest with only the masters having access to the qwor—” suddenly Prue straightened up. “Of course! Edwin, he was behind the dead personifate jackalope! He stole her qwortzite to make the first stag-man as a test run!”

“He killed the jackalope … but how could he use qwortzite that had lost its frequency?”

Prue stood still for a moment, her mind whirling. “It must be possible to reuse qwortzite. Perhaps that’s why he chose to kill a personifate not far into its second life?”

Edwin cocked his head, considering the idea. “Of course!”

“Well, we know how he created the first one, but that doesn’t help us stop him creating another hundred.” She looked at Edwin. “We’d better get thinking.”

Chapter 28: Prue’s Plan

PRUE’S PLAN

The clock was ticking, and Prue and Edwin had been wracking their brains, looking for an answer that was growing more elusive with every hour. They were in one of the mechanical labs working on adding the last feathers to the winged personifates of the hundred.

“You’ve both been exceptionally quiet since Sahwen. What are you up to?” Agapantha said suspiciously.

“Nothing,” they both said quickly.

Agapantha tapped her hook tool on the table. “Well, secrets are nothing new around here and something’s going on, you’re both acting really strangely.”

“Absolutely not, there is nothing going on whatsoever,” Prue declared, finding it hard to keep her voice hushed in her urgency.

“By which you mean there absolutely is something going on,” Agapantha said.

Prue looked back down at her book. It was so close to the blood moon. She had snuck away with Edwin at every opportunity, trying to work something out, and they were still getting nowhere.

“How much will they want us to do on the blood moon?” Agapantha asked. “I’m not sure I could harness a ghost on my own.”