When Ophelia’s cousin, Professor Robert Paxton, had disappeared from the Proteus project, the money for Woody’s keep had kept coming for two years or more. When it ran out, Iona de Gourney had offered the Tates more money to keep Woody safe until she could safely smuggle him out of the country. Unfortunately, Woody was becoming more and more difficult to hide, and the Tates had been terrified that Gabriel Gruber and Lucas Scale would finally figure out that Woody was at their farm. They couldn’t wait for Iona to come up with an alternative plan. In his haste, Alec had made things worse. Between them, they had placed Nat Carver in terrible danger.

When Woody had been at the farm, Ophelia sometimes got a funny, dreamlike sensation in her head as blurry images would start to take shape. Woody would show her with his mind where lost belongings were — her car keys or reading glasses — and she would sometimes know who was about to drive up the dusty track to the farm before they arrived, thanks to Woody. At least, she hoped it was Woody. She had heard from both the professor and Iona de Gourney that there were other creatures at Helleborine Halt dabbling in telepathy.

That morning, Ophelia had seen the crazed photograph of Woody in the Reveille and had run to show Alec. He had glanced at the picture briefly and shrugged.

“If the wrong people have seen that, he’ll be caught!” cried Ophelia.

“If you mean them up at Helleborine Halt, he belongs to them anyways,” said Alec morosely. “It’s best all around he goes back to controlled conditions.”

Ophelia stared at her husband in disbelief. “Best for whom, exactly?” she yelled. “And what about the other one? What about Nat Carver?”

Alec’s bloodhound expression darkened. “Keep your voice down, woman. The Carver kid’s got nothing to do with any of it.”

“That won’t make any difference to Scale, and you know it,” spat Ophelia, then turned on her heel, red-faced and angry.

Later, just as Nat was proclaiming Woody’s innocence to his family in Apple’s kitchen, Ophelia stopped pacing her bedroom and slumped in front of her dressing table, gazing moodily into the mirror. She picked up her hairbrush and brushed her hair, still brooding about Woody and Nat Carver. As the brush slid soothingly through her blue-black hair, the room darkened, as though the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. The temperature dropped slightly, and Ophelia shivered involuntarily as a chill ran down her spine.

If Ophelia had ever doubted her bond with Woody, she couldn’t do so any longer. The otherworldly sensation she sometimes felt when Woody was trying to show her something was so strong that she could feel his presence as if he were standing right beside her. She closed her eyes and opened her mind, and what she saw made her gasp in horror.

“AAAAAAHHHOOOOWWWWWWWWW!”