Farah Dowling stood alone in her office, staring out the window at the gathering storm, swirling black and silver behind the glass. The students were all safe in bed, she hoped. She'd sent off her secretary Callum hours ago, despite Callum's propensity to lurk. She could take a moment in her sanctuary and reflect on the magnitude of what had happened today.

She had a Burned One imprisoned on school grounds.

Only then Silva stalked in, stormy as the world outside the window. He thought she should have killed the Burned One.

Dowling demurred. "I need to get in its head. We need to know if this is an isolated incident, or something more."

"Something more? Like what?"

"I found a changeling in the First World," she admitted.

Silva's voice sharpened, questioning. "A changeling? I haven't heard of one of those in centuries."

"Yet there she was," said Farah. "Left sixteen years ago, right around the time the last Burned One was spotted."

They had known each other a long time, she and Saúl Silva. They had been young together, visionaries together, soldiers and rebels together. That felt like another life, but sometimes it still seemed as though he could read her mind, with magic that came not from fairy power but from being part of a team.

Silva said slowly, "You think it's all connected."

She did.