Erik told it twice before breakfast, once to Kai's silence and once, properly, to the people it mattered to.
They met by the spring, in the loose circle they always fell into. A morning that was only a clock's idea of one lay over the fields. Silver sat on a flat stone with his hands folded, Dahlia and Victor on the grass beside him. Aunt Mary stood behind Aunt Lucy's chair with a dish towel over her shoulder. Penelope had come over from the house with her hair still pinned up from the night, and she had left someone upstairs asleep. Nobody mentioned it.
"Four," Silver said, when Erik finished. "A mother, a father, two children. Blankets to the chin."
"Yes."
"No struggle. No sound of fear."
"Ethan listened the whole time. The mother was humming." Erik kept his voice level. "Someone came up the stairs, sat with them, and left. Jason saw it on his map. One dot, calm, unhurried."
