Harry quirks that skeptical eyebrow at her and Rosie's thoughtless impertinence almost charges its way to the fore again, held in check at the last moment by the caution she's only just relearned. "I could do without things like this, that's all," she says, looking back over at Neil as he lies there in bed. "The nastier things that happen in Darrow. People going to sleep and not waking up for days, awful gifts from home or memories of things that had yet to happen. Friends getting hurt."

Something occurs to her, a question she thinks carefully about phrasing before she asks it. "Is this the first one you've been through, then? When the city does something bad to someone you know?"