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“So you really think our families are in danger of being discovered?” Matthias asked. “I mean I suppose we must be since you know about us, but how?”

“Eric already knew about you when he recruited me,” she said. “I’m not sure how he found out, but I would surmise it’s because he was looking. That’s what our job was before this all blew up – find people who share our talents. But you kept finding them first. Once it became obvious someone was finding them first, it wouldn’t have been much of a push to work out who and why. He decided that his bosses would do something foolish if he told them and hid it from them.”

“The government’s been training Wilds?” Matthias said. He looked at Sarah. “How did we miss that?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But I don’t like it. They disrespect people’s privacy enough without Astrals and nulls and most embers have no defence against someone rumaging around inside their head.” She gave Sophie a piercing look. “And you’re part of this? Why?”

“Honestly? It’s better than having them running around with no training and I would hope that we’re training them to have more ethics than to allow themselves to be used for snooping like that.” She gave a wry smile. “Though I suppose there will always be some who have no care for ethics. And we don’t have many anyway – Eric prefers not to let the government know there’s hundreds rather than tens of us in the UK and, as I said, you keep getting to them first.” She paused and frowned. “Actually he thinks there’s someone else as well.”

“Probably Emms,” Matthias said. “He’s the one who caused the pulse but he won’t be a problem anymore.”

“That’s good then,” she said. “But if – um – is embers what you call latents?”

“It is,” he said.

“Ok, if embers are going to start becoming active so explosively, they’ll start looking more seriously and might realise what we’ve been hiding. I honestly think the government would lose a war against you – but we don’t need such a mess, especially if you’re right about this invasion.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “And I don’t want to see those kids killed, drugged up to their eyeballs or coerced into service to avoid those fates. But I don’t know how to stop it. They’ll go around us if they can’t go through us, once they realise what’s happening.”

Sarah shuddered. “She’s right, we do have to stop that. But I have no idea what we can do.”

“Stay hidden,” Irena said suddenly from where she was sitting in the corner. Her eyes with unfocussed. “And use our own contacts to get involved in the reaction.”

“Rini?” James said. “Are you have a premonition?”

She shook her head and her eyes cleared slightly. “I think so. Something like that anyway. I just saw a rebellion, but it was… well, not fake. But some sort of plan. I need a moment to sort the details out because I didn’t get them all but I think it’s along the lines I was thinking.”

“Which is?”

“That we need to be in charge of the response without them knowing who and what we are. Then we need to have someone we can feed information to who can rescue the targets before we reach them. Someone public to act as a decoy so they don’t catch onto the fact the families exist.” She shook her head and frowned. “But why me? There are far better precogs than me…”

“Because it’s your idea, I think.” Matthias looked thoughtful. “And they’d have to be able to train them and have enough of a public face to show the world that they can learn to control themselves.” He hummed to himself. “Tricky, but it has possibilities.”

“Bloody Morgans.” Sarah buried her face in her hands. “That’s a crazy idea, Irena.”

“I don’t know, it might work,” Sophie said. “If you pick the right place to go – somewhere the British authorities won’t want to tangle with but which won’t try and use the people you rescue. She stared through the conservatory’s glass ceiling at the sky again. “I wish I had a better plan because it’s bloody dangerous but it might work. I hate plans like that.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. “I should get back. Sera and Mike will be wondering where I am. We’ll need to talk again. I’d give you my number but it might be tracked…”

“Share your mental signature and we’ll be able to send you a message,” Sarah said. “You’ll know it when you see it and I think you’ll be able to figure out how to send one back.”

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