Heartened by his acceptance of her apology and his understanding, Nel smiles brightly in return and bobs her head in a nod, “Yeah. We don’t know much about it, and we don’t want to scare anyone. The magic is different for each Number. It can do lots of strange things when it makes changes.”

Surely Thom will understand more once they can review what has happened so far. Yet, her brother has a secret of his own, and Nel follows his gaze with a turn to look at where Gizmo sits. She looks curiously back at Thom with a tilt of her head and a warm smile still at her lips, “What is it?”