Lachlan marched on ahead, silence between the two of us. His face tense with worry. I chose to try to mindlink Violet and thankfully managed to get to her! But after some conversation she was seemingly ignoring me. Perhaps I had annoyed her by saying things against her grandfather, considering the fact she had called him family earlier? I did not know. But the link had been weak too, crackling like a failing radio, fading in and out like it was losing signal, so I do not know if it was simply that the mindlink had stopped working. Or that she had chosen to stop talking to me.

Lachlan stopped...