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Soon, however, you notice something shift in your grandma's face. Once she can see that you're listening, your grandma breathes out slowly—and says in her usual quiet tone:

Once she can see that you're listening, your grandma breathes out slowly—and says in her usual quiet tone:

"Huknock—after what we managed to do, I'm satisfied that our magic is safe. It's a weight off my mind, honestly, and it's made the past few weeks here much more bearable. But if I'm honest, after what's happened to the forest—and having never really felt all that comfortable living in Silvertree at the best of times—I've been thinking lately that I might, at some point in the future, move away somewhere else."

She pauses, and watches you carefully for how you might react. At first you're not quite sure what to say—it's not really a surprise that your grandma would be thinking something along those lines, but it's still come as quite a sudden announcement.

Before you can say anything, however, she lifts up a hand and places it gently over one of yours.

"I wanted to let you know what's been on my mind, Huknock, before I end up making a move. Most importantly, of course, I wanted to make sure you would be all right. I know you're perfectly capable of managing on your own, but there's no chance I'm going to leave without giving you whatever help you need. And it's not as if I'll be on another planet; we just may not see each other quite as often. So—I just wanted to let you know that I'll do everything I can to make sure you're settled before I go."

She smiles as reassuringly as she can.

"The other thing, Huknock, was…I always suspected there was a possibility that going through with my plan could end up exposing our magic. That was why I was being so cautious; I would have chosen to abandon it if I thought there was a significant chance that could happen. So far, it doesn't seem that anybody has noticed anything, or at least not anything they could connect to our magic. But it has been playing on my mind that—well, we can't really know for sure if it might happen in the future. There may still be a chance that somebody could discover something, or realize something, and…our magic may even be found out."

She swallows quickly, and goes on before you have a chance to respond:

"I know I've talked an awful lot about how important it is to keep our magic a secret. But the fact is that I can't hope to control every factor of life around me; and neither should you. And while I can make the choice to try and hide my magic, it should be your choice how you use your own. But—the thing is, Huknock…"

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