“No one’s eating anyone,” said Dee firmly. “We don’t eat humans. Pliny’s gorgons are . . . well, we’re not vegetarians, but we’re not people-eaters either.”

“But Hannah’s not a Pliny’s gorgon, is she?” I asked slowly. Dee and Frank both turned to look at me. I shook my head. “Not entirely, I mean. She’s too tall. Female Pliny’s gorgons don’t get that tall. And her snakes . . . something about the shape of their heads is wrong.”

“Her mother was a Pliny’s gorgon,” said Frank. “Her father was of Medusa’s breed.”

I gaped at him. “Pliny’s gorgons are cross-fertile with greater gorgons?” I realized how insensitive the question was as soon as it was out. I winced. “Sorry. That was rude of me. I just didn’t realize . . . anyway. There’s nothing in the books to indicate that’s possible.”

“Then you haven’t read your great-grandfather Jonathan’s notes very carefully. Hannah speaks very highly of him. He spoke in favor of the marriage of her parents, when it became clear that they were going through with their union.”

“I may have missed a few things,” I said. It was a little white lie: whatever I’d missed wasn’t in the house to be read. There are big holes in the information we got from Great-Grandpa Healy’s notes, and they can almost certainly be blamed on his daughter—my maternal grandmother—who burned a lot of his things after he died. In her defense, she had good reason. That doesn’t justify losing whatever knowledge she’d destroyed.

“Hannah’s status as a crossbreed has been debated many times, and is actually viewed as an asset, now,” said Dee. “She’s a bit more . . . potent . . . than the rest of us, and she does a very good job of guarding the community.”

“And as she has no children of her own, she looks after all the children of the community with the fierceness of a mother defending her own clutch,” said Frank. There was something weary in his tone, which I thought was better left uninvestigated—at least for now. “She has been a good leader. You are fortunate to have the opportunity to dine with her.”

Most crossbreeds are infertile. That probably explained why Hannah was so happy to take care of the children of the community. I had the presence of mind not to say that out loud. Instead, I nodded and said, “It’ll be good to learn more. In the meantime . . . does this mean we have to stay here until dinner is served, or are we allowed to look around?”

“You are not prisoners,” said Frank. “It would be a great insult if you were to attempt to leave, but apart from that, you are free to move throughout the community. Within reason. I would not recommend going out alone, and it would be rude to enter a private dwelling without permission.”

“Oh, neither of those things is going to be an issue, I assure you.” I turned to Dee. “Remember those fringe groups you told me about? The ones who may be trying to work with dangerous animals in the name of self-sufficiency?”

“Yes,” said Dee, looking uneasy. She clearly knew where this was going.

There had never been any real question. “This seems like a good time for you to take us there.”

Shelby completely failed to suppress her expression of delight.

We left the medical trailer in a group, Dee at the front, me and Shelby in the middle, and Frank at the rear. Attempts to tell him that he didn’t need to come had been met with a dangerously blank stare. We were taking his wife into what he clearly viewed as unsavory territory. He was coming along.

Privately, I was glad of the extra muscle. It’s hard to make diplomatic inroads after you’ve shot someone. Having Frank with us might help to avoid that. If the farmers got violent, he at least stood a chance of subduing them in a non-fatal manner.

A crowd had formed outside the trailer while we were talking to Frank and Hannah, and while most of them didn’t follow us as we walked away, they weren’t subtle about their staring. I counted at least two dozen adults, plus the children. They were the ones who did follow us, running behind the trailers and peeking out at us as we passed. Shelby stuck her tongue out at the little girl with the bows on her snakes. The girl squealed with glee. Shelby smirked.

“Kids are kids,” she said. “All the rest is just details.”

“Remind me to introduce you properly to Chandi after all this is over,” I said. “Dee? Do we need to move the car?”

“No. You’re parked in front of our house, and that’s perfectly fine. We have two parking spaces allotted to us.”

“Why?” I asked, before I thought better of it. “I mean—”

“You’re pretty good about hiding the fact that you want to study me most of the time, Alex, and I appreciate that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know,” said Dee, sounding wearily amused. She kept walking as she continued, “Megan is away at school right now, but when she’s home, she needs a place to keep her car. After she graduates and becomes a full adult, she’ll either get a home of her own, or find a husband in another community and move away from us. I admit I’m kind of hoping she’ll choose to stay. Even with the Internet and the changes in rapid transit, each community is fairly isolated.”

“I can’t imagine never seeing my parents,” I said. “It seems like it must be really hard.”

“It is, but it is the only way,” said Frank. His tone was sharp, accompanied by a warning glance at Dee. “If no one can betray anyone else, then there need be no fear of betrayal. We keep communication to a minimum when not bartering or making marriage arrangements.”

“Still. It sounds lonely.”

“It is.” Frank increased his stride, outpacing the rest of us. Now it was Dee following him, and our back was entirely unguarded. That didn’t worry me as much as it might have; we were almost to the edge of the spiraling mobile homes, striking out across the green farmland.

“He knows where we’re going?” asked Shelby.

Dee nodded. “Everyone knows where the fringe is.”

“From the way you talked about them before, I was expecting them to be the only farming around here,” I said, and gestured to the left, where a large patch of ground had been dug into furrows and planted with what looked like some sort of melon. “What’s all the rest of this?”