The alert came through Shadow's network at mid-morning.
Fifteen soldiers on war horses entering Thornwick from the south road, plus a count's wagon — the specific livery visible in Shadow's feed, the crest on the door panel — with two drivers and what appeared to be a county official in formal dress riding alongside.
Arthur watched through the network and ran through the possibilities.
His parents looked fifteen years younger than they should. The farm had expanded considerably, making them the largest landowner in Thornwick. Monster materials had been sold in three different towns. The pets used magic openly on the property. The basement existed. Too many threads, any one of which could have pulled the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of person.
He notified his sisters first. Then his parents through the device.
He had an hour before the convoy reached the farm.
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He used forty minutes of that hour in the basement.
The green pills were the key piece of the plan — a legitimate product that provided a legitimate explanation, something tangible that a count's mind could grab onto and feel satisfied with. He had found the recipe in the elven library's section on herbal medicine: a genuine compound, derivable from herbs available in this region during spring, that produced modest energy benefits and mild healing factors and could be made by anyone with the right preparation knowledge.
He had made thirty of them in the basement, quickly, with materials from the farmhouse herb stores. He had tested one on himself — it tasted like concentrated meadow and did approximately what the recipe claimed, which was not much, which was the point. Legitimate, explainable, demonstrably real, and yet still entirely insufficient to account for what had happened to his parents.
He brought them upstairs and gave them to Mira.
'If it comes to it,' he said.
She looked at the pills. She looked at him. 'You made these this morning.'
'Yes.'
'From the herb stores.'
'Yes.'
'And they actually work.'
'Modestly,' he said. 'Anyone could make them.'
She turned one over in her fingers. 'That is very clever,' she said.
'The acting will matter more than the pills,' he said. 'If they believe you believe in them, they'll believe in them.'
She looked at him with the expression she had for situations where she had been outmaneuvered by someone she had raised. 'I can act,' she said.
'I know,' he said. 'That's why I'm telling you the plan and not just handing you the pills.'
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They stored what needed storing. The obvious magical equipment went to dimensional storage. The ring on Saya's hand — he looked at her and she met his eyes and kept it on, the disguise enchantment active. He checked the passive monitoring spells on everyone and confirmed the alert thresholds. He set Shadow copies at the road approaching the farm and three additional positions around the property perimeter.
Saya had arrived through the transit anchor when he sent word, still in the clothes she had been wearing in the village. She stood in the kitchen now with the specific stillness she had when she was waiting for something and was prepared for it.
'Stay close to Lyra,' he said quietly. 'If anything escalates beyond words, follow my lead.'
'And if it escalates beyond your lead,' she said.
'It won't,' he said. 'But if it does, you'll know when.'
She nodded once.
He stood with his family in the farmyard and waited.
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