This information lodges firmly into Xiomara's brain, in between what to do if there's a gurgut and what to do if there's a flood, on the shelf just above every known fact about the Executors and then some made-up ones too, in a room where other things like historical dates and formal etiquette lie in a jumbled, trampled heap.

"Bet the Research people could make that," she says, unfurling the scarf once it's soaked and extending her arm to drape it haphazardly around Astrid's shoulders. "Might be annoying to carry it around, but if you put straps on it like a backpack?"