The dark agent’s head jerked, and something unseen drifted through the room.

   A sharp, intrusive vibration was in [Nettie's] inner ears.

   Buzzing, swarming, stirring, like angry particles of static electricity.

   Now her thoughts were spinning.

   Her mind was…was…being searched!?

   She stumbled backwards, tripping, falling, her shoulder catching a lamp on the way down, knocking it with a hard whack to the corridor that ran along the stairs, shattering the bulb into a thousand powdery shards.

   Who, or what, was this man!?