Hours later, Constance awoke looking as though she’d been ravaged by the flu. Pasty pale skin, red-rimmed eyes, hair a tangled mess. Nonetheless she felt much improved, and was surprisingly well-mannered, even meek, as she listened to Mr. Benedict’s stern admonitions. She quite agreed that she’d behaved badly and must never do that sort of thing again, and at any rate nothing could induce her to risk another bout of such agony. “But what caused it?” Constance asked, kicking free of her tangled sheets. “I mean, hearing people’s thoughts and all that never hurt me—it’s just sort of like having a conversation. But when I changed Sticky’s mind…” She shuddered and hugged her knees. “I suspect the main difference was the intensity of focus and mental effort involved,” Mr. Benedict said, patting her arm reassuringly. “If telepathy is like a mental conversation, then changing someone’s mind—essentially hypnotizing someone, as you did with Sticky—is like winning a long and exhausting argument, except that the entire argument is compressed into the space of a moment.
