Radical (Clandestine Magic #2)

His first trip to the Clarks’ apartment, nearly four months ago now, had been a shock.

Not because it was a tiny, dank and utterly insufficient home for a family, but because years ago it had been his tiny, dank and utterly insufficient home, the only one Nan could afford to rent with a widow’s pension that—she once joked—was clearly intended for the many widows who enjoyed foraging for their food.

He and Nan had been a household of two. The Clarks were five going on six. The children slept on mats in the living room he’d had all to himself at nights. He walked through it now, trying not to think about the walls closing in on him as they had the night before, and entered the only bedroom.

Seven-year-old Anna and her younger brothers stared at him, eyes wide and mouths solemn, as he took a seat by their mother. Sue Clark lay in a bed with a sagging mattress, looking pale and small. Even her rounded belly wasn’t as large as by rights it should have been.