Sookie nodded at her mother's words, listening to her wisdom and cation. She felt a temptation to give an outright display of her magic to let others know what she was capable of and that she could defend her family if needed. But her mother was right. This wasn't the same universe she'd been in; people here would not react the same way to a technomage as they had in her other experiences.
An alien watching them caught Sookie's attention. It was the way he was watching them, clearly trying to seem like he wasn't looking at them. Perhaps this universe's version of a pickpocket. She reached out with her free hand and looped her arm around Izzy's shoulders, pulling her closer.
Izzy assumed Sookie's gesture had something to do with her father's words. "Are they gonna split us up if we go to a shelter?" Izzy asked nervously. Many of the stories she had read involved families being pulled apart in desperate times. She didn't want to be sent to this world's version of a foster family, or something much worse like the 'games' she'd been forced to participate in before.