Thisbe propped herself up on her elbow. “You do?” she asked. “What is she doing? What’s so troubling? Was she taken away too?”

“No.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “She’s . . . she’s helping . . .”

Thisbe sat up, alarmed, and reached out for Rohan to comfort him. “What is it?”

“She’s helping pirates,” he said, his voice cracking.

Thisbe’s eyes narrowed. “What?” she whispered.

“Helping pirates . . . steal your mother away.”

Waiting . . . and Waiting

Thisbe recoiled, pulling her hand away from Rohan’s. She didn’t know what to think. It was strange that his historic visions showed something so similar to hers. But it was terrible that his mother, a black-eyed ruler, was helping to shove Thisbe’s mother onto the pirate ship. “What?” she said again. “What kind of person . . . ?”

“I know!” said Rohan, sitting up. “Don’t say it. I’m trying to make sense of it. I even drank more of the ancestor broth to see if, perhaps, there was an additional scene for me to learn from, like what happened with you. And . . . it’s true. My mother was helping the pirates kidnap your mother.” He blew out a breath. “And I guess I’m not really all that surprised.”

“How—what do you mean?” Thisbe knew virtually nothing about Rohan’s past except that his family was dead. He’d always seemed reticent to talk about it, and Thisbe had never pushed him.

“She’s younger than your mother was. A few years younger. So . . . maybe only eight or nine. A child.”

“Are you absolutely sure it’s her?”

Rohan nodded miserably. “There was a painting of my mother as a child that hung over our hearth. The picture is nearly identical to the image in my mind. I don’t understand it—I don’t understand why any nine-year-old girl would be anywhere near the sea, helping pirates steal away fellow black-eyed rulers.”

Thisbe’s head whirled. In the image in her mind, there were pirates around the girl—which was her mother at age twelve—dragging her onto a ship. She closed her eyes and conjured up the scene, listening to Maiven’s assistant yelling for Maiven Taveer and watching the scene in motion. This time focusing not on the main girl or the pirates or the assistant, whose back was to her, but on the other people around. And then she froze. There was another girl, scrappy and barefooted, scared and angry and yanking on a rope that was tied to Thisbe’s mother’s wrist. Trying to pull and then shove her toward the pirates.

“Why?” Thisbe whispered. “Why was she fighting against her own people?”

“I don’t know.” Rohan was quiet. “She was a terrible person to me, too. That’s why I’m not surprised she did this as a child. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Thisbe.”