Inside the mansion pieces of glass slammed into Florence and Talon, who’d been standing at the window. Stunned and scratched but unhurt, Florence jumped through the opening to the lawn to help, her stone feet crunching on glass. She began lifting the ones who were most injured through the window and handing them to Talon, who ran to put them on a bed in the hospital ward. Soon others were flooding into the mansion through the door, blood flowing from their wounds, making the tile floor slick. Henry and Carina and the nurses brought more patients into the ward and began assessing them.

Back outside, Fifer ran over to Thisbe and Seth. “Are you hurt?” she cried. Then she looked around at all the people who were cut and bleeding. “Oh, crud. I’m so sorry, everyone! It was an accident!” As Thisbe and Seth got up and insisted they were fine, Fifer’s flock of birds flew in from the treetops, responding to the unintentional call and causing even more chaos with the Artiméans. The brand-new class of Unwanteds, recently sent to Artimé by their uncreative parents in Quill—a tradition that had changed slightly over the years but refused to die—weren’t used to seeing the birds either. Thisbe cringed right along with the others and covered her head. She still didn’t like them.

“Why didn’t you warn me you were going to be dressed like that?” Fifer said angrily to Thisbe. Her princess crown was tipping to one side, and she had a small cut on one arm. “Look what you made me do.”

“I thought you would have learned how to control your shrieks by now,” Thisbe said, immediately becoming just as angry for the rash accusation. “What else were you doing during the time I was a slave in the catacombs?” Spit flew from her mouth when she emphasized the last phrase. “I worked sixteen hours a day and still found time to learn to control my destructive abilities.” She hesitated. “Though I’m feeling an urge to let them fly at you right about now.”

“Stop.” Seth stepped between the girls. “That won’t solve anything. Just . . . both of you, knock it off.”

Thisbe and Fifer looked at Seth in surprise. It wasn’t like him to be so assertive.

Seth’s face was grim as he stared beyond them to the streams of people heading into the mansion. “Look past yourselves for once,” he muttered.

Behind the bleeding masses was another all-too-familiar group descending on Aaron, hollering about how he should have prevented this. There were worse things happening than whatever the twins were arguing about.