Move back!” Florence warned Frieda and the other dissenters. “Please! Allow us to figure out our plan so we can stop the Revinir from coming! We need silence! Your treasonous threats aren’t helping anything.”

“We need a new mage!” shouted someone from the group. It was met with raucous agreement. “Sacrifice the Stowes to save our land!” hollered someone else.

Fifer’s eyes widened, and she hung back behind her brother. She’d faced a lot of things in her life, but never betrayal by people who were supposed to be on her team. It was greatly unsettling. Even Seth looked frightened on her behalf, which was a relief. Samheed and Lani arrived to see what was happening. Samheed eyed Aaron suspiciously—he seemed to be the cause of all of Artimé’s problems lately.

Simber returned and forced his way between the dissenters and the ones trying to stop the Revinir. He let out a huge roar, which was effective in getting some of the protesters to back up a bit, if not scare them away completely.

Sky pushed her way through the crowd behind him and came up to Fifer. “What’s going on? Where’s Thisbe?”

“She’s off with Drock,” Fifer said, flipping her hand toward the water. “Everybody’s lost their minds. They’re blaming us for the Revinir coming.”

Sky regarded the girl thoughtfully. “Well, they have a point. She wouldn’t be heading this way if it weren’t for Thisbe and Drock escaping.”

“Sky!” said Fifer, appalled.

“I’m just trying to understand where they’re coming from!”

Fifer frowned. “That’s impossible, and it won’t do any good. They’re not making sense.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to try to reason with them. But I need to understand them first if we’re going to make any progress there.”

Fifer rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for that! Simber, can you please get Frieda’s people out of our faces so we can figure this thing out?”

Simber didn’t oblige and instead looked at Aaron.

“Leave them be,” said Aaron. “They have a right to be here.”

Fifer crossed her arms over her chest in frustration. She could feel her face burn.

Seth sighed, exasperated. Samheed and Lani looked uneasily at each other.

Florence shook her head and went to Aaron. “Then let’s go to Karkinos for a little while, where it’s quiet. We don’t have time for this fight right now.”

After a moment, Aaron agreed. He climbed on Simber’s back, then helped Fifer and Sky up too, and they flew to the nearby Island of Legends, where they could hopefully talk in peace. Samheed watched Aaron fly off, the troubled look on his face remaining. Then he and Lani pushed the crowd away from the mansion door so people could get in and out and went back inside to load up their component vests.

•  •  •