Reluctantly Carina and Samheed let Aaron continue to Karkinos alone. Once they returned to Artimé’s shore, Carina went to the mansion to help Simber and Florence in whatever way she could during such a disruptive time. But Samheed broke through the crowds of protesters and kept walking into Quill to find someone who could go in search of Claire Morning.

On his way, he had a lot of soul-searching to do. He felt angry at Aaron for messing this up without regard for anyone else, just like he always used to do. But Carina’s reprimand had jerked him back to reality, and now he felt a little bit guilty for acting so mean after all Aaron had been through. It was obvious Samheed hadn’t wanted Aaron as head mage—the guy had brought a lot of baggage and complications to that position. But Samheed also hadn’t wanted anything like this to happen. It was frightening to watch strong Artimé unraveling.

And as much as he’d preferred the idea of Claire as the head mage, Samheed wasn’t going in search of her now to defy Aaron in any way—he would have never done this if Aaron hadn’t resigned. He was doing it for the sake of Artimé’s existence, because under Frieda Stubbs, it was only a matter of time before the magical world became a complete disaster. Sooner rather than later if they didn’t stop the Revinir.

Knowing that many of the dissenters thought fondly of Claire and preferred her to Aaron, Samheed felt there was a good chance for Claire to smooth everything over between the Frieda supporters and the Aaron supporters. And with any luck, she could step in and take charge before the Revinir destroyed them all.

When Samheed reached the outskirts of Quill’s neighborhood quadrants, he found a Necessary to go in search of Claire Morning and ask her to come to Artimé as soon as possible. Then he turned back and went to help Florence try to control the crowd and get everyone settled down.

•  •  •

By that time, Aaron was approaching the Island of Legends. Karkinos reached out his coral-reef claw to assist him, lifting the sodden former head mage and placing him gently on the shore near the others. Once he’d caught his breath, he faced the ones there: Fifer, Thisbe, Sky, Ibrahim, and Clementi. They, with Drock’s help, had kept an eye on the whole interaction and could tell bad things were going on, but they couldn’t hear well enough to understand everything.

Thisbe and Fifer came up to embrace Aaron. “What happened?” Thisbe asked, alarmed. “Why did you give up your robe?”