“She’s more sympathetic to you than Simber is,” Talon said carefully. “She held the training session, but it wasn’t easy with all the activity and arguing. She has an awful lot to do to try to prepare the mansion for an attack, and she wasn’t getting much cooperation.”

“And . . . Simber?” asked Aaron, not looking up.

“Simber isn’t speaking to anyone at the moment. Frieda has him busy doing meaningless chores for her. It’s . . . not a good scenario.”

“What about the obliterate spell?” asked Thisbe. “Is there one ready yet?”

“Not yet,” said Talon. “Carina got pulled away to help with crowd control. She’s back working on it again, but it’s very slow going, she said.”

Aaron sighed deeply. “I hope I didn’t destroy everything.”

Talon gave him a look of sympathy. “I think everyone knows how important it is to stop the Revinir. This will blow over.”

“If we all survive to see that happen, it’ll be a miracle,” muttered Aaron. “We’re going to have to leave your island soon—we certainly don’t want to draw the Revinir to your shores. Perhaps Karkinos should swim out of the area for a while.”

“But where will we go?” asked Fifer. “If Artimé isn’t safe for us and we don’t want to draw the enemies to Karkinos, will we go to the grandfathers? If so, we’ll have to take a ship, since there’s no way we can access the tubes. And we can’t go to Warbler—the Revinir will see us.”

“I don’t think Warbler is a safe place to hide, anyway,” said Sky. “She knows that island better than anyone.”

Aaron sighed. “I haven’t figured anything out quite yet.”

But Thisbe had. She watched and listened to the conversations through the cover of darkness, taking it all in. She glanced at Drock, who looked back solemnly at her, and a strange new feeling of understanding passed between them that surprised her. She’d forgotten about the additional ancestor broth she’d taken earlier, before all this craziness broke loose. But maybe it was having an effect on her and her ability to communicate with dragons. Whatever the case, she and Drock seemed to be the only ones to fully understand what needed to happen here. And the closer they got to daybreak, the more serious they had to become about doing it.

The group brainstormed long into the night until exhaustion overcame them. All agreed to get a few hours of sleep before they had to make a move. What move would it be? Only two of them knew for sure.

A Sacrifice