Thisbe stared. “Destroyed the tubes? That’s ridiculous! So they’re holding our friends as hostages and keeping us out of the mansion?”

“Yes,” said Sky.

“Simber too?”

“No,” Fifer said, lifting her chin and keeping her eyes narrowed, not quite looking at Thisbe. “He’s trapped in the theater.”

“What?” said Thisbe, incredulous.

Sky shook her head. “It’s a long story.”

“How did things get to this point?” Thisbe exclaimed. “I can’t believe this is happening in Artimé.” She turned to look at Rohan and Maiven and the others. “This is not the home I described to you. It’s not the peaceful, beautiful land I know.”

“We understand,” said Rohan. “Really. None of this reflects poorly on any of you.” He and the other black-eyed children were well aware of hardships in their homeland, so they could relate.

“I should introduce everyone,” said Thisbe. She’d forgotten with all the tension surrounding her. “Maiven, you remember… my sister.” Thisbe realized Fifer had no idea that Maiven was their grandmother. She didn’t feel like mentioning it at the moment, but neglecting to would only cause more problems with Fifer down the road. “Fifer, we have some interesting news—Maiven is actually our grandmother. We’ll explain everything later, but… I wanted to be sure to tell you right away.” She tried not to sound defensive, but it wasn’t really working.

Fifer’s eyes widened. “Grandmother?” she whispered. “What?” She looked at Maiven, and they greeted each other with an awkward handshake.

“We’ll have a good talk later,” Maiven said. “I know this must be strange news at such a stressful time.”

Fifer nodded.

“And… you know Rohan, too,” Thisbe said to Fifer.

“Of course,” said Rohan smoothly. He smiled and greeted Fifer, then quickly introduced everyone else, including himself to Florence, whom he’d heard so much about.

“Wait a second,” said Fifer, suddenly alarmed and dropping her cold demeanor. “Where’s Dev? Is he… dead?”

“No,” said Thisbe. “At least we don’t think so. But he’s captured.” She quickly brought Fifer and the others up to speed on what had happened, and how they’d been forced to leave Dev behind. Thisbe’s guilt over it was evident.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Sky said kindly. “He’s gotten through everything else.”

“I hope so,” Thisbe said. She looked at the ground.

Fifer remained silent, and Thisbe could feel her sister’s eyes boring into her. Did Fifer blame Thisbe for that, too?

Seeing the rising tension between the twins, Rohan stepped in again. “How can we help you, Florence?”

Florence pointed to the wall of the abandoned Quillitary building, where an enormous drawing of double doors hung. “I think we’ve almost got this working, and then we’ll have one more important player on our team. I hope so, anyway,” she added. “Thisbe, how are your drawing skills? Fifer and I have painstakingly fixed a tear in this drawing to make the 3-D door pop out so we can get to the theater, where Simber is being held. But I think a tiny bit of the ink needs to be touched up, because it still doesn’t work.”