The Revinir shot Thisbe an approving glance. She continued to be surprised by the girl and appreciated her selfishness. To her, it was a sign of a good business partner. But she hadn’t seen this side of Thisbe before, so it was a bit suspect. Perhaps this was the true Thisbe coming out—her evil side—which she hadn’t allowed to show before. If so, this was going to be a great situation.

But the Revinir still had doubts, mainly because she couldn’t read Thisbe the way she could read all the other black-eyed children. Which made Thisbe even more of a delightful challenge, despite the suspicions that came with it. Thisbe was complex, like the Revinir. And the dragon-woman was cautiously optimistic that things would work out for the betterment of herself and her land. After all, it wasn’t called the land of the black-eyed rulers, now, was it? But that was a step that would come later. She needed Thisbe to think she’d be a full partner in order to announce their agreement, take official leadership, release the dragons from their mind control, and send the ghost dragons to their next life. Once that happened, the Revinir could slowly push Thisbe out. Or maybe even lock her up in the dungeon and conveniently forget about her.

And while she needed at least a few of the black-eyed slaves as backup in case something happened to Thisbe, she didn’t need them all. Especially Fifer. Now that Thisbe was here and things were looking promising, she didn’t want Fifer showing up and wrecking it all.

The Revinir frowned. Fifer hadn’t come after Thisbe. Was that bad? Or good? She hadn’t sent any notes like Rohan had done. The Revinir turned sharply, ignoring Thisbe’s question. “Why hasn’t your sister tried to contact you with your little magical messages?”

“Because she doesn’t have any,” said Thisbe. “You emptied our pockets on the ride over, remember? That was right before you dumped us through a roof. That wasn’t very nice, by the way.”

“True,” said the Revinir. “You seem all right, though.”

“I was lucky.”

“What about Fifer?” asked the Revinir, looking sharply into Thisbe’s eyes.

Thisbe wasn’t sure what the Revinir wanted to hear, but she went with her gut instinct, which seemed to be present whenever she was dealing with the dragon-woman. “She was hurt. But she’ll live.”

“Oh?” The Revinir turned away, hiding her expression. “How so?”

“She broke her wrist,” said Thisbe truthfully, then embellished it. “And her ankle. She’s not very mobile, but I made sure she could crawl to the river before I left her there alone.”

“The dragons will feed her if she gets desperate,” said the Revinir. “I instructed them to make sure you two didn’t die.”