Fifer pressed her lips together, trying to stay calm and choose her words properly. “Look at where we are. We’re stuck, far away from her. The Revinir has one hundred percent control of us from afar, and we have no way of stopping her—and let’s be honest. We know that killing her is the only way to break the spell. But if she comes to check on us, or if you tell one of the dragons to take you to her, you can say you’re feeling desperate and starting to change your mind. You tell her you want to consider entering into that agreement with her… with a few conditions, just so it’s not suspicious. Then you take up residence in the castle alongside her, and she puts trust in you, and you have chances to be alone with her.” Fifer gave her a hard look.

Thisbe stared at the fireplace for a long time. “And if I’m alone with her,” she said slowly, “I can use the obliterate spell to destroy her without hurting anyone else.”

Fifer held her breath. After a moment, she let it out. “Yes,” she said softly.

“That’s a lot of ifs. And it’s a huge risk, when she could freak out and kill me at any time. What happens when we get to the point of agreement and the partnership doesn’t take effect because Maiven is still alive? She’ll know something’s up.”

“You can say you didn’t know the rules either.”

“She’ll never believe me,” Thisbe muttered.

“You’ve lied to her successfully before,” Dev said quietly. “I think you’re the only one who can do it. For some reason she can’t read you like she can read the others. She told me that when I was in the tower. It seemed like she begrudgingly admired that in you.”

Fifer nodded. “She said as much when she abducted us.”

Thisbe closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s dangerous.”

“Well,” said Fifer, “we’ll have a backup plan then. Yes—so maybe we will alert Florence and ask everybody to come, or at least a few of them at first. But,” said Fifer, growing serious, “we can’t tell any of them that you are faking this partnership. The Revinir could use dragon-bone broth and get the truth out of any of them. And she’ll need to see that our people are truly upset about this venture between you two—that’s exactly the kind of proof we’ll want to convince her that you’ve really changed your mind. She’s going to want to crow about this, not keep it secret. She’ll want all of the seven islands to know that one of their beloved mages has joined her in ruling the land of the dragons.”

Thisbe shook her head. “I don’t know about this.”