Rohan rested his face in his hands as he absorbed this new information. He’d been feeling bad about that scene in his mind ever since he’d first taken the ancestor broth. He knew the girl was Thisbe’s mother, and he felt terrible that his mother had done something so horrible to a fellow black-eyed person. He couldn’t fathom anyone betraying their people in such a terrible way, and he’d all but written his mother off as a traitor. But now… maybe she wasn’t as horrible as he’d thought. Perhaps he’d been too quick to judge based on that image and the foggy, conflicting memories of his childhood. He winced and looked up. “Thank you, Maiven,” he whispered, and sat back. “Please continue the story.”

“There isn’t much to tell after that,” she said. “The pirates chained my daughter to their ship. My assistant tried to stop them. She screamed for me to come—I can still hear the awful echo of her voice in my head. My army ran with me, but we were too late. The ship sailed. I saw Nadia…” Maiven stopped and cleared her throat, then pressed a crooked forefinger to her lips for a moment before speaking again. “I saw her strain against the chains to look back at me. And then they were gone.” Everyone was quiet for a long moment as the queen collected herself.

“We weren’t prepared for such a thing,” Maiven continued after a while. “I commanded my ships to organize. Within hours they were going after her, and I was preparing my own ship as well when the earthquake came and split the worlds. Our ships were lost in the gorge. But Nadia’s ship made it to this world.”

“I wonder how she got to this island,” said Aaron. “The pirates wouldn’t have sold her to Quill—there’s no money system, and the High Priest Justine would’ve been too paranoid to intentionally bring strangers in. Frieda Stubbs told me once that my mother snuck in through a break in the wall while it was being repaired. Frieda’s neighbor in the Wanted quadrant must have felt some pity for her and taken her in.”

“Maybe she escaped the ship,” said the queen. “We may never know the truth if she didn’t confide in anyone.”

“Confiding in anyone would have been frowned upon in Quill,” Aaron said. “And punishable. I wonder if my father had a clue that he’d married a princess.”

“What else can you tell me about her?” asked Maiven.