As she and Fifer and Dev talked about options, went through various scenarios, and imagined questions the Revinir might have, they continued to make improvements to the enormous palace. Cleaning up debris, patching holes with whatever they could find to make the place a bit safer and easier to navigate. They talked about what might happen to Fifer—would the Revinir want to leave her in the palace with the dragons? Or do something else? That was something Fifer would have to play along with, whatever happened. And Dev would be forced to deal with it too. If the Revinir came after Fifer, Dev would need a foolproof place to hide. They assumed he could go to the village, but they weren’t sure what the dragons would do. So they explored other options too, just in case.

The twins divvied up their remaining components: four send spells, seventeen scatterclips, twelve heart attack components, three blinding highlighters, and a backward bobbly-head. And Thisbe had her obliterate spells—all three had stayed safely inside her inner pocket. They had no invisibility paintbrushes. No clay shackles. No magic carpets.

Fifer could call her birds once they needed them. And she could use her voice to shatter glass if that became necessary. Thisbe had her eyes and fingertips to send bolts of fire and sparks, and her fiery dragon breath. They both could cast unlimited freeze spells and could throw glass barriers and invisible hooks.

There was one more thing the twins had. Their new mental ability to send thoughts to one another. It wasn’t consistent, at least not yet. They confirmed that if they weren’t fully in sync—if they were cross or frustrated with each other—they wouldn’t be able to connect. They spent hours each day working on it, sending messages and figuring out the range and length of the phrases that worked best.

Whenever they ran out of things to say to each other in their mind messages, Thisbe would relay stories she’d read in the Revinir’s journal. In one session she told Fifer all about young Emma standing on rocks watching her siblings and their friends practice elemental magic in a stream on Warbler Island. Emma had written about not being invited to join them that time… and not really wanting to anyway. Thisbe told Fifer that this story stuck out to her because it seemed inconsistent with the rest of her journal, in which she was always wanting to be with her siblings. The twins speculated about why she’d felt that way on this particular day, but neither had answers.