Carina glanced sharply at her son. “Do you think that’s what she’s doing now?” she asked. “If so, why? She’s not making Thisbe look very good.”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re plotting… something. Together. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Carina frowned, thinking about the notes Fifer had sent. “If they are, I can’t imagine what it could be.”

Rohan glanced over. “Do you mean plotting together against the Revinir? Without telling us?”

Seth nodded. “Yeah,” he said, though nothing made sense.

“I… still don’t see it,” said Carina.

“No,” said Rohan sadly after a minute. “Carina’s right. They wouldn’t do that without telling us. Why would they lie about it when we could help them carry it out? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing does.”

Seth sighed. “I know. I’ve just—I’ve known Thisbe and Fifer almost my whole life. They’re my best friends. I guess I’m looking for any reason to believe that something other than what Fifer wrote is happening. I was… grasping.” He shook his head. Ishibashi was right. The simplest explanation was probably the correct one—that Fifer was telling the truth. And Thisbe had turned her back on all of them.

After Maiven gave Florence a quick tutorial on where they were, Florence called for everyone’s attention. The ghost dragons hovered above her, for there was no place onshore large enough for them to land between the lake and the mountain that rose up sharply. Florence worriedly eyed the mind-controlled dragons overhead. And she still hadn’t decided what to think about Fifer’s most recent message telling them not to come to her. Was it a trick? Everything that was happening seemed suspect, and there was no telling what was the truth.

The warrior trainer knew she had a lot of great minds in front of her, though. She recapped the situation and reread Fifer’s messages to them. “Now that we’ve had some time to mull this over, what do you make of it?” she asked. “Who thinks we should continue to Ashguard’s palace?”

About half of them raised their hands.

“And the rest think we should follow Fifer’s order to go to the cavelands? Anyone else have an alternate idea?”

Aaron, who hadn’t raised his hand at either suggestion, asked to see the thread of messages. He read each one carefully, looking for hidden clues that would indicate that Fifer was being coerced, but nothing jumped out at him. “My gut says we do what Fifer says.” Like Rohan, his voice was dull. The truth of what Ishibashi had said earlier was starting to sink in. And he still felt strange about it. Like maybe he wasn’t the only evil one in the family. And that thought didn’t give him any comfort. Had his past influenced Thisbe in some way?

“Mine says we go to the palace,” said Carina.