I considered confessing to them—these two girls who had become my friends. What if I opened my mouth and told them everything? That I was a girl named Clem who had lost her home and wanted Phelan to pay for it. Would they still trust me afterward? Would they hold my secret?

Don’t be a fool, I told myself.

I quietly approached Olivette and Nura.

“Shh, Oli. It’ll be all right,” Nura was saying, drawing Olivette into an embrace. “We don’t have to ascend if you don’t want to.”

I wondered if seeing the mountain had churned up these feelings in Olivette. To realize how close we were to returning to a place that our parents’ sins had cursed a century ago. The sight of it had done so to me. I felt as if my blood was singing. It was nearly impossible to sleep at night.

“This isn’t my curse,” Olivette said vehemently. “It’s theirs. They’re dragging me into it, and you, Nura, and even you, Anna! And everyone is still holding so many secrets, and no one knows who to trust or what awaits us when we reach our destination. I . . . I can’t do this anymore!”

She buried her face in Nura’s neck and sobbed.

My gaze drifted to the meadows that lay south. Hereswith was not far from here, perhaps half a day’s travel. I was so close to home and yet it felt as if all along, I’d belonged here at the footstool of the mountains.

I knew why the wraiths wanted me and Phelan and Lennox and Nura and Olivette to accompany them. The legend claimed that nightmares roamed the fortress in the clouds. It was the heart of the new moon curse, and all of us were trained to fight such dangers. But it didn’t make the uncertainty any easier to bear.

Olivette finally wept the last of her tears, Nura stroking her hair.

“I know much has changed lately, Oli,” she said. “But your father is a good person. Perhaps he wanted to tell you who he was, but he didn’t know how.”

Olivette was silent, but she was listening.

“And he’s doing the right thing,” Nura continued, framing Olivette’s tear-streaked face in her hands. “He’s partly responsible for this curse, and he’s now returning to hopefully see its end. And if we are successful . . . then the Seren Duchy can be restored.”

“And who will take the throne?”

Nura paused, but she glanced at me with an unspoken request.

“Who would you want to see on the throne, Olivette?” I asked.

Olivette was quiet for a beat, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I don’t know, but not me. I don’t want it. What about you, Nura?”