“What will we tell your mom, though?” Claire asked. “If you’ve been gone since yesterday morning, she’ll know you’ve been missing for an entire night!”

“Ah, yes, well.” Lyric’s expression turned guilty. “I kind of, sorta told her that I was staying overnight with Velvetina so we could get in some more studying. But like I said”—again that airy wave—“everything will be all right!”

“LYRIC WEFT, IS THAT YOU?”

Claire jumped at the unexpected sound and whirled around, but no one was there. That made sense, though, because the voice hadn’t come from behind her but from above. Squinting up, she saw a cluster of metal cups hanging in the olive tree above her. Thin red threads had been tied to them, and Claire traced their path all the way down to the rooftops of Needle Pointe before they disappeared.

“Patches and rags,” Lyric muttered before cupping her hands around her mouth. “IT IS, SCHOLAR SYLVESTER, AND I’VE BROUGHT A FRIEND.”

Claire stared curiously at the cups. She’d once tried to do something similar with Sophie, when Sophie was upset that Mom and Dad wouldn’t be getting her a cell phone even though she was about to start middle school. She’d been Claire’s age then, and Claire had been nine—just entering the fourth grade and excited when Sophie told her they could make their own set of cell phones, so long as they had tin cans and a piece of string. She said she’d seen it on an old TV show once. But though they had both tried, neither of them ever heard so much as a peep.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” the voice said, and Claire had the sense that whoever was on the other end of the string must be sitting in the harbor, if not completely submerged under the salt water. “YOU WANT TO PLAY PRETEND?”

“NO,” Lyric shouted back. “I SAID, ‘I BROUGHT A FRIEND’! ”

“I’M GLAD YOU KNOW YOU’LL NEED TO MAKE AMENDS,” the voice, Sylvester, said. “YOUR MOTHER IS FURIOUS.”

It was funny to watch the undertones of pink drain from Lyric’s face. Her hand dropped from her mouth. “Patches,” she repeated and broke into a run while Scholar Sylvester crackled, “LANGUAGE!” at her back.

“Lyric!” Claire called, chasing after her. “Slow down!”

“Can’t!” Lyric huffed back. “If Mama knows—and of course she does! I can’t believe I forgot about the Snitch Stitches!”

“Snitch Stitches?” Claire asked. She wished Lyric would slow down. The Royalist cloak was thick and just a little too long, so that it flapped behind her like an obnoxious tail.