“Why would Ceara meet with the Robber Queen in the middle of the forest? She wants to kill her, not secretly rendezvous with her.”

Could this kin be a servant of the Robber Queen?

Croi looks at the way the two kin are standing together. Ceara’s body is leaning toward the older kin, the expression on her face soft and yearning.

No. She wouldn’t be so soft on someone allied with her enemy. Maybe this kin is the leader of the rebels? But why would the leader of the rebels, if she is indeed that, summon us? Why would she have kin kidnapped from all over Talamh?

“Obviously to build an army,” Croi thinks. “Evil genius, isn’t it?”

We need to find out who she is. She might know the princess the Hag mentioned.

“How? It’s not like we can ask Ceara,” Croi replies to her other self. She stares at the princess and the kin, her intuition telling her that the identity of this kin is important.

As if sensing Croi’s intense curiosity, Ceara and the unidentified kin look toward her. Croi shrinks in on herself, her heart burning in her chest, unwilling to be recognized as a not-brownie. She isn’t yet ready to confront the kin who cast the summoning spell on her. Who severed her into two. Her strength is still too little, though her rage feels hot enough to engulf all of Talamh. While enduring the gazes of the other two, she makes plans to flee should they try to take her prisoner. Her endurance pays off as Ceara returns not a minute later. The Fire Princess doesn’t say a word about the kin she met, nor does she explain the sudden stop. She simply touches the reins, and the beastie is galloping again.

They travel for a little longer and stop at a silver-leaved tree Croi has never seen before. The leaves glint in the sunlight, blinding in their radiance.

“You’re late!” a familiar voice yells, and Tinder flies out from where she was hidden in the leaves of this tree. The princess straightens and glances over her shoulder at Croi.

“Someone couldn’t decide whether she wanted to come with me,” she says. Croi meets her eyes with no expression in hers.

“That’s because someone disappeared without a word,” she retorts with a meaningful look at Tinder, who ducks her head.

The pixie has no idea about the identity of the kin the princess rendezvoused with. Croi’s other self is more astute than her. Why else would the princess not mention her meeting, which led to Croi, unwittingly, keeping it secret as well?

“I had to return to the meadow and let my family know that I’ll be away for a few days,” Tinder mumbles.

“How did they take it?” Croi asks interestedly, remembering the attitudes of the pixies in the meadow.

Tinder makes a face. “The less said, the better.”

“We must go. Tinder, settle on my shoulder. I need to talk to you,” the princess commands, and Tinder complies after a guilty look at Croi. Oh? What’s the point of trying to have a secret conversation? Croi simply listens harder and hears their words as if they are speaking in her ear.