Leela pulled Elorin behind a huge rhododendron bursting with magenta flowers. “I found Sera,” she said. “I spoke to her.”

“What?” Elorin gasped. “Where?”

Leela quickly explained how the doors to the temple had told her to eat the golden fruit, and how Sera’s form had appeared in the large pool beneath the cone of moonstone.

“Leela,” Elorin said solemnly. “The doors to the temple can only be read by the High Priestess. If you are reading them . . .”

Leela waved the thought away. “Sera said the same thing. But she told me that she was able to read the symbols on the choosing bowl! And I am certain the High Priestess can no longer read the markings on the door—at least, not the ones that spoke to me. So it has been a lie that only the High Priestess can read the doors. I think they actually used to speak to all Cerulean, just in different ways and at different times.” Elorin did not look convinced. “There’s more,” Leela continued. “She has discovered the location of the tether and is making her way to it now. And there are humans helping her. A male named Leo and a girl named Agnes. They are brother and sister.”

She rubbed her temples, still not quite able to wrap her mind around Sera traveling the planet alongside humans, and befriending a male, no less.

“A male,” Elorin echoed, her eyes wide. “Will the tether be able to bring Sera home?”

Leela bit her lip. “I do not know.”

She had wondered that herself when Sera had first mentioned it. But what other choice was there? The tether was the one connection to the City from the planet.

“I wish we knew more about what the City was like before the Great Sadness,” Elorin said. “It seems like that would give us the information we need. Remember when I told you what Acolyte Endaria had told me, about the fountain of moonstone that used to be in the Night Gardens?”

Leela nodded.

“Well, what happened to it?” Elorin said. “We know that moonstone is powerfully magical—it can show visions and allowed you and Sera to speak. But I do not believe Acolyte Endaria’s story, that it was broken apart to protect from the sleeping sickness. Moonstone does not seem protective—it seems connective.”

Leela had not thought of that.

“Your green mother said that moonstone had been used to communicate between Cerulean when they were on the planet, isn’t that right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Elorin said. “Perhaps that was a snippet of truth that survived the centuries.”