I shake my head. “Indirectly. My allies are going to come for me as soon as they can.”

“We need to shelter you somewhere else,” he insists. “You can’t be here. Endangering Mora like this.”

“Why am I in danger, Fee?”

We both flinch and turn as the door pushes open.

Mora is standing in the doorway, her gaze set on us with steely expectation, and when the question comes, the light, whimsical Mora is gone. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“So, I have the Black Witch on my ship.” Mora’s tone is hard with the full ramifications of this. With the full ramifications of me.

A tense silence falls over the kitchen, both doors firmly shut now. Professor Hawkkyn is leaning against a counter, his long arms crossed, his face severe. Mora sits at the prep table opposite me, her gaze on me as fierce as Professor Hawkkyn’s. I’m struck by how formidable the two of them are.

“Vogel can break military runes,” Mora’lee says, more a dread-laced, awful statement than a question.

I nod at her, feeling the ominous weight of this.

Professor Hawkkyn glances at Mora. “By bringing this information here, Elloren might have saved the entire Eastern Realm. They’ve just enough time to strengthen their runic border and weapons with varg shielding before Vogel’s forces arrive.”

Mora’s furious glare on me hasn’t budged. “Bleddyn should have told me what you are. You should have told me, as well.”

My own voice is tight with remorse when it comes. “She thought it safer for you not to know—”

“No,” she cuts me off sharply. “You both should have told me. There are children here.”

I nod, chastened. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“There are children throughout this entire realm,” Professor Hawkkyn gently reminds her.

She holds his stare, then turns back to me, as if caught partway between outrage and indecision. “You aided Nym’ellia’s sister and her mother too. You helped get Olilly and her sister out of Verpacia. Bleddyn too.”

My breathing is suspended as she carefully takes my measure. “I did,” I agree.

She gives me a shrewd look. “I’ll help you in turn, Elloren Gardner Grey. It seems you’ve proven your loyalty to our side, regardless of the prophecies being read about you.”

“The prophecies are prejudiced,” I insist, ire at the Forest rising. “They’re all based on tree divination, and the trees hate me.”

Both Mora and Professor Hawkkyn cock a brow at this.

“I’m going to find Jules,” Professor Hawkkyn says to Mora. “She does need to be relocated.”

“She’s likely safe for the moment with that glamour,” Mora points out.

“For the moment,” he cautions, as if by moment he means second. Or split second.

Mora nods, then looks back at me. “Go to the bedroom I gave you and stay there. We’ll come for you.”