A rock landed with a thud next to him, thrown from the direction of the overgrown yard. It was wrapped with a piece of paper, tied in place with a bit of twine. Letters had been scrawled across the paper with something like charcoal, and done in a hurry by the messy looks of it.

“What is going on?” Sadina asked. She glanced over her shoulder at the others as if they’d been creeping up on the secret whispers.

Isaac was too busy untying the string to bother with an answer. It slipped loose easily; he spread the paper flat on a large, flat root jutting from the old palm tree. The mystery man was a fellow of few words like Alvarez, but his message came through loud and clear.

MEET ME OR THEY ALL DIE

This had gone too far. Isaac straightened up, pulled his backpack onto his shoulders, then cinched the straps until the whole thing felt a part of his body. All the while, stuck with holding the tossed rock in her hands, Sadina stared at him as if he’d turned into a stranger that she failed to comprehend.

“What now?” she asked, said with a hint that she expected an absurd answer.

“Now?” Isaac repeated. “Now we tell the others because this creepy guy is threatening us.”

Sadina bent over and picked up the paper, then casually flipped it to show another message scrawled on the opposite side, in the same charcoaled, messy handwriting.

TELL ANYONE, THEY DIE

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

NO, SERIOUSLY, MEET ME

“This jackass has a sick sense of humor,” Sadina said, terse enough to scare the man if he somehow heard. “Let’s go kill him and be done with it.” But then, her face fell, the true reality of the situation hitting both of them at the same time.

Indecision melted Isaac’s insides, making it impossible to move. And the fear was no longer tiptoeing. It had moved in and made itself comfortable, bolting its furniture to the floor.

“Come on,” he whispered, barely able to speak. “What do we do?”

She nodded slowly at him as if considering, and the terror that had replaced the fake mirth in her eyes made him incredibly sad. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with, Isaac. We grew up in a happy little bubble on a fairy island. We have no idea how the real world works. I think we need to tell . . . ugh, I don’t know.”

“He said we’d die if we tell them.” Isaac tried to look casual, glancing around at the others, all of whom seemed in no hurry to ramp up again, not even Kletter. She was in a trance of exhaustion, staring dully at nothing, eyes wide and unfocused. “He said we’d die.”

“I know what the note says, Isaac.”

“Then what do we do?” He didn’t bother keeping the frustration out of his voice.