“If it wasn’t for you,” Edwyn told Barclay, “I don’t think any of this would’ve been possible. I realized the truth about the weeping tide last Winter, and each time Lochmordra has awoken, I’ve tried to bond with him. But he was too destructive. And I never had the right ingredients for his snare. It was that book you gave me about Maedigan that finally showed me the truth—silver! Imagine my surprise to learn the bonding item I’d been getting wrong all this time was the common Gunkwort I already carried on me.”

Barclay’s heart seemed to stutter. He’d been so focused on how Maedigan had gotten to the Isle of Roane that he’d paid no attention to the legend’s clues about the bonding items. And he’d lent Edwyn the book that had led him right to the answer.

“With the proper snare and the Isle of Roane,” Edwyn continued, “I will catch Lochmordra the moment he rises. This is our chance to change the whole world. The Wilderlands and the Elsewheres.”

He held out his hand to Barclay.

“What do you say, Barclay? Will you help me, one Elsie to another?”

Barclay hesitated. If Edwyn bonded with Lochmordra, then these attacks would end. The Sea would be saved.

But it was Edwyn, not Lochmordra, that the Sea needed saving from in the first place.

“Don’t listen to him,” Tadg growled. “He isn’t who he says he is.”

“What do you mean?” Barclay asked.

“Don’t you remember the scars on his stomach when we first met? Like two fangs. Klava’s fangs. His name isn’t Edwyn. His name is Audrian Keyes.”

Edwyn’s face twisted in displeasure. “Can you blame me for concealing my identity after my closest friends tried to kill me? When one of them almost did?”

Barclay gaped. Edwyn was actually Audrian Keyes, the young man Runa had killed?

“B-but that doesn’t make sense,” Barclay sputtered. “How can you be Keyes? Why wouldn’t Runa and Cyril recognize you?”

“After I used my healing Lore to save myself, I went into hiding,” Edwyn—Keyes—explained. “I had to use some rather… extraordinary means to change my face, and I spent years in the Elsewheres, planning for when I would try again. After Murdock died, leaving behind the knowledge of Lochmordra’s snare, I came to the Sea to find his research. To finally claim a Legendary Beast as my own. I never expected Orla to send for Cyril and Runa. Imagine my position, hearing them fight over my death, all those years ago? As though they weren’t the ones responsible.”

“Runa was only protecting the Mountains from you,” Tadg growled. “You’re the one who attacked them.”