“But you also know the Sea better than us,” Viola pressed. “Like these symbols. What do they mean?” She pointed at various scribbles on the maps. Even if Barclay had held the maps sideways or upside down, he wouldn’t have been able to make any sense of them.

“Well, they’re obvious, aren’t they? This one with the fins marks the Zapray territory—you don’t want to sail out there.”

“Fins?” Shazi muttered. “They’re just triangles—”

“The curvy lines mark underwater rivers,” Tadg continued, ignoring her. “Those squiggles there are the algae forest…. The tornado things are whirlpools—there’s a whole region full of them called Shipwreck Stretch…. The little mountains over there are the cave systems, and that V is the trench—”

“Wait a minute,” Viola said. “Even if we knew where the Isle of Roane was, we’re all forgetting one very important detail.”

“What?” Barclay asked.

“In order to bond with any Beast, including a Legendary one, you need its six bonding items to build its snare, which is what summons and traps the Beast. The snares of Legendary Beasts include the rarest, most difficult items to find in their Wilderland. And of all six Beasts, Scholars only know the full list of bonding items for two: Dimondaise, from the Mountains, and Gravaldor, from the Woods.”

Suddenly, Barclay understood something about Viola he never had before. “That’s why you went to the Woods. You could’ve gone anywhere after Cyril—”

“Yes,” Viola cut him off, looking embarrassed. “But if Orla was hiding the papers, maybe that’s because…”

“Because Conley Murdock wrote down ingredients,” Yasha finished for her, his eyes wide.

All at once, the seven apprentices scrambled to divide up the stack of papers. Barclay snatched a bunch and hurriedly flipped through them. There were dozens of sketches of the moon, in every phase from waxing to waning. Several papers featured smaller, messier versions of the map, as though Conley had scribbled it all in an excited rush. With these, Barclay couldn’t even tell which way was right-side up.

“I found it! I found it!” Cecily brandished a sheet of parchment so long that it dragged across the stony ground. “Oh.” Her smile fell. “Almost everything is crossed out.”

“Except for two items,” Tadg read over her shoulder. “Polypop bells and Fire Coral.”

“Polypops?” Shazi repeated. “Like the goopy things that let you breathe underwater?”

Viola frantically flipped through the pages of A Traveler’s Log until she found the right entry. Then she slid the book around and showed them the image of a smack of Polypops soaring through the air like a Midsummer parade. She read: “ ‘Though Polypops are a Familiar class Beast and very common, only one in every one thousand is born with bells in its tentacles, which ring when it takes to the air. Legend goes that hearing the chime brings good luck—and a warning that you will need it.’ ”