Altan sat closest to the driver’s bench, so that he could give Gerel and Chenda directions when necessary, but for now, he faced the back, answering a thousand questions.

“How did you get out of your closet that night?” Hristo asked. “You were bound up.”

The warrior shrugged, but his gaze slid over to Aaru, whose face turned hard with resolve.

“I let him out,” Aaru said, tapping his words as well. “Mira told me she had a dream about girls in boats, and I thought it might be Safa”—he glanced at her, sitting next to him, and he smiled warmly—“so when I could speak again, I gave Altan what he wanted: information about the treaty, the spies, and Paorah. In trade, I asked him to find Safa, if she was really out there.”

“You should have told us,” Ilina said.

Aaru tapped Ilina’s words, too, and it was then I noticed Safa following the quiet code, rather than listening.

“I should have,” Aaru acquiesced, his eyes flickering to me. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly at that time.”

I’d long ago forgiven him, even though I hadn’t understood why he’d released Altan. Now I did, and I forgave him once more. He had a sister again. He wasn’t the only Idrisi left in the world.

“Tell me more about Paorah’s plans.” I turned to Altan. “You said he intends to rule a new world.”

Altan nodded. “He knows his designs against the empire failed. I don’t know how. Maybe he has spies of his own. But he immediately changed his mind about the will of Anahera. The Great Abandonment is as inevitable as it’s ever been, but now she doesn’t want them to be conquerers. Instead, if the sacrifice is made correctly, then the Great Abandonment will finish and there will be a new world in place of the Fallen Isles—one he will rule.”

Ilina gaped. “So he’s going to kill people to ensure that happens?”

“As soon as the eclipse begins,” Altan confirmed.

The thought made me ill. I turned to Zara and made my voice strong. “I won’t let anything happen to Mother. She’ll be safe.”

My sister gazed at me with resignation in her eyes. “You can’t promise me that. But I believe you’ll try.”

Scouts rode out ahead of us—a pair of dishonored—while the wagon jostled over a bump in the road; I held LaLa tight against me, wishing I were riding like the scouts, or flying.

I forced my thoughts back to our plan.

We’d go in, capture Paorah, and rescue all the people he intended to sacrifice. Then I’d take the first dragon and . . . that would be it. The gods would lie back down. Paorah would be prevented from sacrificing people in his wild belief that a new land would form out of nothing.

I’d be a dragon.

While I brooded, the conversation shifted. Ilina and Zara mused whether our mothers would be real friends after this, at last, while Hristo glared knives at Altan.