Sophie nodded, barely resisting the urge to tackle-hug him.

“Are you going to tell Linh about Tam?” Biana asked.

Wylie fidgeted with his wyvern patch. “I actually already did yesterday. She took it better than I’d expected, mostly because she was relieved that Tam hadn’t given Sophie their signal. I guess if Tam were hurt, or if things were getting to be more than he could handle, he would’ve used some sort of code word and asked Sophie to pass it along to Linh without her knowing what it meant.”

“What’s the word?” Dex asked.

“Linh wouldn’t tell me. She said it works best if she and Tam are the only ones who know it. They came up with the trick when they were banished, since they never knew what kind of problems they might find themselves facing.”

“Okaaaaaaaaay,” Sophie said, replaying her conversation with Tam again to make sure she hadn’t accidentally missed any crucial code words that she should’ve passed along. “But Gethen would’ve learned the code word when he probed Tam’s memories, wouldn’t he?”

“I asked the same thing,” Wylie admitted. “But Linh told me Tam’s prepared for that, since he always figured the biggest threats were the Telepaths on the Council. I guess he has a way of shrouding a few of his most important memories using shadows. No one can see them. So Linh thinks the fact that he didn’t use their code word yet is proof that Tam doesn’t need any help right now and we should try to leave him alone. And she also said it’s a good thing Keefe’s taking Tam’s warning seriously. She claimed her brother would never pass along a message like that unless he was convinced the threat was real.”

“And Keefe is really going to cooperate?” Stina asked. “ ’Cause… that doesn’t sound like Keefe Sencen.…”

“But you’ve met Ro, right?” Biana reminded her. “She’d totally drag Keefe off to Ravagog and lock him in a dungeon if she had to.”

Stina shrugged. “Not saying she wouldn’t try. But I bet you anything Keefe will find a loophole.”

Sandor and Bo snorted their agreement.

And Sophie definitely shared all of their concern—but she forced herself to shove it aside. Right now, she needed to stay focused on the more immediate issues. “Did you tell Linh about Team Valiant, and was she upset that the Council didn’t include her?”

Wylie scratched at his closely cropped hair. “I… don’t know. I feel like it might’ve bothered her—but all she said was, ‘I’m not surprised.’ And she did sound like she meant it when she told me it’s actually better, because right now, her focus needs to be on making sure the Neverseen can’t keep using her as leverage against her brother. I guess that’s why she and Marella have been training so hard. She wouldn’t tell me what they’re planning—just that it’s an elemental thing. I think they’re trying to combine their abilities somehow.”

“Cooooooooooooooooooooool,” Dex breathed. “Fire and water could be awesome.”

“Um, don’t they cancel each other out?” Stina wondered.

“They can,” Wylie agreed. “When I was there, that seemed to be what they were practicing. Marella would spark a flame, and Linh would immediately drown it with water, and then Marella would evaporate the water to steam. But I know the elemental abilities are a little bit different than other abilities, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they can find a way to merge the two.”

“I guess,” Stina said, turning to frown at Sophie. “Does anyone else think it’s weird that the Black Swan didn’t give their moonlark any elemental abilities?”

“They may have, and she just hasn’t manifested yet,” Dex countered. “Forkle’s always been super vague about how many abilities they gave her.”

“But hopefully I’m done,” Sophie jumped in. “Five is enough. And Linh didn’t have any theories about what the Neverseen might be planning for Tam?” she asked Wylie, beginning to understand why people often complained about the challenges of keeping her and her friends focused on a single topic.

Wylie shook his head. “No. But she said we should definitely talk to Lady Zillah. Apparently Tam did a ton of late-night training sessions that he wouldn’t let Linh go with him on because he said they were too dangerous.”

“That… doesn’t sound good,” Dex murmured.

No, it did not.

“Okay… so when would be a good time to meet with Lady Zillah?” Sophie asked. “Is everyone free tomorrow?”

“Why do we all have to be there?” Stina wondered. “Isn’t the point of us being a team so that we can do five things at once and then loop back and fill each other in on what we’ve learned?”

Once again, Sophie had to admit that Stina had a valid point—and she surely had some serious Stina-bragging in her future for conceding. But time was of the essence, so she said, “All right. Who wants to be in charge of meeting with her?”

“I get the impression she’s not a fan of Flashers,” Wylie said, “so it might be better if it’s not me.”

“Actually, I think it should be you,” Sophie realized.

Lady Zillah did have some very strong opinions about how overrated Flashers were—and light in general—particularly since Shades were generally looked down on in the Lost Cities.

But after leaping with the Sources and feeling the potency of that glowing power—and how cooperative it was—Sophie didn’t want to lose track of the bigger picture.

If shadows and shadowflux were going to be the Neverseen’s focus, perhaps the best countermeasure would involve light in some form.

“Maybe bring Stina with you,” Sophie suggested, “as a buffer.”

Miraculously, Stina didn’t argue.

She even agreed to take notes and give Sophie a full update once they’d learned everything they could from the Shade Mentor.

Which left Team Valiant with the bigger challenge they needed to be focusing on—the threat that felt so huge, it made Sophie want to hand her wolf patch to an adult and say, “Shouldn’t this be your job?”

“Okay. Moving on,” she said, trying to sound as leaderlike as she could. “Since it sounds like King Enki might be difficult to work with, I think we want to prepare as much as we can before we visit Loamnore.”

“Uh-oh, are you about to give us the ‘we need to do lots of research’ speech?” Dex asked. “Because it’s not too late to change your mind!”

“We do need to do research,” Sophie insisted. “But it doesn’t have to be hours and hours in the library. I think, in this case, we’d be way better off going straight to the source.”

She motioned for everyone to follow her, and there was shockingly little debate as Sandor, Bo, Flori, Lovise, and Woltzer took the lead and their whole group made their way down the flower-lined path through Havenfield’s rolling pastures—though Biana and Stina did get sidetracked when Wynn and Luna came trotting over for some nuzzling.

“Are we teleporting somewhere?” Dex asked when they made it to the Cliffside gate.

“You’d better not be,” Sandor warned as Sophie squatted to undo the lock.