“TELL ME WHAT?” BAILEY asked. The girls each looked at him, and then at one another. He immediately felt a strong dislike for the tunnels that had been their home for the past weeks.

“Yeah, tell us what?” asked Hal.

“What’s with all the secrets?” Bailey said. Gwen hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him she was a Seer. Now what would he learn?

“It’s not that we wanted to keep this from you—” said Gwen.

“We just didn’t trust you to keep your mouths shut,” said Tori.

“—but we wanted to wait until we actually had something of value to share,” Gwen finished.

Tori pulled off her beaded bag, which she always wore, messenger-style, around her shoulders. She undid the drawstring, swept away a black snake that slithered from the opening, and took out a familiar leather-bound book with an embossed image of a wild cat—a tiger—on its cover.

“The Loon’s book!” Bailey said. “You’ve had it the whole time?”

Tori smirked.

“When Tremelo and I packed up for the Fair, I didn’t think it was right to leave it at the school. Anything could have happened to it!”

“Anything could have happened to it at the Fair, too,” said Hal. “You should be glad Viviana didn’t find out you had it!”

Tori shot him a narrow-eyed look.

“I was going to give it to you, but then I thought, well, they won’t even be able to read it, so I’d better talk to Gwen first—”

“Because I have the Seers’ Glass,” said Gwen.

“Right,” said Tori. “So while you’ve been playing mini-warriors, we’ve been looking through it together, trying to find something useful.”

Bailey wanted to leap forward and grab the book from Tori’s hands. He resisted, but his very skin felt alive with excitement.

“So, have you found something, then?” he asked.

Tori held out the book to him. The leather was soft under his fingers. He traced the embossed creature on the front cover with his finger. He knew now that it was a white tiger—his own Animas. His entire fate was in this book that the Loon had written.

“Give it here,” Gwen said.

Reluctantly, Bailey handed the book to her. Gwen set it on her lap and opened it. Bailey sat down next to her and leaned over her shoulder to get a better look. The markings the Loon had made in the book’s pages were both familiar and mysterious; like twigs scattered across the ground, the seemingly random symbols made no sense at first glance. But when Gwen guided the Seers’ Glass along the open page, it reflected the markings, and, with that reflection, created the form of letters. Bailey mouthed the words together with Gwen.

Sunken deep at kingdom’s edge and watched by a wise and dusty army, the True King’s symbol of peace waits for its time to sing again. Its song is twofold: to cleave and to bond, to sever and to heal.

“‘To sever and to heal,’” repeated Tori. “Just like you said, Bailey.”

“But I don’t understand,” Bailey admitted. “It doesn’t say anything about a weapon. How do we know what this ‘symbol’ is?”

“Does it matter?” said Tori. “It’s watched by an army! Maybe that army would fight for Tremelo! Then we have both the symbol and the fighters that we need.”

“A dusty army,” said Hal. “Does anyone else think that might mean an army of old people?”

“Or an army we have to fight ourselves, in order to get…whatever this thing is!” said Bailey. He glanced down at Gwen for help, but she was busy sliding the Glass along the passage again.

“‘At kingdom’s edge…’” she whispered. “‘A wise and dusty army…’”

“I think I know what the riddle means!” Phi said. Her tan cheeks were flushed.

“You do?” Bailey asked.

Gwen looked up from the book. Tori and Hal leaned in to hear what Phi would say.

“Sure—just listen,” she said. “Gwen, read it again?”

“‘Sunken deep at kingdom’s edge and watched by a wise and dusty army,’” read Gwen.

“‘Sunken deep,’ that must mean the ocean,” said Phi. “And ‘at kingdom’s edge,’ that means someplace where people don’t often go. It must mean the Bay of Braour!”

“Where?” asked Bailey, trying to recall if his mom and dad had ever mentioned such a place to him.

“Don’t be silly, we learned about it in History,” said Tori. “It’s at the far northeastern edge of the Dust Plains. Past the Maze, past the Lowlands—the largest, most unsettled territory in all of Aldermere.”

“But why would something of Melore’s be all the way out there?” Hal asked. “He wouldn’t have spent much time in Braour during his reign. It was completely lawless.”

Bailey thought back on everything he knew about the Plains. He and Hal had become far too acquainted with the northern Dust Plains in the weeks before the Reckoning. The thought of a place more remote and more threatening than the Jackal’s bunker made his skin crawl. But something else floated to the forefront of his memory, pushing aside the menacing specter of the Jackal: it was the voice of Digby Barnes on the first night they met in the Gudgeons. No one really knows where Viviana’s been since that awful night. Some say she was a slave all those years she was lost; some say she became the leader of an outlaw gang in the Dust Plains.

“Melore wouldn’t have been out there,” Bailey said. “But Viviana may have been. She might have left something behind—something of her father’s—that now we can use to stop her!”

“I don’t know,” said Hal. “Maybe we should ask Tremelo?”

“No!”

Bailey and the others looked down at Gwen, who sat clutching the Loon’s book to her chest. She blushed.

“Why not?” Bailey asked her.

“I just think…” She paused. One hand traveled to her hair, where she twisted it between her fingers. “He has enough on his mind. I think Phi could be right.”

“You mean, you think we should go?” Phi asked. She looked surprised. “Just like that?”

Bailey stared at Gwen. She was undoubtedly a part of their group now, ever since they had all fought together against Miss Sucrette. But Gwen could be such a mystery at times. She caught him looking at her. Something in her eyes fluttered with worry. What, he wondered, had she seen in her vision?

“Yes,” she said. “We know what needs to be done for the good of all the Allies. I say we get a good night’s sleep and leave before first light.”

Bailey looked to Phi, who nodded in assent.

“Another adventure, then!” crowed Tori.

“At least this time, we’re all together,” Hal said. He smiled at Tori, and to Bailey’s surprise, she didn’t scowl—but she did cross her arms and look away shyly. Bailey offered Gwen his hand as she stood up and folded the Loon’s book into her bag.

“Yes,” Gwen agreed. “We’re all together.”

In the morning, Taleth waited for Bailey outside his sleeping nook. When he emerged with his rucksack to meet the others, she stood and rubbed her forehead against his shoulder.

“You don’t mind another journey, do you?” he asked. She didn’t, he knew. The walls of the tunnels made her feel too big, and the lack of sunlight made her weary. She wanted to run, to hunt, to see the trees. Bailey scratched behind her large ears. He knew exactly how she felt.

He hurried through the early morning hush of the tunnels toward the girls’ sleeping nook, but stopped short when he saw a flicker of candlelight coming from Tremelo’s work space. He set his rucksack down against the tunnel wall, out of sight, and peeked around the corner. Tremelo stood over his work, alone. He saw Bailey and waved him into the space.

“Is Gwen all right?” Tremelo asked.

“She’s fine,” lied Bailey. “Eneas leaving got her upset.” Even if he didn’t know what was bothering her exactly, it was pretty clear she was not all right. But Tremelo had enough on his mind.

Tremelo tapped his knuckles on his worktable. “I’m afraid I haven’t been as attentive to the needs of you young ones as I should be,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to be worried about Eneas, or anything for that matter. I should have tried to shield you from all that.”

“No,” said Bailey. “We want to help!” He wondered if Gwen was right to say that Tremelo shouldn’t know about their plans to journey to the Dust Plains.

Tremelo shook his head.

“I can’t let you do that.”

Bailey swallowed his next words. He’d wanted to blurt out the entire plan—the trek to the Plains, the riddle of the book, Gwen’s visions, everything.

“I’m sending Digby and the RATS out into the Lowlands and the villages between the Peaks and the Gray to drum up support,” Tremelo said. “They leave any moment now. And until I can make more of these”—he swept his hand over a pile of the amulets he’d made, about a dozen in all—“then that will have to do. In the meantime, the tunnels are the safest place to be until we can amass more fighters.”

“What if…” Bailey began. “What if there was a different army—one we haven’t thought of yet. If you knew where they might be, wouldn’t you want to find them?”

Tremelo raised one black eyebrow and folded his arms.

“Did you speak with Eneas?” he asked.

Confused, Bailey shook his head.

“Eneas? Why?”

“What did he say to you?” Tremelo asked. He searched Bailey’s face, but Bailey wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He had spoken to Eneas before the warrior had left the camp, but what of that could cause Tremelo such concern?

“Whatever he told you, don’t take it to heart,” Tremelo said. “The Velyn have many strange superstitions in their culture. Stories. Stories won’t save us. This will.” He pointed to the amulets again and breathed a heavy sigh. “These are dangerous times,” he continued. “We must keep working where we are sure we can gain ground. Not go off chasing dreams.”

Bailey wanted to ask what dreams had caused such a divide between Tremelo and Eneas, but he didn’t have the chance. Just then, Digby Barnes hastened into the room. His makeshift metal armor clanged and squeaked as he clapped Bailey on the back and shook Tremelo’s hand.

“Well, we’re off,” he said. “I’ve got some o’ the troops heading down into the Lowlands to rally with Roger, and the rest of us is going up Stillfall way. Anyone we meet, we’ll send back here. You sure you don’t want more of us to stay with you? Now that Eneas is gone…”

“The Velyn here are trustworthy,” Tremelo said firmly. “I have no doubt on that score, no matter what the others say. I will be fine here.”

“That may be true, sir,” said Digby. He patted down his red wool cap and lowered an absurd helmet made of flattened soup cans onto his head. “But you send word to Roger if that changes.” He shook Tremelo’s hand again.

“Bailey, I trust you’ll take care of our regal highness while I’m gone.” Digby shook Bailey’s hand as well, and gave Taleth a swift pet on the top of her head.

“I’ll try,” Bailey said. The lie made his stomach churn.

“I’ll see you off,” said Tremelo. He followed the clattering Digby out of the workspace and into the tunnels.

“When I was just a ferret’s size,” Digby sang as he exited, “my mum said to me, ‘Son! Don’t pull the tail of a RAT in his hole, or you’ll find the fight’s been won!’”

Bailey watched them go, his guilt and confusion eating away at his previous excitement about the new adventure he and his friends had concocted. What was it that had wedged such a rift between Eneas and Tremelo? And why, once again, did Tremelo not want his help? He looked down at the worktable, where the metal glint of the amulets caught his eye. His heart stirred. Tremelo would worry about them all, once he realized they were gone. But if he knew that they had some small protection, perhaps next time he wouldn’t accuse Bailey of never thinking before taking action. Bailey grabbed three of the amulets and stuffed them into his coat pocket. Just like Tremelo, he would do what he needed to keep his friends safe. Surely Tremelo would understand.

Once he was certain that Digby and Tremelo were out of sight, he grabbed his rucksack and hurried to meet the others.