“Tell me everything,” I said. “Everything I’ve missed. Where is Neave? And the goblet—someone from Gareth’s team told me they’d found the goblet.”
Gemma drew in a deep breath and leaned forward. “Well, first of all—”
“Wait, no, I’m sorry.” Ryder held up a hand. He was sitting back in his chair, his posture deceptively relaxed. “Gemma, love, we all adore you, but time is of the essence, and you have a tendency to digress.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, slumping a little. “I could already tell I was going to ramble. I blame Talan for waking me up so early.”
Talan looked at her fondly, an amused smile toying at his lips. “I was only following Farrin’s instructions, my love.”
“I know, I know. The meeting started at eight o’clock, and it’s wartime. I’ll never be able to sleep in again at this rate.” Gemma snatched up one of the last remaining sandwiches and waved it at Ryder before taking a hearty bite. “Go on, then.”
Ryder stifled his smile and sat forward in his chair. “Gareth’s team did find the goblet. It’s now in safekeeping with the crown and the key. A team at the university is ready to begin dismantling all of them, which we think is essential to slowing down Kilraith’s army.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Assuming, that is, that it’spossibleto dismantle them. Gareth believes it is, and that we’ve learned all we can from them.”
I glanced at Gareth, who nodded reassuringly at me. “More on that later,” he said.
“Once this is done,” Ryder continued, “and since Ankaret destroyed the egg in Mhorghast, there will be only one anchor left—of course, we still don’t know where or what that is.”
“No leads, then?” I asked.
“Not a one.”
“We should send teams back to Lake Voroth. Ithasto be there. The visions you gleaned from studying the anchors, the image of the black lake under a full moon…the details are identical.”
“Already done,” Ryder said. “Joint squadrons of Roses and Gareth’s trackers are searching there as we speak. So far, nothing.”
I sat back uneasily, pushing thoughts of Rosewarren to the back of my mind. But I felt the presence of the Warden nevertheless, as keenly as if she were standing over my shoulder, glaring disapprovingly at us all.
“The sooner we can begin dismantling the anchors we do have,” Ryder said, “the better. With Kilraith’s power diminished—which we hope it will be—the spread of the Mist might slow. It has now flooded so far south that its border is only ten miles from Ivyhill.”
“It’s taken Derryndell, then?” I said, stunned.
“Nearly,” Farrin replied. She looked back worriedly at Ankaret, who was pacing by the window. “Father left Wardwell to evacuate Ivyhill. I received a letter from him before we left for Vauzanne. The household staff, the refugees they’ve been housing—they’re all fleeing to Fairhaven.”
I couldn’t help but imagine the Mist creeping across Ivyhill’s grounds, consuming every fountain, every stable, every room of the house. The thought turned my stomach. I could barely bring myself to look at my sisters.
“General Pallien has moved the Lower Army to this southern front,” Ryder went on, with a quick glance at Farrin. When their eyes locked, he gave her a grim smile, and she returned it bravely. He reached out for her hand; she took hold of it at once, and his touch seemed to settle her.
“But their numbers are diminishing, and there aren’t enough soldiers to maintain a presence from coast to coast,” Ryder said. “And the Olden hostiles who attack the front aren’t strays accidentally tumbling out of the Old Country. They’re organized. They constantly probe for weaknesses. General Haldrin has had to reassign Upper Army squadrons to reinforce the southern front, which leaves the northern front even more vulnerable.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “But more people live south of the Mist. I can’t blame them for resorting to triage.”
A terrible thought occurred to me. “Has the northern front reached Wardwell?”
“Not yet,” Ryder said, “but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Soon we’ll have to get Philippa to safety,” Farrin said. “Fairhaven would be ideal, though I hate the idea of having her, Neave, and the anchors all in one place.”
Gareth shifted in his seat, his knee bouncing restlessly. In his hand was the green book he’d been holding the day prior. He was thinkinghard about something, his brow furrowed and his gaze distant, but he said nothing.
“There have been no sightings of Kilraith himself?” I asked.
Ryder shook his head. “The last definitive report we received was from our informants in Aidurra. They claimed he and an Olden army of hundreds had fought their way out of the Crescent of Storms and were advancing on the capital.” He looked grim and angry. “That was the last we heard. All communication from Aidurra has ceased. We assume the capital has been overtaken.”
“As has Vauzanne,” Talan added quietly. “The Knotwood consumed Briarcourt and didn’t stop there. As we sailed away from Rithia, we could see it roiling on the horizon. This morning we heard from Kirsa, who escaped with her household on one of her merchant ships. They barely got out in time. Oldens have completely overtaken the city.”
I absorbed everything he said with a quietly mounting horror. “We’ve waited too long to destroy the anchors,” I said. “We should have dismantled them immediately, cut Kilraith off at the knees.”
“But we had to study the crown to find the others,” Gemma argued, “and then the key after that. Without the information we gleaned from them, Gareth’s team could never have found the goblet.”
She was right, of course, but that didn’t make any of this easier to bear. I looked at Ryder. “What else?”
