“This is all pointless until we actually have the seal,” I point out. “And right now, we only have a general idea of where my parents might have hidden it.”
“Leon’s right,” Ana says, laying a hand on my arm. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Caledon’s closer to reaching his goals than you think, you know,” Harman says grimly. “His experiment with the children worked. He used the potion to make them powerful like Ana and then drained their magic.”
“You know that for certain?” I ask.
“Yes. This is the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
He pulls a tiny scrap of parchment out of his pocket and lays it on the table. It curls up at the edges like it’s been rolled into a tight tube.
Ana picks it up to examine it, and I see rows of tiny words scrawled onto it.
“You’ll need a magnifying glass to read it, but I can give you a summary,” Harman says. “It’s from Sophos.”
“The bearer?” Tira asks in disbelief.
“Yes,” Harman says. “Remember your theory that he might’ve been trying to help you in Qimorna when he told Ana about Caledon’s plan?”
“He also turned up just in time to take the guards away from her prison,” I point out.
“Well, this message says that those actions should serve as proof that he is no longer a supporter of Caledon.”
“Oh sure, and I’m the Queen of Filusia,” Tira says bitterly.
“It arrived by bird?” Lafia asks.
“Yes, it was a persistent thing,” Harman says. “It followed one of our contacts to a safehouse in Kestis and kept banging on the window until we let it in.”
“At least we know the noteisprobably from him then,” Lafia says. “Affinity with birds is his secondary power. It’s not very common.”
“What else did it say?” I ask, squinting at the tiny letters.
“It’s coded,” Harman explains. “But he essentially wanted to give you two warnings. First, he confirmed that Caledon succeeded with the solari children. He now has enough power to use Ethira’s tokens—once he finds them all. Second, he said that Caledon knew Morgana was likely still in Filusia, and had ordered the Morelium to find and kill her.”
Harman’s earlier surprise falls into place. “And they tried to do exactly that,” I say. “He was telling the truth.”
Damia makes a dismissive scoff, and Barb, currently climbing down her arm, hisses along with her. “That doesn’t mean anything. He could have sent this message to trick us, knowing full well that we wouldn’t get the warning about the Morelium in time for it to do us any good.”
Harman shrugs. “I don’t know. He has no way of knowing how fast our networks are, or how precisely we knew your location. I did send a message forward via some aesteri to try to find you, but you’d already left the palace by then. Honestly, I spent thewhole of yesterday wondering if you were all dead and I’d never see you again.”
Alastor reaches for his hand, squeezing it tight.
“That’s why you came,” he says to Harman.
“It was one of the reasons,” the rebel leader agrees, meeting my friend’s gaze. A silent conversation passes between them, and the affection I see there has me reaching across the mooring toward Ana. She meets my gaze with a strained smile. This conversation has given us a lot to think about.
“If Sophos really has switched sides, he’s one of the best weapons we’ve got against Caledon,” I point out. “Imagine the information he knows. Even if it might be a trick, we can’t pass up the chance that he’s telling the truth.”
Every trap has to be baited, and I could see Caledon feeding us useful intel to build our trust in Sophos’s story, but I can’t imagine the Grand Bearer would ever haveletAna escape from Qimorna. And Sophos’s actions that day definitely helped us.
“What are you thinking, Captain?” Hyllus asks.
“One of us should go to Godom,” I say. “Meet with Sophos in person and see what he has to say for himself.” I turn to Harman. “You have eyes and ears in Qimorna, correct?”
“Yes…more or less,” Harman hedges. “But they’re just for intel. We don’t ask them to run missions. They already live with enough risk as it is.”
“But could they be persuaded to at least get a message to the bearer?”
