“Discuss it inside!” Sandor ordered, practically shoving them through the front door.

The look he gave Sophie before he drew his sword and marched away was completely unreadable.

Furious?

Scared?

Proud?

All of the above?

Bo took Glimmer’s wrist. “I’ll make sure your guest is secured—and I suggest keeping any items away from her until they’ve been thoroughly inspected.”

“Hey!” Glimmer protested as Bo yanked her blue bundle out of her hands, along with everything else she’d collected. “I don’t care if you search my stuff—but you don’t have to be such a jerk about it!”

“I’ll take that,” Tam offered, adjusting the scrolls he was carrying to make room.

“I think it might be best if we move everything to my office,” Tiergan told him, taking Glimmer’s things from Bo and motioning for everyone to follow him down a different hallway.

“If you break my cat statue, I’m going to be super mad!” Glimmer shouted after them.

No one said anything else as they made their way up a spiral staircase to an enormous oval room, which looked like the kind of office that Sophie kept imagining someone in the Black Swan would have—complete with a giant fireplace, shelves full of strange, whirling gadgets, and an imposing desk covered in meticulously arranged stacks of paperwork. But the twisted tree sprouting from the center of the floor with flowering branches stretching toward the arched skylight was a bit of a surprise.

“Everything you took will be safe in here,” Tiergan assured them, setting Glimmer’s things in a neat pile on the floor behind his desk and gesturing for them to copy him. “I’ll make sure it’s properly examined and cataloged before it’s relocated to somewhere more permanent.”

“Like a storehouse?” Tam asked. “ ’Cause, uh, that may not be the smartest strategy.”

“Why not?” Grady, Tiergan, Fitz, and Biana all asked in unison.

Sophie had a different question. “Are you going to give it back to us—and tell us everything you learn?”

“Of course, Sophie. Just like you’re going to tell us everything that happened today, aren’t you?” Tiergan countered. He smiled when she nodded. “Good, I’m looking forward to it. But first”—he pointed again to the spot behind his desk—“please trust me. You don’t need the burden of having to protect these things.”

She didn’t.

And what was she going to do?

Hide the stuff under her bed?

Still, the second she set the scrolls and vials down, she wanted to grab them all back.

Instead she shoved her hand in her pocket and tightened her grip on the caches.

Tam added the scrolls and gadgets he’d taken, and everyone stared at the final pile.

“Quite a haul,” Tiergan told them. “Particularly since you went there for a single cache—which I’m assuming you recovered.”

Sophie nodded.

She was surprised by how impressed Tiergan sounded—and how excited Fitz and Biana were.

All she could think when she studied the pile was how insignificant it looked—and how useless it would all probably turn out to be.

And how glad she was that she’d sparked that fire.

Glimmer was right—they’d planned that mission completely wrong from the beginning.

How many other times had they made that mistake—thought too small and set themselves up to fail?

Tiergan cleared his throat. “So… I believe you have a story to share with us?”

He motioned for everyone to take a seat on the colorful ottomans arranged around the tree.

Sophie stayed standing, needing to move as she explained what happened.

The smoke scent clinging to her clothes seemed to get stronger as she talked, and by the end her throat had turned thick and her eyes were burning—though maybe that also had something to do with the way everyone’s smiles had faded into the same unreadable expression she’d seen on Sandor. Even Tam—who’d been there with her.

He’d heard what Glimmer had said.

And he trusted Glimmer.

“It was the right move,” she told him before shifting her focus to everyone and adding, “This is how we’re going to have to fight if we want to win.”

Tiergan cleared his throat again, drawing out the sound. “Well… that explains Sandor’s emphasis on security.”

“You think the Neverseen will come here?” Tam asked.

“It’s possible. My estate’s hardly a secret. Neither is the fact that Glimmer’s being kept here. And surely the Neverseen will assume she’s the one who led us to their storehouse. So they may decide she poses too great of a threat and try to retrieve her—or end her.”

Grady stood. “Or they’ll go to Havenfield. I should warn the rest of the goblin patrols—and Edaline.”

“I guess I should warn my parents too,” Fitz said quietly. “The Neverseen will probably assume Biana and I were a part of it.”

“We’ll need to warn everyone,” Biana corrected. “Keefe, Dex, Linh, Wylie, Marella, Maruca, Stina.”

“Also the Council,” Tiergan added. “And the Collective. And—”

“Okay, whoa!” Sophie interrupted, holding out her hands like stop signs as everyone reached for their home crystals or pathfinders. “You guys didn’t act like this after we went to Nightfall or Loamnore—or after the newborn troll fight at Everglen. Or after any of the Neverseen’s other attacks.”

“Yes, but those were their attacks,” Tiergan reminded her. “This was ours. Well… yours. And it was unprovoked.”

“Unprovoked?” Sophie repeated. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, Sophie—none of us think this is a joke,” Grady said quietly. “And I’m really hoping you don’t either. Because you just turned this into a war.”

Sophie blinked. “I did? Me?”

She glanced at her friends, expecting them to look just as affronted.

But they mostly looked nervous and fidgety.

“This was already a war,” she said, turning back to Grady. “It has been since the moment I was kidnapped. Actually, no, it started much earlier. Lady Gisela was already working on her stellarlune thing before Keefe was born. And they killed Jolie way before that.”

Grady flinched.

“Sorry,” Sophie mumbled, realizing how harsh that sounded. “Just… look at how much they’ve hurt us. How many scars we all have—how many times we’ve almost died! Tam was their prisoner! Keefe’s afraid to talk because he has all these scary new abilities. Kenric is dead—and so is Mr. Forkle. And you’re accusing me of escalating this?”

“Yes,” Tiergan said simply. “Though ‘accusing’ is the wrong word. ‘Informing’ is better. Making sure you understand that you haven’t just changed the game for the Neverseen—you’ve changed it for everyone. Up until now, we haven’t attacked. We’ve defended ourselves. But raiding their hideout—and then destroying it—is an attack, Sophie. And that means we’re now officially at war.”

The word echoed around the room.