Octo shook his head slowly and my heart sank. “I was friends with the previous ambassador, Barkley.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts and a huge sigh slipped out of him. “Barkley figured out what was happening long before any of us did.” The old man stuck his hand into his vest and rooted around, finally pulling out a thick bundle of papers. “It was all I managed to save, but in it I do believe you will see what Requiem plans. Not that anyone will believe you. I certainly didn’t believe it when I saw what was laid out.”

His hand shook as he passed me the papers. I took them, flipping through them quickly. Family trees were drawn for all four elemental families. Exactly like those on the walls of Requiem’s room. I frowned at them, handing some to Ash. “Genealogy?”

Octo reached out and tapped the papers. “Yes, it is very important to Requiem, as you may have noticed. He believes he has the key to creating something we all thought impossible.”

I turned the final sheet over to see a single sentence scratched into the paper. I read it out loud. “A child will come, who will control all elements, and he shall rule all the families.”

The words sunk into me, completing the puzzle I’d been putting together since we’d arrived. “He means to have a breeding program, doesn’t he? He’s trying to get a child who carries all the elements with equal strength in all of them.”

Ayu lifted her hands, as if to stop me. “That isn’t possible. One family has been wiped out, destroyed. Therefore, he could never make this happen.”

Spirit—that was what she meant—Spirit had been wiped out according to the other families. Ice slid down my spine, and I worked to calm myself as I stared at the papers. It was not common knowledge that my mother carried Spirit. But if Requiem knew Spirit could boost another element power, he might have guessed that whoever had set off the tsunami did so with more power than they should have.

And he knew a child within our family carried Spirit—worse, he thought it was Belladonna.

“Requiem thinks Belladonna is a half-breed like him,” I whispered. “He thinks she is powerful with her connection to the earth because she carries Spirit with her as well. She doesn’t, but he believes she does.” Damn me and the anger that caused the tsunami.

The two Undines and Ash stared at me as if I were speaking gibberish. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. It explains so much. Why he was careful with her, why he didn’t just have her killed. He had her marked from the beginning.” I closed my hands over the papers, crumpling them.

But how . . . how could he even begin to suspect, who would tell him that a child of the earth would come and have Spirit tied to her too?

“Cassava,” I breathed her name and beside me, Ash stiffened.

“What has she to do with this?”

My words were no prophecy, they were a certainty that rode me hard. “Cassava knew Father would have to get me out of the Rim if I were to survive. How do we know she didn’t plant a suggestion before she left? It would seem natural to remove me. She had to know about Requiem as this was happening before she was ousted.

“Which meant he might have approached her even, looking for a half-breed who fit his breeding requirements. Father sent me and Belladonna, but Requiem would only see Belladonna as a possible mate, since she is the heir to our family’s throne.” I sucked in a big breath and Ash wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to his chest.

“You are grasping at splinters, Lark. You don’t know if any of that is true. Guesses are not the same as fact.”

I wrenched myself out of his arms and shook the papers in his face. “It’s here! Don’t you see? Barkley knew. He knew what was going on. He would have sent the information to my father who was controlled by Cassava.”

Ash put his hands on his hips and bowed his head. His silence stung me, as if a thousand tiny biting gnats drove tiny teeth into the small piece of trust I still had for him.

He raised his head. “I was wrong before. I was wrong not to trust you.”

Hope flared in my chest and I waited, breathless. “I’m not wrong about this. I know it.”

Slowly, he nodded, but the words he said stunned me. “Lead. I will follow.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “We have to get to the throne room.”

Such a simple statement, and yet, accomplishing it would be anything but.

Octo gave me a smile. “Ah, well, I think I can help you there.”

We all turned to face him and I couldn’t help asking. “What happened to being afraid of Requiem like everyone else? You even said you wouldn’t give me your name for fear of him finding out you spoke with me.”

He raised his eyebrows, the gray fluff blowing in the breeze like the under feathers of a goose. “And if he knew you were speaking to the one person who might know what he was truly doing? What do you think he would have done to us both then? It would have done none of us any good to have him know. Pick your battles, young one.”

Octo made a good point. Several actually. As he leaned against the wall, he thumped his walking stick on the pebbled road, a shell cracking under the tip. “While I believe old men should leave the fighting to younger ones, I’m not above taking one last shot at making things right. Perhaps I can make the memory of my friend shine a little brighter if I do this.” His eyes swelled with grief and love, and the truth hit me square between the eyes.

I took his hand. “I’m so sorry you lost him.”