Floret looked from Moon to Shade and asked, “You’re all right? They didn’t—”
“We’re fine.” Moon cut the question off quickly.
Shade shook his ruffled spines out. “Something happened in there. I mean, something other than—When the progenitor started to say how the guide knew about Opal Night, and they all went still, it was like something else came into the room. But I couldn’t see it. Did you notice that?”
“I saw them all listening to something we couldn’t hear.” If the Fell’s mysterious guide was something that could hide itself from sight, then they were even worse off than they had been before, if that was possible.
Saffron said, “Your warrior is claiming to hear things.”
Floret said in exasperation, “I told you, he used to be a mentor. He’s different.” She explained to Moon, “Chime heard something, like he did in the leviathan city.”
They stepped into the main cabin, and Moon found Lithe and Chime sitting on the floor. She stared into Chime’s eyes, and there was an odd stillness in his body. She must be looking into his mind to check for Fell influence.
Then Lithe leaned back and Chime blinked, a little disoriented as she released him. It was a sensation Moon was familiar with from when Flower had done this to him. She said, “I don’t see anything in there.”
Moon almost snorted with laughter, then realized he was a little hysterical. He sat down on the floor and shifted to groundling so he could bury his face in his hands for a moment.
When he looked up, everyone was staring worriedly at him. Chime sat in front of him, and Shade had shifted to groundling and crouched protectively at his side. Chime leaned in for a close look at Moon’s face. He asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Moon shook his head. “No. Lithe, you need to look into both of us too.”
“But they didn’t—” Shade stopped, frustrated. “If they did, we wouldn’t remember it, would we?”
They both sat while Lithe checked them for Fell influence. Lithe did Shade first, and after a long moment pronounced him free of any interference. Shade sighed in relief, and Moon felt the sick tightness in his chest ease. If the Fell hadn’t done it to Shade, then they hadn’t done it to Moon either. But he still wanted Lithe to check him, to make certain the others knew he wasn’t compromised.
Moon had the same trouble relaxing and letting Lithe in as he had with Flower. Once he managed it, it was over in what felt like an eye blink. Lithe gave him a quick smile, and said, “You’re fine, too.”
“Good.” Moon gave Shade a nudge with his elbow. “Tell them what the progenitor said, and that image they showed us. And about the thing you felt come into the room.”
He hoped he was getting across that Shade should leave out the part about what the Fell had made him do. With a guilty glance at Moon, Shade skipped over the feeding and told the others only about the guide the Fell had spoken of, the image the progenitor had shown them, and what he thought it meant.
When Shade reached the part about the presence he had sensed, Chime nodded grimly. He said, “I heard something while you were gone, a voice. I couldn’t understand what it said. I think it was speaking Raksuran, but I just couldn’t make out the words.” He nodded to Lithe. “That’s why I asked Lithe to look into my mind. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the Fell, trying to make me do something, somehow.”
“That’s not how it works, is it?” Saffron said. “They can’t take over your mind from a distance.”
“No, I know that.” Chime bared his teeth at her. “But—”
“But you’re different,” Moon supplied.
“Yes.” Chime twitched uneasily. “But she didn’t find anything.”
“I don’t understand how Chime used to be a mentor,” Shade said to Moon.
“Chime was born a mentor, at the old Indigo Cloud colony, but because the court was getting weaker, he changed into a warrior,” Moon told him.
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Chime muttered, as Shade stared at him in surprise.
Moon continued, “He couldn’t do magic anymore or scry. But when we were looking for the seed from our mountain-tree, he heard a leviathan, out on the freshwater sea to the west of the Reaches. He could tell things about it that helped us.”
Shade considered that, biting his lower lip. He said to Chime, “So you can only sense things that are big, and very powerful?”
Chime slumped in resignation. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Moon rubbed his temple. His head ached, pain that seemed centered to either side of his nose, probably from the bad air and terrible scents. He still had dried blood on his chest and arms, and the Fell stench clung to his skin. But everyone else was in the same shape, and he didn’t want to waste water cleaning up. He asked Lithe, “Did you try to see if you could keep us from shifting?”
Lithe said, “I tried on Chime, but it didn’t work.” She lifted her hands in frustration. “Even if I could keep Raksura from shifting, I doubt I could do it to Fell. Queens being able to control our shifting is a Raksuran trait, not a Fell one.”
Everyone looked glum and discouraged and not particularly surprised. Moon had to admit that if Lithe had special powers from her crossbreed heritage, she probably would have noticed before now. He asked, “If progenitors can’t keep rulers from shifting, how do they control them?”
“That’s a good question,” Chime said. “I don’t think anyone knows the answer. Except maybe that dead scholar of predators that Delin knew.”
Moon just hoped Delin was still alive. If Celadon and the others had escaped Aventera and reached the flying island where Jade, Stone, and Malachite waited… He pushed the thought away. They couldn’t count on rescue.
Shade sat forward. “I think it’s the connection between them. Like our queens have with the court.” He turned to Moon. “The progenitor knew what Thedes had said to us.”
Moon had noticed that, too. “I’ve always thought the rulers were the ones who control the flight. I knew the crossbreed queen, Ranea, could make the rulers do things, even across long distances, but I thought that was just because she was a crossbreed.”
Chime’s expression suggested this wasn’t a pleasant thought. “Maybe it wasn’t just her ability; maybe it’s something all progenitors can do.”
Saffron had been listening to the conversation with her expression set in an impatient grimace. But she said, “Can the progenitor do it to us? Or try to do it? Maybe it was her voice that Chime heard.”
At least she sounded as if she was actually trying to help them figure things out. Moon asked Chime, “Was it?”
Chime lifted his hands in bafflement. “I don’t know.”
Lithe reached over and squeezed his wrist. “Just try to listen. You never know what might happen. I’m going to scry and see if I can tell where we’re going.”
Lithe retreated to another cabin for privacy, and Moon helped Chime and Shade check and care for the wounded. He had been in a healing sleep himself, but had never had to take care of someone in one. It was useful knowledge and he was glad to learn it; he just hoped he survived long enough for it to come in handy again.
After that, Moon spent the time making and discarding bad plans. There was just no way they could escape with the wounded, either on the boat or not, especially now that a major kethel seemed settled on the deck to stay. They might be able to set the sac or the progenitor’s nest on fire, but that wasn’t going to stop the kethel outside the sac from attacking them.
It was Shade the Fell really wanted. If they could get out of the sac and Moon could persuade Shade to run with the warriors and Lithe, while he stayed behind to distract the Fell… It wasn’t Moon’s favorite idea, considering what the Fell would do to him and the wounded before killing them. There was also the strong possibility that the warriors might not be able to fly fast enough to evade pursuit.