She tilted her head, her gaze hardened to ice. “Why not?” The words dropped into a near perfect silence. No one in the hall breathed. Moon could hear the breeze rustling leaves outside.
Jade flicked her spines. “I didn’t want to start a war. We took her back to Emerald Twilight with one of her warriors, and made the warrior speak before a mentor.” She paused, and added deliberately, “They owe us a great debt now.”
Pearl was silent for so long there were probably warriors in the hall starting to suffer from lack of air. Then she said, “I’m surprised you thought of that, in the heat of the moment.”
Moon tried not to react in any way. He wondered if he had made things worse by talking Jade out of immediate vengeance. But Jade was calm and didn’t take Pearl’s bait. She said, “It seemed the best course.”
Pearl held her gaze a moment more, then said, “We’ll see.”
She turned away, and the whole hall took a collective breath of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, Moon saw Chime’s knees buckle, and Heart and Balm reach hastily to steady him.
As the crowd parted for Pearl, she lifted one hand in a signal to River. He hurried after her. Moon regretted the sympathetic impulse. Keeping his voice low, he said, “He’ll tell her everything that happened.”
“So he will.” Jade wasn’t worried. The long flight here from Emerald Twilight had evidently given her a much more sanguine perspective on the situation. “She’ll see the advantages.”
“Somebody needs to tell me everything that happened,” Stone pointed out. “But you need to do it on the way to the nurseries, because Frost accused me of leaving you somewhere for dead, and she’s managed to convince the rest of the clutches that she’s right.”
Moon winced. When he had left, he had been afraid of something like that happening, but there hadn’t been any real choice.
Jade took his wrist and pulled him with her as she followed Stone. She said, wryly, “We’ll both go. I think I need to spend more time with Frost.”
Moon thought that was probably the best thing they could do.
They held the farewell for Flower later that evening, after Jade and Moon and the warriors had had a chance to sleep and rest. The Arbora had found a niche in one of the walls up in the unused Aeriat levels, which Stone said was one of the old grave niches for royal urns. Heart and the other mentors didn’t know how to make the wood grow to seal the niche yet, but it would still make a good resting place.
The whole court sang for Flower. Moon didn’t contribute, but he made himself sit still for the whole uncomfortable performance. It wasn’t as eerie this time, though it still felt alien to him.
Afterward, Moon ended up sitting outside with Chime on a ledge above the waterfall. They watched the tiny flying lizards chase lightbugs in the spray, while the sun set somewhere past the mountain-trees and the green twilight deepened toward darkness. The whole court felt tense and uneasy. From what Moon understood, either the seed would show that it was ready to be reattached to the tree within the next day or so, or it wouldn’t. There was nothing to do now but wait.
Chime said suddenly, “They’re choosing a new chief mentor tonight.”
That was an uncomfortable thought. The balance of power in the court was already delicate. Moon asked, “Who is it going to be?”
“Probably Heart.”
That was an uncomfortable thought for a different reason. After the fight to escape the Dwei hive, Heart hadn’t been able to put Moon into a healing trance. “But she’s so young.”
“That’s not actually a problem,” Chime said, though he still sounded depressed. “You want someone young, to grow into it. And she still has all the other mentors to help her. Heart is reasonable, and good at settling differences, and Pearl and Jade both trust her. She was Flower’s second… first choice as a successor.”
“The first choice after you,” Moon said, then realized a moment later that he should have withheld that thought.
“But I’m not a choice anymore,” Chime said, sounding less depressed but more exasperated.
“Sorry.”
Chime shook his head. “It’s all right. It’s just… I wish I could help with the seed.”
Moon wished Chime could help, too. He tried to imagine packing the two flying boats again and heading off for some new destination, and it felt like a little stab in the heart. He wanted to