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For the next several minutes, the room filled with the sounds of pages rustling and nothing else—no claims of discovery—as it had so often before. I wrinkled my nose at the passage scrawled out beneath me in elegant print:

Congratulations! You’ve won the Queen Duel. Perhaps you’re eager to guide the continent toward a crucial new era in faerie history, or perhaps you’d like to lead with the grace and wisdom of your ancestors. Whatever the case, Sorronia falls on your shoulders now, so it is of utmost importance that your posture—physically, emotionally, and magically—remains the strongest in the land.

Was this really what Dyonisia had been stealing, cheating, and killing for over all these centuries? A position like this? Involuntarily, my back stiffened more and more with each word, as if the passages were shoving an iron rod of rules up my spine.

Over the next several hours, we kept our heads bowed over page after page, only moving to shift our legs into different positions or grab another book from the multiple piles. Exhaustion pressed into my limbs. I knew we should all be heading to bed soon with classes starting early in the morning, but what if I found the solution on the next page? Or the next? Or the next?

“I wonder if she made anyone swear oaths to her,” Lander spoke up eventually, frowning down at his book after half the night had bled past us. “Dyonisia, I mean. It sounds like it’s a pretty simple process.”

“What? You found out how oaths are made?” I scrambled toward him to peer at the passage he pointed at. During all our research in the past, we’ve never come across anything remotely close to directions for oath-making, let alone oath-breaking.

Lander nodded. “Says here you just need access to this magical ink called… tilu naha, I think it’s pronounced?”

“Oh, so that’s what that means,” Wren said without glancing up from her own perusal. “Mine keeps mentioning tilu naha without explanation. For instance— ‘Even with the strongest binding of tilu naha, you must be careful about your wording as the superior.’ So it’s just talking about some kind of special ink?”

The image of Coen’s tattoo writhed in my brain. I’d never forget the way those ink droplets had spilled from the cloud hovering over him and latched onto his skin, sinking into his flesh. Branding him and chaining him to the queen. Yet being able to assign a name to that wretched ink didn’t mean we were any closer to—

“Wait.” I blinked at Wren. “Can you keep reading that passage? After the part about being careful with your wording as a superior?”

“Sure.” Wren shrugged. “The phrasing of a command is vital for compliance. Subordinates who find technical loopholes can evade the intended outcome of a command even if they can’t resist the command itself. Names and specific details must be exact.’ Do you want me to keep going? Because it keeps reiterating the same exact damn thing.”

“That’s it,” I breathed, and Coen’s presence perked up at the shift in my tone. Emelle and Lander glanced up at me, too, as I let my own book flop onto the ground and peered over Wren’s shoulder to read her passage for myself. “Yes!”

Now I began to pace, treading a circle around the other three.

“I keep thinking about our brands. Coen’s oath dictates that he must kill every branded citizen under Dyonisia’s rule… which means the non-branded citizens are safe, right?”

Emelle mashed her lips together, pondering. Lander tilted his head with a squint. Wren looked on, confused. Coen, however, seemed to be right in step with me.

If we destroyed both your brands like we did to those monsters in Hallow’s Perch, you’d be safe from me. I won’t have to… have to hurt you.

Okay, maybe he was half a step behind me. I exhaled.

No, Coen. We’re not just talking about me here. We’re talking about this entire island. About everyone.

I could practically feel his urge to cup my face, urgency leaking into my mind. We can’t destroy everyone’s brands, Rayna. There are just too many people on the island. We’d either have to attack thousands of innocent civilians or try to convince them to mutilate the source of their own magic. Either way, the Good Council would catch wind before we could get to everyone.

He was right, of course. We couldn’t destroy everyone’s brands, but I still stopped pacing and let my lips lift in a smile.

Good thing there’s another loophole, then.

What?

Out loud, I addressed the other three with a spark of triumph lighting up the pit that had been eating away at my stomach ever since Hallow’s Perch. “You will bring me Dyonisia’s head within the next year, General Steeler,” I recited. “And within the same time frame, you will also kill every branded citizen under her rule. Her rule,” I emphasized. “Hers. Dyonisia’s. Meaning if she wasn’t ruling anymore, if there was another ruler to take her place…”

“Coen’s command wouldn’t apply to us,” Emelle breathed out, “whether we’re branded or not. The entire island would be safe.”

For a moment, three pairs of eyes blinked at me through the shadows of the room. Outside the walls of the storage building, the everlasting noise of the jungle seemed to swell and fill the silence with distant nighttime rumbling.

Coen’s voice in my head brimmed with suspicion, disbelief, and a little awe.

Are you suggesting a coup, little hurricane?

I nodded and thought back to my own Branding, when all those gasps had punctuated the night as everyone jerked their heads around to stare at the massive white tiger stalking toward me on the stage. The faerie king of old. The one all the other animals on the island feared and respected. The one who was not scared of me or the magic brewing within me. The one who had once been a faerie, but not anymore.

The one who said he ate vampires for breakfast.

“I think,” I proclaimed, “it’s about time we get Jagaros his throne back.”