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“Hooper gave me a message to pass to you, Adam.”
“A message?”
“From Agent Leomaris.”
We all leaned in closer to Victor.
After a suitably dramatic pause, Victor whispered, “Leomaris said ‘trust us,’ and ‘your brother is coming.’”
Hope lifted all the horrible weight of worry off my shoulders. “Then Leomaris knows what’s going on, right?” I hoped. “If they’re warning us, they know we’re innocent—mostly innocent.”
“There is more news,” Victor said. “Wesley is here.”
“Your fangboy from the Stephanie Hotel? Oh, may I rub your back, Lord Victorveus? That Wesley?” Zee said, adding a haughty Wesley impression.
“Indeed.”
“Did he offer to kiss your ring . . . or kiss something else, milord?”
Victor blinked. “He did not.”
“Good, then he knows you’re ours. That sucker might seem nice, but that’s how they get you. They start out friendly, then oops, fangs in your neck. Happens every time.”
First Zander arrived in my cell, then Hooper was here, and now Wesley too? “Okay, this can’t be a coincidence.”
“It is not,” Victor agreed. “I was able to speak briefly with Wesley. It seems Tom Collins called him, explained we were in dire need of assistance and that he must visit the SOS Hotel immediately. Wesley did so, where he was promptly arrested.”
“For trespassing?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
“The same as Zander here . . .”
Zander looked up from licking his plastic tray. “Are there marshmallows?”
We each shared furtive, knowing glances. This was a setup. Tom Collins and Leomaris had been wrangling the people we’d helped during our vacation. They’d made it so our allies would be in prison with us.
“Are you all glancing at each other because you’re communicating telepathically?” Zander asked, after several moments of silence.
“Uh, no, it’s just . . . we’re all thinking the same thing.”
Zee laughed. “I doubt it.”
“I’m afraid to ask what you’re thinking, Zodiac.”
“You should be afraid. Frogs got y’all fooled. They clearly planned all this so we’d be trapped behind bars while they make their move against the humans.”
Victor glanced at me. I shrugged. I’d been very wrong about alligators, so maybe I was wrong about frogs too. “I suspect that is unlikely,” Victor said.
“Have you met us? Unlikely follows us around.”
“However, what does appear likely is that Tom Collins and Agent Leomaris have engineered the circumstances in which we find ourselves,” Victor clarified, steering the conversation back on track.
“We’re supposed to be here,” I told Zander, after seeing his eyes had glazed over from confusion.
“There’s a plan underway, and we’re part of it,” Victor said.
“Oh, good! So what happens next in this plan?” Zander asked.
