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wounded baby raccoon that you can bring home? That’s right, Ivy. It’s a Watcher. I saw one break two men’s necks a few weeks ago as easily as I might break a twig.” I snapped my fingers, and she flinched.
    “I...”
    “Tell me,” I demanded.
    She shut her eyes and turned her face away from me. “He isn’t dangerous,” she murmured.
    I barked a laugh at the sheer absurdity of that statement. My sister, ever the insane one. Farther fugitives, Blackcoats, and now this? Trying to cozy up to a Watcher? She’d finally embarked on her greatest mission of misguided mercy yet. “How long have you had this delusion?”
    “I’ve been visiting him for almost two months,” she mumbled.
    “Two months,” I repeated, thunderstruck. And it hit me—all the times when she’d been out in the woods claiming to be gathering berries. Had she been doing this instead? And what exactly was...this?
    “Tell me everything.” My tone left no room for argument, and she made none. With a shaking voice, she recounted a wild tale of stumbling across a “wounded” Watcher in the forest, and how she’d taken pity on it and eventually befriended it. Or rather, him, as she kept saying. As if a Watcher could be male or female.
    “They are machines, Ivy. They aren’t alive. They can’t feel.”
    “I know they’re machines,” she countered. “I’ve seen where they sleep. They need sunlight for strength. It’s why they only come out at night.”
    I’ve seen where they sleep.. . She knew where the Watchers’ lair was? Where they went during the day?
    “That one was out in daylight,” I countered.
    “They can come out during the day if they’re activated. They’re more docile then, less prone to attacking. But that one is especially safe. He’s friendly.”
    “No Watcher is safe,” I said. “I don’t want you going near one ever again.”
    “Lia—”
    But there wasn’t time to argue about it now. We needed to get below before anyone else came looking for us. But the conversation was far from over. “We’ll talk about this more later, Ivy Weaver,” I said, and dragged her with me down the corridor.
    We reached the room where the others waited. Jonn and Gabe were both sitting at the table, and I stalked toward them.
    “Don’t tell them,” Ivy begged, grabbing my sleeve.
    I had no intention of keeping her secret. I shook my head and continued walking, and when I reached the table I opened my mouth to spill everything. But Jonn spoke first.
    “The Blackcoats have sent us a message.”
    The Blackcoats . The band of vigilantes who’d formed to deal with the “Farther problem.” So far, they’d managed to get several of their members killed, arrested, or injured. And they’d only succeeded in making Raine angry, like hornets stinging a bull. Apprehension filled me.
    “How did they find out where we are?” I demanded. “Who delivered this message?”
    Jonn looked at Jullia.
    “I received this to pass along to the Thorns,” she said softly, withdrawing a folded piece of paper and handing it to me.
    “Who knows that you have contact with us?”
    She simply shook her head.
    I unfurled the note. My fingers were still shaky from the encounter with the Watcher.
     
    To Whom It May Concern,
     
    Previously our two groups have had divergent goals, but the time has come to band together against a greater enemy. The Farthers will consume us all if we do nothing. If you are willing to consider ways that we might work together, meet us at the Hunters’ clearing beside the river at midnight in three days’ time.
     
    —the People for the Freedom of the Frost
     
    “The People for the Freedom of the Frost?” I asked.
    “That’s what they call themselves now,” Ivy said, the first words she’d spoken since we’d returned. “They have new leaders, new objectives. It is not just young people now. Many villagers have joined, more and more as Raine’s policies and excesses become more intolerable.”
    “What else