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out.
    “Nobody was. No warriors, I mean.” Vine glanced out into the well. “Not even River, and he’s not exactly thrilled about it.”
    All right, that was odd. River had been Pearl’s favorite so long he thought he was a consort.
    “See if you can get them to tell us what happened,” Vine urged as Moon moved away.
    Moon ducked through an empty bower, out to an interior passage, then up the smaller stairwell that led past the queens’ level and to the consorts’ quarters. As he passed through the unused rooms, he couldn’t hear any disturbance from below. That might be a good sign. If Tempest had delivered some sort of insult or threat from Emerald Twilight, he thought Pearl would probably still be ranting about it.
    The stairs opened into one of the smaller halls, the walls carved with scenes of Arbora building bridges between platforms in the suspended forest, the mountain-trees towering over them. Stone had told him that this hall was meant to be a private retiring room for consorts, where they could compose themselves before joining any gathering in the larger hall beyond. Moon had thought that sounded pointless, before he had found himself using the room for exactly that purpose when they had entertained visitors from other courts.
    The round doorway led to a short turning passage only a few paces long, there to block any direct view from the queens’ main hall into the retiring room. It was also great for eavesdropping, to make sure you wanted to join any meeting in the hall before you committed yourself by walking into it, but Moon didn’t bother with that now.
    Pearl, Jade, and Heart were still here, sitting around on cushions near the large metal bowl hearth. The hearth was filled with heating stones, and the best water kettle and the best tea set the court owned were out, along with a scatter of seating cushions for the absent visitors. So it looked like they had actually intended hospitality, whatever had happened.
    And something had happened. Jade faced away from Moon so he couldn’t see her expression, but her spines were flared. Heart, in groundling form, seemed dispirited, and Pearl looked grim, her spines twitching in agitation.
    As Moon stepped out of the doorway and shifted to his groundling form, Heart was saying, “I just don’t think we should—you should—worry before we know for certain. We don’t even know—”
    Pearl spotted Moon and cut Heart off with a hiss. Startled, Heart lifted her head, saw Moon, and immediately looked guilty.
    So I’m not supposed to know what happened, either, Moon thought, crossing the hall toward them. That was a little odd, though at least it meant that Emerald Twilight probably hadn’t declared war on them. He took a seat on the cushion next to Jade. She didn’t look up. Pearl stared at the hearth. Heart cleared her throat, and said, “How did the hunt go?”
    “It was good.” Moon wondered how long they could keep this up. They had to know the others would have told him that Tempest had been here. “No trouble this time.”
    An uneasy silence followed. It was so uneasy, Pearl stirred and asked, “Did you find the hopper herd Bone keeps talking about?”
    Moon admitted, “No, but we found some big lopers.”
    “Ah.” Pearl flicked her spines again, looked at Jade and looked away. “Just as well.”
    Moon glanced at Jade, then took a good look. She was absolutely rigid with fury.
    “Was it about Halcyon?” he blurted, before he realized that might not be the best thing to say at the moment. Halcyon was another sister queen of Emerald Twilight, Tempest’s clutchmate. She had attacked them on the way back from the forest coast, as part of a plot to get more power within Emerald Twilight, and Jade had had to fight her. Nothing that had happened afterward had been Indigo Cloud’s fault, but Moon had always wondered if Emerald Twilight really believed that.
    Jade twitched at the name, then made an effort to unclench her claws. “No. No, it