The afternoon of the next day, Sophie headed over to Everglen. She managed to disguise it as a sleepover to Grady and Edaline as well, but Grady had played overprotective dad and had almost not let her go, insisting that she shouldn't be having so much boyfriend time, but eventually Edaline had persuaded him to let Sophie go.

Everglen was beautiful and fancy as always, but it looked slightly dimmer. The lights weren't all on, and some hallways were dark and gloomy. The reception hall, which had looked fancy and glorified when Sophie had been there for Fitz's Winnowing Galas, now looked abandoned, decorations hanging randomly like no one had bothered to take them down or maintain them.

"Oh, right, I forgot to tell you Everglen is a mess," Biana said, appearing behind Sophie and staring wistfully at the reception hall with a sigh. "I didn't realize just how much Mom did to keep this place super fancy, but Dad just doesn't have the same knack for it, so we're living here in the gloom."

Honestly, even Havenfield, with all its noisy animals and stinky Iggy farts, seemed a little fancier and more welcoming than Everglen did now. But Sophie didn't say so, wearing a bright smile and telling Biana it was fine as she entered the house.

The main areas weren't quite as dim, and the bedrooms were still well maintained. Biana had said the girls would be camping in her bedroom for the night, and the boys would be camping in Fitz's. Sophie heaved a sigh of relief at that, since Biana had originally implied that they would be sleeping with the opposite gender.

"But during the day time... we're playing base quest!" Biana grinned happily.

"Base quest? Aren't we supposed to be doing serious stuff?" Sophie asked.

Biana clucked disapprovingly. "We have to do some fun stuff!"

Sophie shook her head. "Now is not the time for fun."

Biana groaned. "Well, fine then, I'm guessing this means no makeovers."

"Of course not," Sophie said, a little harsher than she'd intended. "Maybe when this entire mess is over," she added, a little softer.

Everyone met up in the reception hall because if was dark and Alden would never suspect that they were there, plus it was pretty roomy in case anyone wanted to run around. They began discussing how they were going to draw more information from Blur's head without Dark Hearts being notified. They didn't have any good ideas for that, so they tried thinking of how to convince the adults to let them join the search.

"Or," Marella jumped in, "we could focus on Della. Quinlin probed her without any problems, remember?"

"She's probably too new to know anything," Fitz protested.

"Yeah, but she'll know something at least," Sophie argued.

"Well... I suppose we could try," Fitz admitted.

Biana squealed. "So that's this settled?"

Sophie gave her a flat look. "No makeovers."

Biana deflated again.

"So, we'll need to get Council permission to organize a meeting with Della," Dex said, starting to write it down. He keyed her name into the database and asked, "Um, Fitz? Why isn't Della in the database?"

Fitz glanced at Dex and laughed. "Oh, her real name is Radelle, I thought you knew that."

"Oh, uh, actually? I didn't," Dex said, but he keyed 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐕𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 into the database and lots of results popped up. 

"Right, so when the Council grants us a meeting..." Biana started.

"If they do," Tam muttered, like he didn't believe it.

"Well, then we'll be all set! We probe Della's mind-"

"Assuming we learn anything useful," Fitz muttered.

"- and then we can get started on Blur!" Biana finished eagerly. "Maybe something in Della's head will teach us how to bypass Dark Hearts' security!"

"You have high hopes, Biana," Fitz said, shaking his head. "I highly doubt Della will have anything useful to share."

"But do you know how long she's been with Dark Hearts?" Biana challenged. "It could've been years! It could've been before she joined the Black Swan even! So how can you be sure that she isn't even more senior than Blur?"

Fitz grumbled because Biana actually had a point.

Meanwhile, Sophie was thinking of a million other possibilities before she asked, "What if Della was caught on purpose?"

"What do you mean?" Linh asked.

"I mean, she literally admitted to poisoning Fitz when there was no way out and we could call for people easily while she couldn't. She admitted her crimes! Right out in the open! Like she was trying to get caught. But... where does that put her?" Sophie asked.

"But she wouldn't want anyone finding out about Dark Hearts," Marella pointed out.

Sophie shook her head. "She didn't think we would. Remember what Dark Hearts said about us taking weeks to decipher the letter? And we got that after Della was imprisoned, so they probably hadn't calculated that into their plan. Make sense?"

"Kind of?" everyone in the room asked, although a few of them looked utterly confused.

"So if Della was captured on purpose, then what are they planning?" Sophie muttered.

"Wait."

It was Biana who spoke, her eyes wild with fear.

"What?" Sophie asked uneasily.

"Sophie - the Council is keeping all the criminals in the secret prison with Della! If they somehow manage to track Della's thoughts, they can free people like Alvar and Vespera!"

"No way!" Fitz shouted, banging the table. "It's bad enough being Della, but freeing Alvar too?!"

"Kids," Alden said from the entrance to the reception hall, "I came here to call you for dinner, but I highly doubt you were playing games. Are you discussing the topic I explicitly asked you not to?"

"Well, we have to get information somehow!" Fitz argued.

"Yes, but I told you to leave this to the adults!" Alden snapped before relaxing. "We have it all under control. Absolutely no reason to worry yourselves."

"We have to move all the prisoners out of the secret prison," Sophie said immediately. "Dark Hearts can track Della's thoughts there, and he'll definitely do it! Then he'll free all the prisoners like Alvar and Vespera -"

"Sophie, has it ever occurred to you that this is exactly what Dark Hearts might want us to do?" Alden asked heavily. "Move the prisoners and risk escape, and where can we move them that's as heavily guarded as the secret prison? They'll end up with way less security. And that means they could escape on their own. Anyway Dark Hearts can't track Della's thoughts, she's fully sedated and..." Alden sighed. "Quinlin got all the memories he needed, and then... he Washed all of Della's memories."