At about five minutes after eleven, the dining hall bell rang and rang throughout Greenwood valley to announce the presence of intruders.

As planned, there were confused-sounding shouts and a few minutes of chaotic activity around camp. Then most of the camp’s residents made their way to the patch of forest on the other side of the prayer circle where Tsali and several dozen men were waiting to face them.

But while everyone else was pretending to be surprised, Riley, Darren, and twenty-one elder men and women under Isaac Raccoon’s command were already in the forest, at the bottom of the ridge where the Poxinosa had decided to confront Greenwood. The invisible Greenwood team were huddled inside Riley’s shell, staring at their enemy from about a dozen feet away.

The Poxinosa had topped the ridge and began moving silently downhill at exactly eleven. Riley had not stopped trembling since. As instructed, Darren was standing directly behind her.

When he felt her start shaking, he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “You’ll be fine,” he whispered, his breath fogging in the icy night air. He squinted at the opposing force and pointed at one particular man. “I think that’s Tsali in the front there.”

“The bald guy with the red face paint?” Riley was pleased that he neither looked demonic nor was carrying a knife. I’m right in front of him. Good. “Isaac, do you know who the guys on either side of him are?”

Isaac Raccoon squinted also. “Paselo is the brown one on the left with the glowing blue eyes.”

“We call him the Lie Detector,” Darren said. “You rehearsed your conversation with Tsali ahead of time because of him.”

“And the big guy on the right is Msithwe.” Isaac frowned. “He’s one of the three main Poxinosa warriors: Nenexsa, Tsali and Msithwe.”

“And Msithwe is the guy who paralyzes people,” Riley recalled from her training.

“Right,” Richard Fish said. “He can keep their whole body still, or only part of it. Whatever he wants. Now, that may not sound like much, but if he kept your heart from moving, it wouldn’t beat. If he kept your lungs from moving, you couldn’t breathe.”

Riley blinked. “Whoa.”

Richard nodded, shivering. He was sopping wet. As a fish, he needed water and oil for moisture. But unlike Riley, he needed it all over his body, cold weather or no. “Msithwe, Nenexsa and Tsali work together. First, Msithwe immobilizes a warrior. Then Nenexsa uses his pheromone power to fill the air with scents that make that warrior feel like his life is in danger, which triggers the fight or flight response. That almost always makes a warrior’s animal take over his mind. And once that happens, Tsali can step in and control the warrior.”

Terror. “You’re saying that the three of them together can control anybody?”

“Any warrior who’s not an owl,” Isaac Raccoon nodded. 

“Richard, your lips are blue.” Pamela Raccoon threw a blanket over him.

“Don’t fuss, woman! I’m fine.” He hugged the blanket close anyway.

The Poxinosa, and whatever other warriors were mixed in with them, spread themselves out over the hillside with roughly twenty feet between each man. Only Tsali, Paselo and Msithwe stood next to each other.

Darren squinted again at Tsali’s men. “Nenexsa isn’t anywhere that I can see. He’s a little bitty bastard, olive green.” He craned his neck and glanced up and down the field. “He may have stayed home because he’s their prince and he doesn’t want to get his prissy little hands dirty. Or he may have stayed home because of Violet.”

“He really can’t do anything around her?”

“Yep! She’s his foil. Nenexsa may be one of the most powerful warriors in Poxinosa history, but his power is scent-based and Vi controls smell. If they met on the field, she would neutralize him completely.” Darren then frowned at two women who were halfway up the hillside, behind Tsali. “Those women must be from a visiting clan. Either that or their powers are beyond killer, because women are not allowed to fight in Poxinosa.”

“Or in Terrapin either, Jack said.”

“I’ll bet they’re here because of their powers, then,” Isaac Raccoon muttered as he, too, examined them. “Avoid the women if at all possible,” he instructed the other elders.

“Here we come,” Phoebe Mallard informed them all from her post at the back of Riley’s shell.

Riley kept her focus on Tsali’s expression. His lips started curling upward when he, too, caught sight of the approaching Greenwoods. A few seconds later, Riley heard footsteps, rustling and muttering behind her.

“Prince Matthew!” Tsali hailed the Colonel. “Many clans!”

Riley didn’t look away from her target, but she heard the Colonel reply, “One tribe. What’s all this, Tsali?”

“We popped by for a friendly visit.”

The approaching footsteps that she’d been hearing behind her stopped. “Our people are now fifty feet from the back edge of your shell,” Darren whispered to her.

“A ‘friendly visit?’” the Colonel demanded. “We do not entertain visitors at this hour. Go home. Come back tomorrow morning if you want to talk. And next time, leave your platoon at home.”

A sharp wind blew by, and Riley shuddered.

“So much for the pleasantries,” Tsali said. “We have come for the teleporter! Tell her to come forward. If she does not, we will invade.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Colonel Matthew snapped.

Several of the men behind Tsali began reaching for their weapons.

“You’re up,” Darren said.

Riley took a deep breath and let her turtle instinct take control.

As if from afar, she watched herself exhale, and then make herself visible. Because the turtle was standing, Riley was several feet off the ground. Her turtle’s other passengers, including Darren, were still safely invisible.

She made her turtle body crouch, which lowered both her and the invisible team. When she was about a foot from the grass, she stopped. Riley appeared to everyone to be floating in midair, face to face with Tsali.

He stared at her, speechless.

—HIDE—

“You’ve been looking for me,” Riley said by way of a greeting.

“I have, yes.” Tsali gaped at her, and then at the empty space beneath her.

He didn’t look like a killer.

This is the man who ordered the kidnappings, Riley reminded herself. She pushed her emotions back down again as an image of Pash’s empty eye sockets flashed through her mind. “You killed my friends,” she said softly.

“As the leader of these men, I am the one responsible for their deaths, yes.” He slowly smiled at Riley. “Many clans. My name is Tsali. Who are you?”

“One tribe. I am Rain.” As instructed, she gave her middle name instead of her first, since her first name would lead them straight to Jack and Reed.

“True,” said the Lie Detector.

Excellent. That worked.

“Rain? I thought your chief was in the habit of giving people long flowery warrior names.”

A few of the men behind him chuckled.

“Rain is my birth name. I don’t have a warrior name yet.”

“True.”

“Why is that?”

“We believe I have powers that haven’t been discovered.”

“True.”

Tsali raised his eyebrows at that, and he smiled wider. “More than this? I’m impressed. How old are you, little one?”

“Eighteen.”

“True.”

As they spoke, Riley heard more footsteps behind her. Slow, careful footsteps. The Greenwoods who were not inside her shell were moving into their positions.

Her play for extra time was working.

Tsali stared at Riley’s shielded limbs. “Why are you glowing so brightly?”

“Because I choose to,” she answered smoothly.

“True.”

“And what is your animal?”

Riley knew she couldn’t answer that question. She did her best to look impatient. “I’m not here to play twenty questions with you, Tsali. I want to give you a warning.”

“True.”

There was laughter all around in the ranks of Tsali’s men.

“A warning?” He, too, chuckled. “There are a hundred of us and only a handful of you. What sort of ‘warning’ do you think you can give?”

Riley held out her hand and someone inside her shell placed the folder in it. Once she felt that person withdraw, she made the folder visible.

Some of the men standing behind Tsali gasped and whispered. “Look!” “Did you see that?” “She made it appear out of thin air!”

“This,” Riley threw the folder to Tsali, “is my warning.” The papers sailed through both her shell and the shield, and he caught it.

As Tsali passed the folder to one of his flunkies, someone behind him notched an arrow...

... and shot it straight at Riley.