That evening, back at the palace, Jabari, Gavi, and Ivy met at the bottom of the stairs. They walked into the banquet hall together for the evening meal.
As they gathered plates and began to fill them, Ivy and Jabari told Gavi what had happened that day. He in turn told them what the elders had shared before they arrived. Aria had fallen in Petitions and then hissed in the voice of a mud demon.
Jabari took a step back. At the same time that Aria had been hissing like a mud demon, the Baloto had risen up out of the ground and spoken with her voice. What was the connection between the two? How could they even be connected like that?
They stared at one another as Ivy told Gavi what the mud demon had said to them out there in the field. Then they took their plates to the corner with the plu
