"You're not going to be able to meet the Bhante," Hawthorn said as he barged into Archie's room.

Sutton shrieked and dropped a book. Archie jumped—more at Sutton's reaction than Hawthorn's entrance.

"What're you doing here?!" Archie asked. He had warmed up to Hawthorn over their week of working at Buart's, but he couldn't help but feel like he had just been caught changing clothes.

Hawthorn didn't understand the fuss. He just shrugged. "You guys were practically yelling. I could hear you down the hallway."

"So why'd you barge in?" Sutton scolded. "Who invited you?"

Once again, the intensity of emotion brushed past Hawthorn, his face warping into a goofy grin. "I love the legend of the grove! When I was a kid, my mom would always tell me stories about Drolma Khalsang."

"Drolma Khalsang?" Archie and Sutton asked in unison. Barley didn't verbally join in on their question, but he did raise his eyebrows.

"Hm." Hawthorn scratched his chin. "I guess none of the stories took place in The Platter, so you must not have heard of them."

"What stories?" Archie asked.

"The stories of Drolma Khalsang! He was this dude. Total badass. Friends with the yetis. They gave him a bunch of branches from the grove and he went around the world and kinda just, like…did cool stuff with them."

Sutton's eyes widened, counteracting the minimizing effect of his glasses. "Did he ever go to Labrusca?"

"Uh…" Hawthorn squinted and looked at the corner of the ceiling. He took his time to answer. "Yeah? Yeah, yeah. He made a bunch of ships for them or something."

"Aha!" Sutton clapped his hands and skipped into the air. He rushed over to one of his pamphlets, flipping through it with uncharacteristic recklessness. Finally, he found what he was looking for, stabbing at a diagram of a ship with his finger. "D. K.!"

Archie started to move, but Hawthorn pushed him aside as he rushed past.

"No way!" Hawthorn yelled. "Does that mean he's real?"

Archie shoved Hawthorn out of the way and bent over the book, Barley getting on his tiptoes to see over Archie. The diagram outlined some shipbuilding technique that went over Archie's head, but it wasn't the instructions that were important. Sutton tapped on the initials that had been written in the corner of each sketch.

D.K.

"He's real, isn't he?" Hawthorn squeezed past Archie to look again.

"What else did he do? Tell me!" Sutton pleaded. Archie worried that Sutton might explode if he got any more excited.

"Uh, let's see…" Hawthorn scratched the back of his head to try to shake some memories loose. "Oh, he broke one branch up into a bunch of wood chips and gave it to some tribe in Kuutsu Nuna. The wood chips burned like, super hot so that they could cook the Kuutsu. And then, uh, he went to Labrusca to make those ships, but he also went to Lampuki and used one of the sticks as a fishing rod and caught like, a super huge shark or something."

"What about Uroko?" Sutton interrupted.

"Oh yeah, he has a lot of stories. He went to King Goreng—you know King Goreng?"

Sutton nodded. Archie shook his head.

"He was king of Uroko back during one of the times they ruled Khala," Hawthorn explained. "Drolma Khalsang took a branch to him with all of this essence and challenged King Goreng to use its essence. King Goreng was like, super big deal Chef guy. But he couldn't do it. And then Drolma Khalsang duplicated the stick. He said it was because the sticks were the yetis gift to him, and so only he could use it in the way that the yetis had allowed or that gifts shouldn't be misused or something like that. All the stories had morals like that."

Sutton eyed The Second War of Khalyan Independence. "Were there other stories with King Goreng?"

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. King Goreng like, obsessed over the branches. When Khala broke free, one of his conditions was that Drolma Khalsang would bring essence to an island way out in the ocean."

Archie grabbed Sutton's arm in anticipation. "And did he?"

"Yeah. He went to the yetis to ask them for an acorn, then went and planted it in Uroko." Hawthorn looked at Barley. "Don't you know these stories?"

"We don't tell tales of yetis where I'm from," Barley answered. "To speak their tales would be to invite them into our home."

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"Right. I forgot how far north Jakha is. You're like, right on the border of yeti country."

"Wait," Sutton interrupted. "That can't be right. There're…two, three hundred years between these stories."

Hawthorn grinned and waved his finger at Sutton. "The grove extends your life. As the story goes, anyways. So because the yetis let him hang out near the grove, he lived to be like, five hundred or something."

"Is he still alive?" Archie asked. If this man really existed, he was the key to their plan.

"Nah, I don't think so," Hawthorn said with a shake of the head. "There hasn't been a story about him in like three hundred years. He probably finally kicked it."

Archie sighed, his hopes deflating along with his lungs.

"But," Hawthorn said. "If you wanna negotiate with the yetis, you should talk to Picea."

"Picea talks to the yetis?"

"With her fists, yeah," Hawthorn laughed. "The Bhantla does the real diplomacy. Picea has accompanied her, I think."

"Where's Picea now?" Archie asked.

Hawthorn scoffed. "I think she had a fight at Khulstro."

"Khulstro?"

"Oh man, you don't know about Khulstro?! It's this totally awesome place where people fight and you drink and—oh man, you just have to experience it. I'll have to take you guys!"

"Can you take us right now?"

Hawthorn laughed. "What? No, it's already closed, dude."

Archie breathed heavily through his nose. The more Hawthorn spoke, the more Archie doubted that there was anything between his ears.

"But if she's already come back from her fight, she's probably downstairs." Hawthorn grinned. "You haven't seen her post-fight ritual, have you?"

"No."

"Well, come on, then."

Hawthorn led the three boys down the stairs, through a shortcut across the yard—even just a few seconds outside made Archie curse how cold summer nights could get in Khala—and into the kitchen.

The main kitchen of the Monastery had been made for function, not form. It was a massive, massive room filled by rows and rows of plain stoves separated by cauldrons, each as large as the one in The Gift—and the Monastery had at least three times as many cauldrons as the Academy in order to make stew for the masses.

A few Chefs still worked, but they avoided the very center of the kitchen, because in that spot, in the largest cauldron, Picea was submerged up to her chin in stew.

"Ugh," Sutton groaned with disgust. Hawthorn laughed, and Archie couldn't help but join him.

Picea spotted the group and sat up enough to reveal her bare shoulders, waving them over. "Grab a cauldron, boys, the stew's warm!"

Archie wouldn't have been able to take a single step toward that ridiculous sight if Hawthorn hadn't walked forward with such confidence.

"Hey Picea," Hawthorn said. He walked up to the counter next to her and leaned on it. "These boys have some questions for you."

Archie had almost forgotten why he came down. Even when he remembered, he still had more pressing questions. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"You know, a piece of every fight stays with you forever. When you get as old as I am and have been in as many fights as I have, they add up." Picea lifted an arm out of the stew, thick brown liquid splashing around and a chunk of something green falling from her arm back into the stew. "This makes me forget all of those little nagging injuries for a few days. Primes me."

She spotted Sutton, who walked up more tentatively than the rest, hiding half of his body behind Barley's. "Hey Sutton," she said with a flirty wave. "If you want to try it, I have enough room in here for you."

"Uh—uh—uh, I'm good, thanks. Never been in a fight."

"Ooo. I'd love to be your first."

Sutton shuffled to put himself even more behind Barley.

Picea laughed. "So what did you want?"

"Um…" Archie thought he saw carrot chunks in the stew. He shook his head to regain his focus. "Yetis."

Picea slipped down into the cauldron, the brown liquid tickling her lower lip. "I'm afraid I don't have any on me."

"What? Oh, no. Um, we want to…" Archie couldn't form a coherent thought. He could only look at the flame beneath the cauldron and wonder how it wasn't too hot for Picea.

"They want to get an acorn from the yeti grove," Hawthorn interjected. For once, Archie was glad that Hawthorn was immune to others' tension.

Picea's blonde eyebrows went halfway up her forehead. "Ooookay, that's something." She chuckled, her raucous laughter shaking her, turning her into a stirring rod as the stew sloshed around. "I don't think you understand what you want. You can't just…take something from the yetis."

"So the grove does exist?!" Hawthorn asked.

Picea laughed again. "I don't think you understand."

"We do," Archie said. It was hardly even a half-truth, but now wasn't the time for doubt. He stepped forward. "We know there is a grove of trees with untold essence. We know that an acorn can provide essence to an entire island. We know that you have to be given the acorn, you cannot take it. And we know that you or the Bhantla know how to get it."

"My, my, aren't you assertive?" Picea stood up, revealing her absolute lack of clothing.

Archie turned as fast as he could, Barley and Hawthorn doing the same. But Sutton stayed frozen, half in awe, half in terror, his jaw dropping as he watched Picea step out of the cauldron.

"Hand me that towel, darling," she said.

Sutton didn't move. Archie grabbed a towel off the counter and held it behind him so that he wouldn't see Picea. She took it and wrapped it around her midsection, covering herself. Slowly, cautiously, Archie turned, his hand raised to cover the lower half of his vision.

"I'll get you an audience with the Bhantla," Picea said. "That's all I can guarantee."

Archie dropped his hand, clenching it in excitement. "Thank you!"

"But!" Picea grabbed a second towel and used it to wipe off her muscular arms. "If the Bhantla agrees to it, and you end up going into yeti territory, you're going to need to know how to defend yourself. Report to me in the yard tomorrow morning. All of you."

"Even me?" Sutton asked.

"Even you. Now go get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow…we start some real training."

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