The days pass quickly as they sail toward the Midnight Sea. Tress, mentally and emotionally exhausted, struggles to muster her ingenuity and energy. Then one day, her three friends find her in the captain’s quarters and share that they have been brainstorming ways to survive the Midnight Sea.

They have a solution for the metal guards, using cannons rigged like Tress’s flare gun to trap them. They can use Huck to infiltrate the tower and get them inside. They struggle with the problem of the monsters and getting through them to traverse the sea, but their efforts to help Tress build the energy needed for brainstorming. Tress’s eyes widen as she thinks of something.

Tress brings her friends to the sprouter’s room to conduct an experiment. She brings midnight essence to life but does not bond with it. When it starts to move toward Fort to bond, she seizes control by offering a bribe of more water. Then, she dismisses it, realizing she has the power to do so because of what she had done to Crow’s midnight essence. She suggests that she might be able to take control of the monsters in the Midnight Sea in the same way.

Laggart appears and demands an

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