“That could work, I guess,” Sena mumbled.
Nett climbed onto Sena’s shoulders while Claire kept watch. The streets were almost entirely empty now, except for an occasional cluster of older apprentices who drifted by, talking loudly as if to prove they weren’t scared of being out in the night. But Claire, who had learned that details in faces mattered when drawing a portrait, noticed that it was often the loudest students whose eyes searched the shadows the longest.
A hooded figure on horseback clipped by as a nearby tavern door swung open. A new group of journeymen burst into the night. They laughed and yelled, playing pranks on one another. One cheerfully stole his friend’s pliers while another tugged on her friend’s cloak and accidentally undid the clasp. The cloak slithered to the ground.
The movement startled the horse, and it bucked, dislodging the rider’s hood. Claire got a glimpse of blond hair and large ears …
Claire blinked. Was that Thorn?
Her feet took an involuntary step away from the wall as she tried to see better, but the rider had already pulled his hood back up and urged the horse into a trot, putting distance between himself and the boisterous journeymen.
Claire shook her head and scolded herself. She was letting her nerves get the better of her.
“Nett’s in!” Sena whisper-called. “Come on!”
Entering the silver forge was like stepping into a mirror—or a mirror within a mirror. Wherever Claire looked, a girl with a messy braid and wide, lost-looking eyes stared back at her in the endless rows of polished bells, armor, and buckles.
“The workshop is in the back,” Sena whispered, and they wound their way through precariously balanced silver trays and mounds of silver vases. The oddly shaped stacks reminded Claire of coral reefs found under the sea.
Clang!
Claire jumped. Looking back, she saw Sena closing the door of a display cabinet. “What are you doing?” Claire asked.
Sena went to the next cabinet and opened it. “Looking for a tool I need.”
“The tools are all here,” Nett said, gesturing to the back of the shop. A large forge similar to the one Claire had seen in the classroom looked back at them, cold and black. Forging instruments—ham-sized hammers, tongs with stork-leg handles, and nails that were as long as Claire’s forearm—all hung on the wall next to it.
“Not the tool I need,” Sena said. Her head disappeared into another cabinet.
“What does it look like?” Claire asked, eager to start the magic. “Maybe we can help you look for it.”
Sena pulled her head out. “Stop pressuring me!”
Claire stepped back, startled at the anger in Sena’s voice.
“Sena,” Nett said soothingly. “Claire was only trying to help.”
“I don’t need help.” Sena slammed the cabinet shut. “I can do it myself!” She disappeared among the piles of silver.
Claire looked at Nett, who ran his hand through his hair. “I know it’s hard for her,” he muttered. “But this is ridiculous.”
“What’s hard for her?”
Nett pulled his marimo out of his pocket and gave it a pat. The moss began to glow. “Seeing all those Forger students … seeing other kids learning her craft while she’s not allowed to … That had to be hard for her.”
Claire briefly touched the pencil in her pocket. She didn’t have magic, but she knew that if someone told her she wasn’t allowed to draw or paint she would be miserable. Gloom settled over her, and she looked around for a way to cast it off.
“I can build a fire,” she offered. “Dad used to take me and Sophie camping a lot before.”
“Before what?” Nett asked.
“Before Sophie was sick.”
“I didn’t know that Sophie is sick.”
“Well.” Claire quickly backtracked. “She’s not sick now. But she used to be.”
Nett tilted his head. “You know, unicorns strengthened guild magic, but they were also able to cure any illness with just a touch of their horn. And one or two people say that unicorns could even turn back death—Historian Eric the Loquacious said that’s how the rumor that killing a unicorn makes you immortal came to be. Some say unicorn artifacts, like the harp, have the same power.”
“Sophie’s not sick anymore,” Claire hurried to explain. “The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she’s better now.”
“That’s good,” Nett said. “I’m glad the healers were able to help. Sometimes, they can’t.” Loss tinged his words the way yellow creeps into autumn.
“Who are you thinking of?” Claire asked quietly.
Nett gave her a crooked smile. “Wraiths attacked my parents seven years ago. Though the Wraith Watch found them before the monsters could finish them, they were injured beyond magic. Mama died the next day, but Papa lingered for weeks before he finally gave up.”
“You must miss them,” Claire said.
Nett shrugged, not as though he were dismissing his pain, but in the same way he’d adjust the rucksack on his shoulder, settling it so it would be comfortable. “When I think about Papa, I can kind of remember his scratchy beard, like bark. Mama is just the scent of jasmine. Grandpa Francis tells me stories about Papa growing up, but I don’t know much about my mother or her relatives at all. All I have from her is the marimo.”
Nett stroked the fuzzy moss with his pinkie, and the light became brighter. “They’re common in the Sunrise Isles, but rare in Arden. I like that her light guides me, even though she’s not here.”
Claire patted him on the shoulder. He smiled at her, though the melancholy lingered as they began to stack logs in the hearth. Nett rubbed two bits of kindling together. Sparks instantly flew into the hearth. The flame caught and held. In the new light, Claire could see Nett whispering something over the fire.
“What are you saying?”
Nett stood up, stretching. “Words of thanks. It’s Tiller custom to acknowledge wood that burns for our comfort. Our magic is a bit different from the other ones. If you ask a Forger, she’d say metal is alive, and a Gemmer would say that stone is, too. But they don’t live the same way plants do.”
He frowned. “Speaking of Forgers, we should probably check on Sena.”
They searched for her through the aisles of silver. Only when they passed the same ugly bust of a bulbous-nosed woman for the third time, did they realize Sena was not in the Silverorium at all. But before Claire’s alarm could give way to panic, Nett held up his hand.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
Claire strained her ears. A sniffling was coming from somewhere inside the shop.
They followed the sound to a large wardrobe that stood against the wall. Nett slowly opened the doors.
“Sena!” Nett gasped as he pushed aside hanging leather aprons. “What happened? And—oh. What … what is this place?” His voice had taken on a note of wonder.
Claire peeked around Nett to see that the back of the wardrobe was open … and that instead of pressing up against the wall, it framed the entrance to a secret room.
Though the light of a solitary torch barely illuminated the objects within, Claire could see that the contents of this room weren’t just silver. Dried herbs, coils of rope, spindles, rings, shields, and lumpy packages that seemed to be leaking lined the shelves that were built into the wall.
And in the center, sitting on the ground, was Sena, her face streaked in tears.
“Sena, what’s wrong?” Claire exclaimed. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s gone,” she said. Her braided crown had flopped.
“What’s gone?” Nett asked. “Sena, what’s going on?”
A shudder coursed through Sena, and Claire knew that whatever Sena was about to say, she wouldn’t like it.
“The Unicorn Harp,” Sena whispered. Her eyes dropped to the floor. “It’s not here.”
Claire’s heart began to drum in her chest. “Why did you think the harp would be here?” she demanded. The whole point of coming here was suppos
ed to be to make a Looking Glass so that they could find out where the harp—and Sophie—were.
Slowly, Sena raised her head to look at Claire. “Because,” she hiccupped, “it was me. I stole the Unicorn Harp.”
CHAPTER
18
“What?” At first, Claire didn’t think she’d heard correctly.
Sena put her face in her hands and repeated, “I stole the Unicorn Harp.”
Nett started to yell at Sena, but in her shock, Claire couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying. She felt both heavy and hollow.
The last time she had felt like this was when she’d been called to the principal’s office last September. Dad was there, and in a voice that didn’t belong to him, he told her that Sophie had collapsed during her class field trip and that she was at the hospital in a very deep sleep. Mom was with her, and he was taking Claire to see her now, too. She couldn’t remember walking out of the office, or much about the days immediately after. Her memories from that time were like blurred streaks of paint, hazy moments of smudges, confusion, and cold.
Looking at Sena, Claire’s world once again felt like an artist’s messy palette. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “You took the harp? Then—” She thought about what Thorn had told them, and Kleo. How the girls at the academy, too, had said Anvil was looking for Sophie. “Then why is Malchain after my sister?”
“I don’t know,” Sena said. She pushed her braid up off her forehead. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t get you, Sena,” Claire said. Her voice sounded diamond-hard; she barely recognized it. “You’re always saying how Spinners are the liars. That they’re the ones I have to watch out for. But you—you’ve been lying all along!”
Sena flinched.
“You’ve put us all in danger!” Nett burst out. “You put Francis in danger! He’s the reason you’re not in an orphanage.” Nett looked like someone had punched him. “Sena, what were you thinking?!”
“I wasn’t,” she said miserably into her hands. “I thought no one in Greenwood would miss it. The harp just stays in the Hearing Hall, out of sight. I thought by the time anyone realized it was gone, I would already be out of Greenwood and with my—” She broke off, shrugging.
“Your mother?” Claire guessed quietly.
Sena nodded and closed her eyes. “When my parents studied ancient alchemy, they sometimes had to buy things off the black market. Nothing bad, of course, just unregistered pieces of jumbled magic. Master Scythe knows lots of people in his line of business. If anyone could track down where Mama is, it would be him. So I snuck a letter to Fyrton using a merchant, and told Scythe about the Unicorn Harp. I told him I’d give it to him in exchange for more information about Mama.” She hiccupped. “When the Forger boats came to Greenwood to pick up their harvest, I brought the harp to Master Scythe.”
Wiping her nose on her sleeve, she looked at them defensively. “No one noticed the harp had been gone for a whole week. And I promise—I didn’t know the harp was unregistered with the Grand Council until the hearing. I didn’t know the Unicorn Harp was a secret that could bring war to the guilds again.”
“But you know stealing is wrong!” Nett exclaimed.
“So,” Claire said, her fury building, “my search for Sophie was just an excuse for you to travel to Fyrton so you could get the harp back? Were you even going to try to make a Looking Glass?”
“Yes, of course.” Sena raised her head, her mouth a quivering line. “Sophie is my friend. I didn’t mean for her to get blamed, but when Ragweed accused her, it was just easier for me to let her take the fall since Arden isn’t even her home. It wasn’t until we found you near the well and you said that Sophie was missing, that I realized Sophie could actually be in trouble.”
Sena’s voice wobbled. “I thought if we returned the harp to Greenwood, everyone would leave her alone. I haven’t had much training, but Claire, I will try to find her. I promise.” She hid her face with trembling hands again. “Please forgive me.”
Claire didn’t want to say it was all right, because it wasn’t. Each hour gone was another hour Sophie was getting farther away from her, or getting deeper into trouble. Or possibly both.
Claire reached into her pocket once again and gripped her pencil. It made her feel slightly—slightly—calmer. She knew that if she’d been in Sena’s position—if it were Dad and Mom she was trying to get back to—she would have done the same.
She couldn’t completely forgive Sena, but Claire gave her the tiniest nod. Nett’s nostrils flared. However betrayed Claire felt, it must have been a hundred times worse for Nett to learn his best friend had lied to him and endangered Francis.
“Nett?” Sena asked, voice tiny.
Nett glared at her, eyes narrowing into thin lines that paralleled his mouth.
“Please,” Sena begged. “I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I put Francis in danger.” She buried her hands in her palms. “I’m just—I’m scared.”
As Claire watched, Nett’s mouth twisted. He peered down at the marimo as though it would tell him what to do. Slowly, his scowl loosened. Stroking the shaggy moss with his thumb, he let out a sigh.
“Did you learn anything about where your ma is?” he asked.
Sena looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “When I traded the harp, Master Scythe said there were rumors she might be in the Constellation Mountain Range, but he’d find out more.”
“Are you sure the harp isn’t here?” Nett asked. “Maybe we should all look one more time. For Greenwood.”
“I’m pretty sure,” Sena said. “But the shelves … they’re awful.”
Claire didn’t understand what Sophie meant, but when Nett inspected the wares, he looked repulsed.
“Aphids,” he cursed softly. “Is that, do you think—the shield?”
Sena and Claire looked at a tarnished shield against the wall. Sena nodded grimly. “It’s definitely a Revealor.”
Nett walked over to the shelves. “And right underneath that is Somno libertas, and that black ribbon next to it is a Choker. What is Master Scythe doing with all this stuff?”
As Nett listed the items, Claire’s skin began to crawl. “What are all these things?”
“A Revealor is silver that has been directed to only reflect a person’s greatest flaw,” Sena said in a hushed voice. “Long ago, nobles forced their enemies to look into them, so they could learn how to destroy them. It’s a horrible thing to have the nastiest, most secret thoughts within you revealed to all.”
“And Somno libertas”—Nett pointed to the twisted herbs—“when eaten, will take away the eater’s ability to make decisions for an hour, or for years, depending on the amount consumed. The Choker, well, the name says it all.”
They began to hastily scan the shelves, being careful not to touch the items directly. Claire lifted the corner of a dusty sheet and saw a viney rope with hooked thorns, a gemstone, and a metal helmet that made Nett extremely nervous. (“A confusion cap. It scrambles your thoughts.”)
Suddenly, the light in the room dimmed.
“Nett, can you make the marimo any brighter?” Claire called. She didn’t want to rummage through a bunch of dangerous magical objects without seeing what she was getting into.
When no one answered, she glanced up. Sena’s mouth was a round O of surprise.
“By all that’s rusted,” a voice growled from the doorway, “what are you doing in my shop, Sena Steele?”
Dread locked her muscles as Claire saw the form of a man outlined by the light of the main forge. As the man stepped into the hidden room, Claire could see he was built roughly along the lines of a boulder. His chest strained with muscles formed from years of forging, but his head was round, and as bald as a baby’s.
“Master Scythe!” Sena scrambled to her feet. “Let me explain!”
“And let me explain that you are breaking and entering.” As Scythe stepped toward them, Claire heard the heavy clank of metal. Chains and knives hung from the man’s belt.
>
“Please, Master Scythe,” Sena begged. “The Unicorn Harp—I need it back.”
Scythe’s thin eyebrows lifted incredulously. “You do, do you? And did you ever consider that if you gave away my operation, nothing in the world—and that includes the Unicorn Harp—would stop me from handing you over to the inspectors? You’re exiled. And if someone saw you come into my shop, you and I will be locked in an inspector’s cell before you can blow out a candle. Reckless, Steele. Very reckless.”
Sena shook her head. “Please, I just need the harp back.”
Master Scythe clicked his tongue in mock sympathy. “Even if I wanted to give the harp back to you, I couldn’t. An item like that doesn’t sit long in my trade.”
Though her throat felt like it was swollen to twice its normal size, Claire stepped forward.
Master Scythe’s eyes flickered over to her, then went back to Sena, as though Claire were too unimportant to notice. And Claire was sick and tired of being overlooked.
“Excuse me, but the person who bought it?” Claire said, trying to put all Sophie’s confidence into her own voice. “Was she a girl who looked like me, just a little older?”
Scythe looked at Claire again, and she had the distinct impression he was amused by her. “The man who bought it hid his face, and had the sense to not ask questions.”
“Do you have any idea who he was?” Nett asked, stepping forward.
Scythe glared at Sena. “Who are these fools you’ve brought with you, Sena?”
But Claire wasn’t finished. “Who is the man?”
Scythe put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples. “The man didn’t wear a guild’s colors, but he had the calluses of someone who swings a hammer.”
Or a double-headed ax with blades that look like a bat’s wings, Claire thought. The man could be Anvil Malchain. But Sena had stolen the harp, not Sophie or Malchain. And if Malchain had the Unicorn Harp now, maybe he was no longer tracking her sister.
Claire waited to feel comforted by her reasoning, but the relief never came. Instead, another thought drifted in: What if Sophie had found out Malchain was after the harp, and was going after him?
The Unicorn Quest Page 14
