The Unicorn Quest

by Kamilla Benko

  “Did he say anything? Anything at all?” Nett asked. Claire was grateful that he was able to ask the question she couldn’t.

  “Nothing,” Scythe said. “Except that I should let him know if another unicorn artifact appeared in my shop. Which should be soon. The Unicorn Tooth was stolen just this afternoon.”

  The children looked at one another in surprise. Claire remembered the missing item next to the diamond coronet. Had the inspectors not been searching for them, after all? Had they actually been called to Tower Library because someone—maybe even Anvil—had stolen the Unicorn Tooth?

  The chains on Master Scythe’s belt rattled ominously as he took a step toward them. “Do you children happen to know anything about the missing tooth?”

  “No,” Sena said sharply. All traces of the tearstained girl from minutes before had disappeared. She stood straight as an iron rod.

  A wry smile appeared on Scythe’s face, then it disappeared. “You knew the price of coming back,” he said to Sena. “And now you must pay it from behind inspector bars. By the time you’re out, I’ll have set up a new secret store, and you’ll never be able to compromise my business again.”

  He snapped his fingers. A hard jangle clanged above them.

  Claire looked up just in time to see a large gleaming net descend from the ceiling and drop over their heads, the force knocking them to their knees. Before they could throw it off, the edges of the chain net latched with metal locks along the floor. Sena yanked at a link, but the net stayed put. They were pinned in place.

  The three of them sat back-to-back, the weight of the chain net pressing down on them. But even though Claire was tired and sore, she did not want morning to come.

  Scythe had left a few minutes ago to fetch the inspectors. And when they arrived, it would all be over. She would have lost her only chance to find Sophie.

  The chains jingled as Nett squirmed. He seemed unable to keep still for more than a minute.

  “Stop moving,” Claire said as a chain link dug into her arm. “You’re making it worse.”

  “I’m just trying to see if there’s a way out.”

  Claire pushed against the chains, wishing she knew how to snap them. She bet any of the kids in Phlogiston Academy could have done it in a minute. Sena’s sharp elbow pushed into her back, and even though Claire thought she already knew the answer, she had to know for sure.

  “Sena, isn’t there something you can do?” she asked desperately. “Melt the net or something?”

  The chain links rattled as Sena shook her head. “I could try, but I’m not trained. I might melt us instead.”

  But Claire didn’t think anything could melt her—her insides felt frozen solid. And trapped in the ice was one question that she couldn’t let go: “Why is Malchain asking about Sophie?”

  There was a hiss as Nett slowly let out his breath. “Now that two unicorn artifacts have gone missing, I think it’s clear that Royalists are involved. Anvil Malchain must be a member. It kind of makes sense, though, doesn’t it? That one of the most famous treasure hunters of Arden would join a society obsessed with finding powerful unicorn artifacts.”

  Claire nodded in agreement, but she was far from comforted.

  “But why now?” Sena asked. “They must be organizing, collecting artifacts for some reason.”

  “No idea,” Nett said seriously. “But I think we must assume that Sophie does know. And that she’s either joined them, or is trying to stop them. Claire, which do you think it is?”

  But she was spared having to answer as suddenly there was a muffled thud from beyond the wardrobe. All three of them started, the net rattling with their surprise.

  “The inspectors!” Nett hissed. “They’re here!”

  They could hear footsteps now, pacing around the silver columns beyond the false wardrobe.

  “I can’t go back to the inspector cells—I can’t!” Sena moaned. “The cold …”

  The footsteps stopped just outside the wardrobe door. Pressed against Sena’s back, Claire could feel the girl shaking in terror. The secret room was suddenly lit from the light of the main forge.

  “You!” Nett gasped.

  Claire heard a familiar voice. “Looks like you’re in a bind.”

  Thorn Barley was in Fyrton.

  CHAPTER

  19

  “What are you doing here?” all four asked at once. And all four replied:

  “Searching for the harp—”

  “The smith—”

  “We need a Looking—”

  “To help you.”

  The last was Thorn, who had knelt down to examine the silver links. His cheeks were red, as though he’d been running, and his scarlet tunic was askew. So Claire had spotted him in the street.

  “That’s a Forger journeyman’s tunic!” Sena said. “How did you get that?”

  “I don’t think that’s really the most important question right now,” Nett said, frowning. “Why are you here?”

  Thorn pulled halfheartedly at the net. “Like I said, I came to help.”

  “But how—”

  “Look,” Thorn interrupted. “I’m happy to answer your questions, but we need to get you out of here first. That bald Forger will come back with the inspectors soon.”

  “I think I saw some skeleton keys in that box over there,” Sena said.

  Claire felt her stomach turn. The academy teacher had asked about a skeleton key, too. “What … kind of bones do you use for them?” she asked tentatively, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” Sena said, and even though Claire couldn’t see her face, she could practically hear her eyes roll. “A skeleton key is a key that has been forged to open any lock. Most Forgers build locks that can withstand a skeleton key, but if there are any skeleton keys in this room, then the chances are they’re particularly strong.”

  Thorn hurried to the corner to retrieve the box.

  “Do we trust him?” Nett murmured under his breath.

  “No,” Sena whispered back. “Not until we find out why he’s here. Or how he got here.”

  Claire remembered the look on Thorn’s face when he had asked to see her pictures, and the little golden bird in her rucksack. “I think we should trust him,” she announced. “He helped us before, didn’t he?”

  Sena nodded. “We can trust him until he gets us out of here. Then … we’ll see.”

  Thorn returned and held up keys for Sena to inspect. Each time she shook her head, Thorn would pluck out another one.

  “Why are you here?” Nett asked again.

  Thorn held up another key, this one brass. “If I want Greenwood Village to stop treating me like a weed—to take me seriously—then I need to do something to change their mind.”

  Sena shook her head, and Thorn held out a new key, an iron one with pointed teeth.

  Claire felt a twist of sympathy as Thorn continued to explain. “I thought that if I help find the harp and prove that Sophie is innocent, then maybe they’ll respect me more.”

  He set the pointed-teeth key down when Sena shook her head, and presented the next. “I went back to the narrowboats, but the Spinners were already awake. So then I thought I could ride a horse fast enough to catch up in Fyrton. I’ve been looking for you all day.”

  There was a silence as Claire debated whether she should tell Thorn the truth about the harp. What if, in his mission to impress Greenwood, Thorn reported Sena as the thief? As difficult as the Forger was, Claire didn’t want to see her go into the inspector cells.

  She kept quiet, as did the other two.

  “That one,” Sena said suddenly as Thorn held up an unremarkable-looking key. “That’s a skeleton key!”

  Thorn slipped it into one of the locks, and after a moment of silence there was a soft click. As he went to the different locks, the chain’s pressure lessened. Soon, they were able to cast off the net like a winter coat on the first day of spring.

  They hurried ou
t of the secret storeroom, and Claire was glad when Nett shut the door on the creepy objects behind them.

  In his haste to fetch the inspectors, Scythe hadn’t completely smothered the fire Claire and Nett had built. Smoldering embers remained. Nett hurried over to stir up the fire, while Sena beckoned Claire over to her.

  “Stand here,” Sena ordered as she placed the library book on the Forger’s table. “I’m going to need your help.”

  “What can I do?” Thorn asked, standing awkwardly at Claire’s elbow.

  “Keep watch,” Sena said. “This is our one chance to find out where Sophie is, but Scythe will be back with the inspectors any moment.”

  “We have a little time,” Thorn said. “When I saw you slip inside here, I went to tie up my horse. I returned just in time to see the Forger enter his shop. So I might have untied his horse and then tied him up a few streets down. He’ll need to either find his horse or walk.”

  Nett looked impressed. “Good thinking!”

  “Thanks.” Thorn grinned, then hurried to the window.

  Claire watched as Sena read from the book, then, looking up from the pages, dropped a few of her silver coins into a small clay pot. Next, she put on a pair of leather gloves. Once Nett had the fire going strong again, Sena used a pair of tongs to place the clay pot in the flames.

  As the coins melted, Sena placed a small metal box on top of the worktable. She opened it to show Claire a mirror-shaped indention inside.

  “This,” Sena told Claire, “is called a sand cast.”

  She closed the box and pointed to a hole at the top. “We’re going to pour the metal through here, and it will fill up the impression you just saw.”

  “We’re?” asked Claire.

  “Yes, you’re going to help me. Now, for this to work, though, I need you to start thinking of Sophie. Concentrate on what she looks like, how she stands and moves, the faces she makes, how tall she is, how heavy or light, the way she wears her hair. And think of who she is. Got it?”

  “I thought you were making the Looking Glass?” Claire asked, confused.

  “Each mirror is crafted to a single person,” Nett called over as he pumped the bellows to push more air into the forge. “If, say, Sena used your Looking Glass, she’d only see what she normally sees in a mirror—a frizz ball with a booger hanging out of her nose.” Nett dodged Sena’s punch to his shoulder. “But you should be able to stare into your Looking Glass and see where Sophie is since she’s the thing you most want to find.”

  “Exactly,” Sena agreed. “When I say so, you must take the crucible—that clay pot—out of the flames and pour the silver into the sand cast. Understand?”

  Astonished, Claire nodded nervously and Sena handed her a pair of leather gloves. They were heavy, and she hoped she’d be able to grasp the tongs well enough with them on.

  “But why do you need me for this part?” Claire asked. “What if I accidentally drop it?”

  “You won’t drop it because you can’t afford to,” Sena said, wiping sweat from her face. “You’re the only one in all of Arden who has lost Sophie. She wasn’t anyone else’s to lose.”

  Claire nodded, and picked up the tongs Nett offered to her. Dutifully, she closed her eyes. What had Sena said? Think of Sophie. Was she big or small? She was taller than Claire, that was for sure. But Claire didn’t know exactly how tall she was, or how much Sophie weighed. How precise were the details in her head supposed to be? Claire knew Sophie was heavy enough that when her sister would flop onto the couch pretending not to see Claire already there, Claire struggled to breathe. And as for her height—Sophie was tall enough to hide her piggy bank on the highest closet shelf where Claire couldn’t reach.

  It was hard to think of Sophie as a list of facts, because she was so much more than that. Sophie had always been there, adding excitement to Claire’s memories, coloring in her days. Sometimes, during long car trips or a boring class at school, Claire would assign colors to her friends and family. Mom was the blue of a shallow sea while Dad was a hummingbird green. She knew that Sophie was some kind of purple, but it wasn’t until she’d seen a rare Vanda orchid on a field trip to the botanical garden that she’d known exactly which shade her sister was. The flower was the perfect blend of a vivacious, temperamental red and the strong, loyal blue of the ocean. Together, it was dramatic. It was fun. It was Sophie.

  “It’s time!” Sena yelled.

  Claire opened her eyes, and the furnace’s heat scraped across her face. Gasping from the shock, she accidentally inhaled the smoke. She began to cough.

  “Keep your eyes open!” Sena shouted above the roar of the flames. “Timing is everything!”

  Tears streamed down her face as Claire nabbed the pot from the fire. Arms trembling with effort to hold the tongs steady, she tipped it into the cast. Molten silver flowed quickly from the pot.

  “Ah!” Claire yelled, dropping the tongs as the heat chewed through her leather gloves. The clay pot clattered to the floor, but luckily it was empty. Peeling off the gloves, Claire stuck her burned fingers into her mouth.

  Suddenly, Nett was there with a tin cup of water. She wrapped her fingers around its coolness and sipped gratefully. She felt dry and cracked, as though she’d been in a forge and not simply next to one.

  “Is everything all right?” Thorn reappeared from his post at the front window. When Claire nodded, Thorn whispered, “Try to be quieter—people might hear you! I’ll go out to the front and see if anyone has come to investigate.”

  Sena swiftly undid the latches of the cast, the trunk splitting down the middle into two halves. Each side had been packed with sand, and the molten silver had pooled into a hollow dent to form a small hand mirror.

  Claire looked at it incredulously. It was as dull as an old pan. She couldn’t imagine how this thing would help her find Sophie.

  Sena ran her fingertip over the cooling metal, then handed it to Claire. The handle fit in her fist as comfortably as smooth stone.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s because I haven’t polished it yet,” Sena said as she picked up a file. She read a line from the library book. “I hope.”

  Claire passed the Looking Glass back to Sena, her hand feeling strangely empty without it. Looking for something to do, she pulled out her pencil while Sena methodically swept the file across the rough silver. Around, down, repeat.

  “Metal, especially silver, wants to reflect,” Nett said, settling on a nearby stool. “But a Forger helps direct what it reflects.”

  “’Ow ’ong ’ill it ’ake?”

  “Sorry?”

  Claire hastily removed the pencil from her mouth. “How long will it take?”

  “It depends on the Forger. Sena is … inexperienced.”

  After a few minutes, Sena stood up and walked over to Claire. Up close, Claire could see sweat beading her forehead. Sena grasped her right hand as though it pained her.

  “See if it works,” she rasped.

  Wrapping her fingers around the handle, Claire looked into the glass. Even though Sena had been polishing, the surface remained dull, a mix of white and gray, like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower.

  There wasn’t anything to see. Or was there?

  Claire squinted, holding the mirror an inch from her nose. A delicate shape drifted like mist against cloud, coalescing into a spiral and the slenderest of tips …

  A dazzling hope almost broke the surface of her thoughts, but then she blinked. The image was gone.

  With a feeling of helplessness, Claire shook her head. “I thought … for a second, but no.”

  Sena gritted her teeth. “Give it back.”

  With a new ferocity, Sena attacked the metal. She pushed into the surface with her entire being, her shoulders moving like pistons. Claire wrapped her arms tight around herself to keep from pacing.

  “Look now,” Sena panted. As Claire took the mirror from her, she saw Sena’s hands were trembling. Magic, it seemed, came at a price.
>
  Once more, Claire looked into the mirror. Its face was still dull, but this time, there was color. A black smear streaked across a background of trees. The trees seemed odd, though. Trunks, leaves, even the roots tangled on the forest floor were all the same color: a dark, rusty red. The color was only broken by the glimpse of a dusty plain beyond the strangely still branches.

  Claire squinted, and the black smear became a galloping horse ridden by a cloaked man, with a double-headed ax slung across his back.

  Anvil Malchain.

  He galloped toward another, smaller shape, in a tunic Claire had never seen before. A shape wearing a moonstone necklace and a purple ribbon that was about to slip out of her hair.

  CHAPTER

  20

  In the Looking Glass, Anvil Malchain reached down and pulled Sophie up onto his horse without breaking stride, the man’s bat-winged blades gleaming even in the night. For a moment, it seemed the man felt Claire’s eyes on him, and he turned to look right at her. Malchain had the oddest gray eyes she had ever seen—as dark and lusterless as charcoal.

  Claire screamed and dropped the mirror. It clattered to the ground face-first and skidded along the stone floor.

  “What’s wrong?” Nett leaped off the chair.

  There was a patter of feet as Thorn raced from the front window to join them. “We need to get out of here!” he whispered. “Someone must have heard that.”

  But all Claire could manage to do was wrap her arms around herself and try to keep from shaking as she looked at her circle of friends. “He’s found her! Malchain’s found Sophie!”

  Her throat felt raw, as though she’d scraped it. Over and over again she replayed the scene. She felt a hard shake to her shoulders.

  “What else, Claire?” Sena’s yellow eyes glared at her and each word was punctuated with a shake. “What else did you see? Come on, stay with us!”

  “She should look into the glass again,” she heard Thorn murmur.

  “It’s too badly scratched,” Nett replied quietly. “It won’t work again.”

  Claire closed her eyes, trying to remember details—and, almost at once, trying to forget them.