Fire in the Star

by Kamilla Benko

  “Right,” Claire said, keeping her voice light even though it felt like her body was sinking into the ground.

  Still thinking of it as gathering? Sophie’s voice sounded cheerfully in her mind. And even though the voice belonged to Claire … Claire had nothing to say.

  Lyric carefully slipped out from her seat, and Claire followed. Trying to be as quiet as possible, they began to scurry up the aisle to the large domed doors at the back of the theater.

  “Weft!” The director’s voice boomed over them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Lyric stopped in her tracks. “I … Excuse me, Director?”

  “You’ve missed a day and a half of practice. If you want to be an understudy for Claudia”—he nodded in the direction of one of the younger dancers, who didn’t throw ribbons but scattered silk flowers across the stage—“you had better get your Flyers on and get up here.”

  Lyric gasped. For the first time, she was truly speechless. She didn’t move.

  The director frowned. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to travel to Hilltop Palace?”

  “Congratulations!” Claire said, trying to conceal the eagerness in her voice. She was happy for Lyric, really, but also it would be much easier to observe the protective measures around the Love Knot Tine if she didn’t have to worry about what she’d say to Lyric. She liked the younger girl and didn’t want to get her in any trouble. “Go on up there!”

  “But,” Lyric whispered back, “the tine! Your memory!”

  Claire gave her a gentle push. “I’ll be fine.”

  Lyric didn’t need to be told twice. She bounded up to the stage and disappeared into the wings. As the musicians again struck the first note, Claire turned her back on the stage and began to walk up the dark aisle.

  It was time to steal a crown.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Tapestries covered the lobby’s walls, and the carpet was so thick, Claire felt as if she were wading through wet sand. But though the lobby was beautiful, full of intricate and lush details, her eyes were drawn to a single spot. Two grand staircases curved down to the first floor, and in the center, like a charm on a necklace, was the Spinners’ Love Knot Tine.

  At least … Claire thought it must be the Love Knot Tine.

  It was hard to tell.

  Thick walls of glass surrounded all sides of it, distorting and warping its shape so that all she could make out from it was something vaguely crescent-shaped. It didn’t help, either, that the glass had been carefully cut and polished so that it sparkled with the intensity of the sun.

  Claire hastily drew her eyes away and checked to make sure she was truly alone. It seemed that she was and that Lyric’s theory was correct: the Wraith Watch was on high alert on the edges of the city instead of inside. Still, she was cautious stepping forward. In a world where everyone could manipulate magic in the material, anything could sound an alarm. Anything could be a defense. She scanned the ceiling. There were no obvious nets waiting to drop down from above, and the carpet under her feet seemed disinclined to wrap her up like a burrito.

  That left only the red velvet rope, cordoning off a six-foot circle around the pedestal.

  That definitely looked dangerous. Using the toe of her other foot, Claire slipped off a boot and tossed it inside.

  Nothing happened. She’d have to risk it. Holding up the velvet rope, she quickly ducked underneath.

  Again, nothing happened. Still, two minutes passed before Claire felt comfortable enough to slip her boot back on and step forward.

  Now she was close enough to see that the vault wasn’t just a typical glass box balanced on a podium like how so many artifacts were displayed in museums at home. The neck of the podium had been cleverly crafted to look like the trunk of a tree, its branches arching up and over to form the protective box around the tine.

  It took Claire one more step to realize that the podium didn’t just look like a tree—it was a tree. Glass roots sank into the carpet, disappearing into the foundations of the Historium. And the glass wasn’t glass at all but thick, clear diamond: a Diamond Tree Vault.

  Her breath caught. This diamond tree was jumbled magic, clearly of both Gemmer and Tiller craft. Which meant at least some members of the Tiller guild had joined the queen’s Royalists. She knew of at least one Tiller who’d already joined the queen’s army: Francis. He was Nett’s grandfather and Sena’s guardian after she’d been exiled from the Forger guild. And he’d been Claire’s friend. Or so she’d thought. In truth, he’d been a Royalist, and he’d figured out who Claire and Sophie truly were—and had betrayed them both.

  The betrayal still stung. Even now, when she thought about it, Claire had a hard time breathing. In fact, she felt weirdly out of breath, and her vision blurred.

  She caught a glimpse of the crown piece, though it was difficult to make out through the beveled glass casing. It wasn’t gold, like Claire had expected, or even silver. It was black. But the black of a raven’s wing, or eyes, or a starlit sky. The strange metal had been twisted into a point, with a hollow spot at its base meant for a stone, or perhaps a moontear.

  As if the sight of it had strangled her, she suddenly sank to her knees, gasping for breath. The sweater she’d borrowed from Lyric’s older sister had been too large for her just minutes ago, but now it was so small, Claire could see her wrists. But though the sweater was shrinking, it wasn’t tearing. It was clinging to Claire, squeezing her. Black dots swarmed at the edge of her vision, and she felt like she was drowning all over again.

  “Elaina—Elaina!” Lyric’s voice reached her as if from afar.

  Hands gripped under her armpits, and her legs burned slightly as she was dragged across the carpet. And then, suddenly, she could breathe! The sweater around her loosened, and the sleeves dropped back to where they should be. She lay on her back, letting her rib cage expand and contract, while a circle of faces looked curiously down at her, including one very angry face with wild white-blond hair.

  “How dare you disturb rehearsal!” the director exclaimed. “You know better than to go inside a Smother-Ring! You are hereby banned from the coronation celebration! No, banned from the entire Historium!”

  “Director,” Lyric said timidly, “she actually doesn’t know—”

  The director whirled on her. “What do you mean?”

  But before Lyric could reply, another one of the dancers—a boy with a long chin and even longer nose—gasped. “Oh, is that the girl whose thoughts have been Gathered? The one found washed up on the beach?”

  “I heard it was the harbor, actually,” said another dancer, her many braids and twists pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head. It bobbed and swayed like a question mark.

  “Lyric was there!” the boy said. “Lyric’s the one who found her—my little brother said he heard her mother yelling at her this morning.”

  Claire was surprised, but she knew she shouldn’t be. In a city of professional storytellers, of course news of the girl with lost memories would spread quickly. Which meant that soon, Mira Fray and the queen would learn of it, too.

  “Enough!” the director snapped. “You.” He pointed at Lyric. “Explain.” Lyric stepped forward and quickly rattled off The Story, and Claire tried her hardest to look as though she had lived through it. When Lyric was done, the director’s eyebrows had lowered so much that Claire thought they might slip off his nose. “Historian Fray warned of two dangerous girls who have been flouting the Guild Treaty and causing havoc for our queen. How can you be sure this is not one of them?”

  Claire’s heart caught in her throat. He had already guessed her identity!

  “She’s a Royalist, sir,” Lyric jumped in, and Claire’s heart inched back down. “She had her cloak on when I found her. And it’s not just any cloak—it was woven by Historian Fray herself and marked with the queen’s own seal. I checked the tag.”

  Claire tried to keep her face blank. She hadn’t realized that! With so many Royalists now in
Arden, she hadn’t thought to check to see whose cloak she might have been wearing. If it was one woven by Fray herself, then that meant it probably belonged to one of the Original Royalists on official queen’s business. Which meant someone before her had gone to the Spyden with questions—someone who worked directly for the queen.

  She didn’t know what it meant, but the thought unsettled her.

  “Hmm,” the Director said, weighing Lyric’s words. He looked around at the circle, which had grown to include not only dancers but other stage assistants. “Journeyman Weft,” the director said to someone Claire couldn’t quite see. “Is what your sister says true?”

  A young woman—maybe sixteen—stepped forward, her long black hair neatly looped into thin braids, then twisted into a knot on the top of her head. She wore a floating canary-yellow dress, and in her hand she held a notebook with one page marked by a feathered quill sticking out of it.

  Suddenly, Claire realized why Lyric’s smile had seemed familiar and where she’d seen Mistress Weft’s dark eyes before. And she realized that Lyric wasn’t saying Kay but K. A single initial. A nickname for a sister named—

  “Kleo,” Lyric said, looking relieved.

  She was indeed the same Spinner who’d helped Nett and Sena and her escape the Fyrton inspectors when Claire first journeyed up the river. Kleo, who’d spent afternoons with Thorn and Sophie in Fray’s floating library, sharing stories about unicorns, their histories and their magic.

  Kleo, who knew exactly who Claire was.

  “Yes, sir,” Kleo confirmed to the director, “that’s what our mother told me as well on the Hearing Thread.” Her brown eyes took Claire in, and there was not a spark of recognition within them. Could it be possible that Kleo didn’t recognize her?

  “If that’s the case, perhaps she should be at the infirmary instead,” the director said. “Especially if she can’t remember the warnings for a Smother-Ring.”

  “No!” Claire blurted out. If she were sent to a hospital, there would be no way she could steal the tine by Starfell. “I mean,” she backtracked quickly, “I feel better when I’m here, in the Historium, sir. I have a feeling my—my parents—” She tripped over the words. “They will come searching for me here.”

  “And why, exactly, did you go close to the podium?”

  For once, the words were right there on the tip of her tongue. “To see the Love Knot Tine,” she said. “Because of the queen’s seal in my cloak, I thought that maybe seeing it with my own eyes would help jog the memory of when I received my cloak.”

  “And did it work?”

  “Uh, no, not exactly,” Claire said. “I can’t really see it that well through the glass. But maybe if it was opened?” she suggested hopefully. She held her breath as the director gave her a piercing look.

  “I don’t think that’s wise, even if it were possible,” he said at last. “If you had come a month ago, you would have seen the crown clearly, no vault grown around it. But as it is, the vault is newly set, and can only be opened by the queen’s hand.”

  The director sighed and rubbed his temples. “This is much too distracting,” he said. “I think it would be best to send for Grandmaster Bobbin and make this his problem—”

  “I’ll look after her.”

  Claire turned her head and saw, to her surprise, that Kleo had spoken up. “I need an extra pair of hands if the sets are to be ready in time for the coronation.”

  There was one more beat of silence, and then the director let out his breath. “Very well, then. Elaina can assist until her parents come to claim her, but if you disturb my rehearsal again,” he warned, “you will face much more than a Smother-Ring—I guarantee that.”

  Claire could manage only a shallow nod as the director shepherded his flock of dancers and Lyric back to the stage, leaving Claire alone with Kleo.

  Suddenly, it felt like she was in the Smother-Ring all over again. Was Kleo going to summon Fray? Would she tell on her? But it seemed the older girl truly didn’t recognize her, because she gave Claire a friendly smile. “Follow me, Elaina. I need some help polishing the shoes for act three.”

  Claire’s heartbeat began to return to its normal rate. Maybe everything wasn’t lost after all. Maybe she would be able to figure out a way to break the tine free. She thought about what the director had said: only Queen Estelle’s hand could open the lock. If she were a Gemmer master or even a Gemmer journeyman, maybe she would have been able to sculpt a hand that looked like Queen Estelle’s or find a statue of her and animate it just enough to open the glass box. But Claire had only been able to chisel a rather misshapen boat from pumice rock back at the Citadel.

  With magical ideas from her days of Gemmer school still swirling through her head, she allowed Kleo to whisk her into a massive prop closet somewhere behind the main stage. Pairs of magical dance shoes roosted on shelves like plump pigeons. Sophie would love all these, Claire thought, gazing up at them in awe. Mom too.

  But as soon as the door clicked closed, Kleo whirled around and pulled on a string. A light flickered on, and Claire’s stomach dropped at the look of fury in Kleo’s eyes. “What are you doing here, Claire?”

  CHAPTER

  10

  So. Kleo did remember her.

  Slug soot.

  “I’m—I’m here because … because—” Because her sister was not just her sister anymore. Because a queen was looking to kill her, and Sophie would never, ever be safe in this world or any other world, so long as Estelle still had power. Because Arden was dying. But she couldn’t say any of that. “Because—”

  “You’re going to tell on me, is that it?” Kleo asked, her skirts rustling as she paced a tiny line in the closet.

  “What?” Claire shook her head. “No—why would I do that? I thought you were going to tell on me!”

  “Because if Mira—or Queen Estelle!—found out I helped you and let you escape, I would be … My family, it just can’t …” The Spinner trailed off, then sank onto the floor of the closet with a loud groan, settling in between a pair of red cowboy boots that looked startlingly out of place and some leather sandals that looked not unlike Dad’s favorite pair. “I figured it all out, you know,” Kleo mumbled into her hands. “When Historian Fray came and told us of the queen’s return, we all began to study what the Royalists have known for years. ‘A great unicorn treasure—a place where fire meets water.’ ”

  When Kleo looked back up, Claire realized it wasn’t fury in her eyes at all but fear.

  Kleo took a ragged breath and went on. “Mira Fray says she is looking for two girls—two sisters—who tried to steal the moontears away from her, but … I knew Sophie. I saw her wearing the necklace long before the queen’s return. She didn’t steal it from anyone. Why would Fray lie? What else is she hiding?”

  Claire opened her mouth, but Kleo held up her hand. “Don’t tell me. The less I know, the better.” She stared fixedly at a pair of tap shoes as though they might have the answer. Finally, she looked up. “This is what’s going to happen. You’ll stay with me today so I can keep an eye on you and make sure no one asks you too many questions.”

  “You’re not going to turn me in?” Claire asked, hope rising within her.

  “I’m not,” Kleo said, though her eyes were worried. “I can’t risk getting my family in trouble. I’ll help you as long as you make sure Lyric doesn’t find out who you really are and you leave first thing in the morning. Do we have a deal?”

  The morning. That left only a few short hours in which to figure out how to steal—gather, really—the Love Knot Tine. It wasn’t enough time!

  “Actually,” Claire said slowly, “I need to stay here just a little bit longer. I need to …” But she stopped talking, as Kleo shook her head.

  “No,” Kleo said. “You can’t. It’s not just about me—it’s also about you. It’s too dangerous for you to be in Needle Pointe. All these shoes and ribbons and dresses, they look pretty, but they can be downright dangerous. If you’re not a Spinn
er, you could get hurt. Badly.” She pointed at the red cowboy boots. “Do you know what those are?”

  Claire glanced down. “Boots?”

  “They’re Seven League Boots. Take a single step with them, and you’ll suddenly find yourself seven leagues away from where you started.”

  Claire stared at them with new interest. “What’s so bad about that?”

  “Do you know how many buildings and trees are between here and seven leagues? If you’re not careful, you could splatter into a wall. There are Method Mules in here that if you slip them on, they can turn you into the previous owner—they’re popular for actors getting into character, and sometimes they never come off. And it’s not just shoes.” Kleo waved her arms. “There’s an entire closet here named the War-Drobe, filled with dresses that if you put them on, they will set you on fire, and feathered boas that take after the snake they were named for. A trained Spinner can recognize what is a crafted object and what is just a usual set of underwear, but if you’re not trained—and not a Spinner—then everything here is dangerous. So—do we have a deal?”

  Her mouth dry, Claire nodded.

  Kleo sighed and glanced around. “Now. Where to put you?” She tapped her feathered quill nervously against her lips. “How are you with a needle and thread?”

  “I can make friendship bracelets?”

  “I don’t know what those are,” Kleo said with a shake of her head that sent her inky-black hair bouncing. “What else can you do?”

  Claire could do lots of things. She could make gems glow and clay explode and unicorns come out of rocks, but she didn’t think that was going to help her case with Kleo.

  “I can draw,” Claire offered.

  Kleo brightened. “Great! You can work on some traveling backdrops that we’ll need once Queen Estelle is in court. Most Spinners prefer to be in the spotlight, not painting backgrounds. So they’ll hardly notice you.”