Fire in the Star

by Kamilla Benko

  The closet door cracked open, and light fell on her. Claire looked up from the boots to see Thorn’s eyes widen. “It is you,” he gasped. “How—?”

  But Claire didn’t hear the rest of his sentence.

  She’d already taken a step.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Once, not so very long ago, shortly after the Martinson family arrived at Windemere Manor, Dad had pulled out the cleaning sprays and Mom had tossed the girls a few rags. Before all Aunt Diana’s treasures and artifacts could be organized and packed up for the estate sale at the end of summer, the mansion itself needed a good scrub.

  Carpets were rolled up and suds splashed out of buckets as the family tackled the grime. But it wasn’t too long before sponges and rags lay abandoned on the windowsills while Sophie and Claire, socks on their feet, took turns running and skidding down the long corridor.

  “I’m practicing for the Olympics!” Sophie had called as she’d swooshed past their disapproving parents.

  “We’re drying the floors!” Claire had added in the split second before she’d crashed into an old pirate’s chest.

  That’s what the Seven League Boots felt like, as if that split second of pitching forward had been extended into an eternity.

  One second, Claire was in the shoe closet, and in the next, the world was yanked out from beneath her, sending her toppling forward, past Thorn and through the door—and straight toward the stone wall of the Historium.

  Claire threw out a hand. Maybe if she hit the blocks just right, the stone would—she wasn’t sure—turn soft? Become sand? Or, more likely, she thought to herself, her finger bones would be the first to shatter, the sound of their snapping a prelude to the crunching of her ribs, and spine, and skull.

  She didn’t want the last image she saw to be of the Spinners’ Historium, so Claire squeezed her eyes shut and let her memory flash backward to Sophie, leaning over to help her up from the floor while Mom and Dad flicked soapy water at them, sending bits of white foam high into the air.

  “Not fair!” Sophie had shrieked as she raced outside and onto the manor’s sprawling yard. “You’re taller than us!”

  “And you’re younger! You should be able to run faster!” Mom had said before overturning a bucket of clean water over both their heads.

  The memory continued—but how? Claire should have hit the wall already! She should be in smithereens! Slowly she opened her eyes. Her mouth dropped open as she saw that not only had she somehow maneuvered around the wall, but that she was now speeding through the Historium’s front doors, mercifully left open by Thorn and the guards. But though she was racing through Needle Pointe’s narrow and twisty streets, Claire didn’t so much as bump an elbow or scrape a knee, and townhouses and bridges were seemingly whisked away a split second before she would have crash-landed into them.

  It was the weirdest sensation. Even though Claire knew she was moving—even though wind whipped against her, blowing her braids back and pulling her cloak—she felt as though she were staying absolutely still. As though she were a needle in a sewing machine, staying in one place but still crossing yards of fabric as hands twisted and tugged the material beneath. And like the needle, Claire bobbled and lurched, feeling at every moment that she would somehow fall flat on her face. But she never did. Instead, the boots whisked her out of Needle Pointe and into the wilds of Arden.

  Trees and narrowboats and meadows swept by her toes so fast that they looked like stretched shadows. As Claire skidded across the landscape, her arms windmilling at her sides, a jolt of laughter leaped from her, surprising herself and a herd of sleeping cattle, which thundered into a stampede at the sound. But she wasn’t in any danger. They were already gone, yanked away before hooves could trample her. An orange-streaked shadow swept by, probably a lantern-lit village. Giddily, Claire wondered if anyone looking out their windows could see her, and if they did, what they thought she might be: a fleeing deer, a touchable breeze, the friendly passing of a ghost.

  A whisper from a unicorn.

  Slowly the streaks around her shortened and started to take solid shape again. The world was slowing down, and at last, the earth itself seemed to rise up just a bit to reach the sole of her cowboy boot.

  In a single step, she had traveled seven leagues. Which, Claire supposed, was something more than a mile, but she wasn’t really sure. Breathlessly, she looked around.

  There was no sign of Needle Pointe, or its ships, or even its towering cliffs. Now, the tallest thing she could see was a row of squat fruit trees. She’d exchanged a bustling port city for an orchard, and instead of salt, there was only the sweet fragrance of crushed apples.

  Dizzy from the rush and slightly discombobulated, Claire brushed her finger against the pencil still woven fast in her hair and felt the soft bump of the leaf. It must have been a lucky sprout. Only sheer luck could have stopped her from splattering into anything. And only sheer luck could have set her down in a corner of an isolated orchard and not in the center of a busy village square, or worse—smack-dab in the middle of a Royalist meeting. But how long would the luck hold? Her next step could send her to the bottom of a lake. She needed to think. She needed to plan. She needed to know what had happened to the Love Knot Tine … Did Estelle already have it?

  Being sure to keep her boots’ soles firmly planted in place, Claire let herself topple back into the grass … except the grass didn’t feel like grass. Grass was soft and ticklish, but what she’d sat on was something both hard and squishy.

  Something that yelped, “Ow!”

  Hands pushed at Claire, and she rolled off into a harvesting cart’s dirt path. Scooting on her backside and hands, Claire scrambled from the soft mound as it slowly pulled itself into a seated position. Suddenly, she realized it wasn’t just the wind that had been pulling on her cloak earlier: Thorn Barley had followed her.

  Claire leaped to her feet, boots still on.

  “Wait! ” Thorn said, struggling to stand up, his long blue coat getting in the way. “Don’t move! You’ll hurt yourself without me guiding the Seven League Boots!”

  So. It hadn’t been a lucky leaf that had saved her. It had been one lying, traitorous, fake prince. Anger simmered in her chest. Thorn had claimed a lot of things before. He’d claimed he would show them a shortcut through a mountain. He’d claimed that Mira Fray wanted to help. He’d claimed he was Claire and Sophie’s friend.

  But he’d tried to lock them up anyway.

  “Sorry if I don’t believe you,” Claire said and lifted her foot.

  “Please,” Thorn cried. “I need to talk to you! It’s about the queen—and the unicorn!”

  Claire froze, foot still in the air. She couldn’t move forward or backward. She was stuck yet unbalanced, like a dandelion seed teetering on the edge of the stalk. She’d needed to find out what had happened to the real Love Knot Tine and collect the three other tines, all before Starfell—but.

  What did Thorn know about the unicorn?

  What did he know about Sophie?

  Claire swayed, and Thorn moved toward her.

  “Stay back,” Claire ordered. “If you get any closer, I will put my foot down. What about unicorns?”

  Thorn nodded quickly. “I will, only, just … please sit down. I’m not kidding about the boots.”

  Claire would rather wobble on one leg than trust Thorn, but she couldn’t risk accidentally putting her foot down before she found out what he knew. And so, for the second time that night, Claire let herself tumble back onto the ground. Her hand squished down into a rotten apple, but she didn’t care.

  “Tell me,” she demanded, crossing her legs but leaving her red cowboy boots on.

  For a moment, Thorn stood silent, looking just as he always did: blue eyes bright beneath sandy hair, with ears that stuck out just a little too much, though he did appear taller than when she’d last seen him a few weeks ago. A growth spurt might have accounted for the new hollows in his cheeks, or maybe that was due to the thin c
irclet of gold that flashed in his hair.

  “When we were at the Drowning Fortress,” Thorn began slowly, “Sophie said something about the queen, something I didn’t believe.” He stumbled over the words, and his eyes remained fixed on the distance somewhere over Claire’s shoulders. “Do you remember?”

  Claire frowned. “You said you had something to tell me, Thorn. Not the other way around.” She was surprised at how cold her voice sounded, but if she let herself unfreeze even a little, her own question would escape, the one she wanted to scream to the entire orchard: Does Queen Estelle already have Sophie?

  “Right, sorry.” Thorn ducked his head, and his hair fell forward to cast a shadow across his cheek. “I overheard something. Something the queen didn’t want me to hear, but she has this—this plan to save Arden. And it’s … it’s horrific,” he finished with a hush.

  The only useful unicorn is a dead unicorn. Claire shivered as Estelle’s words seemed to creep across her skin. The last time she’d seen the queen, Claire had been trapped with her friends in an underground treasury while the queen bedecked herself in unicorn artifacts. Some of the objects had been made of mane and tail, but the others … the others had been hewn of horn and hoof, sinew and leather. Things that could be harvested only from a unicorn that was …

  An image of Sophie, soaking wet and laughing as she ran after their mother on the front lawn of Windemere Manor, flashed across her mind. Claire couldn’t bring herself to finish her thought.

  “Thorn,” Claire said, taking a deep breath. “What do you know?”

  Thorn looked up at the sickle moon. It was even thinner tonight and would disappear entirely in just a few evenings. Its points, though, were sharp, and when Thorn looked back at her, it seemed as though the moon had sliced his soul in two. “Queen Estelle says that to get rid of the wraiths—she’s ordered me to …” He gulped. “She needs a unicorn’s heart.”

  Claire’s own heart beat once. Twice, then stopped entirely.

  “And does she have it?” she asked, her voice sounding very far away. “The heart? The unicorn? Sophie?”

  “No,” Thorn said, shaking his head quickly. “She’s still looking for a unicorn, but—” He looked at her quizzically. “Why do you think she has Sophie? Is Sophie missing again?”

  “Sophie’s fine,” Claire said over the pulsing in her ears. Her heartbeat had returned with a rush.

  Queen Estelle hadn’t told him who Sophie was. What Sophie was. That was good. The fewer people who knew, the better.

  Still, as she looked at Thorn, a bit of apple mush dripping down his linen shirt, she was confused. “Why are you telling me the queen’s plans now?” she asked. “When we told you the queen was not what the legends said, you didn’t believe us!”

  “That’s just it.” His fingernails clinked against the circlet as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I didn’t believe you, so why would other Royalists believe what I’m saying? You are one of the only people who might believe me—and help me.”

  “Help?” Claire asked. “Help you do what?”

  Thorn lifted his chin. “Stop the queen.”

  Old Claire would have believed him. There, in the moonlight of an apple orchard, in his long blue coat, tall boots, whip coiled at his hip and a circlet of gold around his brow, he looked like a prince from a fairy tale. One who knew exactly how to storm the castle and defeat the dragon, or in this case, the queen. But Claire wasn’t that girl anymore. And even though she wished she could trust his words—words that would make everything so much easier—she couldn’t.

  At least not yet.

  “What about your magic, Thorn?” Claire asked as she slowly uncrossed her legs. If he was really just stalling, trying to give his fellow Royalists time to locate them, she’d be ready. If he uncoiled the rope at his hip, she’d be ready. “Aren’t you afraid if you defeat the queen,” she prodded, “you’ll lose your magic?”

  A shadow flitted across his face, and she could see his lips turn down ever so slightly. “Yes,” he admitted. “And so will everyone who got their magic after the queen woke.” His breath caught. “My grand always dreamed of the day Queen Estelle would return, but she wouldn’t have wanted it this way. Not if it costs us our unicorns.” His voice strengthened. “I would rather have no magic than live in a world without the chance of it.”

  A cold wind blew by, rattling the autumn leaves, lifeless and brown, around her feet. Claire took a breath as she considered his words. Thorn had lied, yes, but he’d also helped Sophie, Sena, and Nett escape from the Drowning Fortress. And he’d directed the other Royalists in the Historium away from her. And because of him, she hadn’t become a Claire-shaped smear across one of Needle Pointe’s townhouses.

  Claire slipped a hand into her cloak’s pocket and felt the curve of her pink marble. “Thorn, do you know what happened to Unicorn Rock?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It was already destroyed by the time I got there.”

  “And did you ever wonder if maybe Sophie and I beat you to the Sorrowful Plains?”

  Though it was dark, she could practically feel the heat coming from his cheeks at the mention of his lie. He’d told them they could take a shortcut through Mount Rouge, when in truth, he’d hoped the twisting miners’ tunnels and cave-ins would slow them down. “I just—I never really thought—”

  As he sputtered into the night, Claire pulled out her marble. With a quick brush against her sleeve, she set it aglow. Light pulsed in her palm, looking as though she’d fished a tiny pink star from the ocean of sky.

  Thorn’s eyes bugged out. “Claire! You’re a Gemmer?”

  “Did you know a wyvern lives in Mount Rouge?” Claire answered his question with a question. “I asked her for help, and she guided us out.”

  “Guided you out?” Thorn repeated incredulously.

  “Well,” Claire said, thinking a moment more, “we actually rode her out.”

  “You—you rode a wyvern.” He shook his head. But though the tone of his voice was disbelieving, the expression in his eyes as he stared at the glowing marble was one of a hungering hope.

  “I found my magic before you even got to the Sorrowful Plains. Before you woke Estelle,” Claire said and wrapped her fingers around the marble. Light streamed out from around her knuckles, sending rays of pink light to dance across Thorn’s tunic. “You’ve always had magic, Thorn. Estelle can’t take it away from you.”

  Claire wasn’t a natural storyteller like Sophie or a trained one like Kleo or even an enthusiastic one like Lyric, but she’d gone over the events of that night so many times that the words came easily: the hours in the Petrified Forest, the truth behind the hunter, and Prince Martin’s great gamble to flee with the Great Unicorn Treasure until Arden was safe for unicorns again.

  As she spoke, Thorn began to look like he had more in common with an empty seashell than a fourteen-year-old boy. And when she was done, he, too, was sitting on the grass, his head bent to his knees.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, but finally, he spoke. “Ever since I was a sprout, I’ve been a burden. First to my grand, then to the rest of Greenwood. I was a lackie who was only good for shoveling straw for the horses. But then everything changed for me. I was Historian Fray’s assistant. I’m the one who woke Queen Estelle. Now I’m a prince!” His breath hitched. In the moonlight, he looked vulnerable. Fragile.

  “All I wanted,” Thorn whispered, and Claire couldn’t be sure if he was speaking to her or not, “was to prove to everyone that I could be a hero—even if I didn’t have magic. That they had misjudged me. That I … that I matter.”

  In the last word, there was enough sorrow that Claire could feel its weight. Like the moon, it tugged on her own currents of emotion, stretching and pulling them into a different shape. She recognized the loneliness in Thorn’s voice. It had clung to her both in Windemere’s halls and in Stonehaven’s corridors. Claire looked at the pink marble in her palm. She had changed so much since she’d cli
mbed up that chimney … Why couldn’t Thorn change, too?

  Pulling her feet in closer, Claire first removed one boot and then the other. Then she took off the Hollow Pack and reached into its limitless belly. Wiggling her hand around, she felt what she thought was a squishy package of oatmeal mix and then the smooth, thin metal of the ReflecTent before her fingers finally brushed against something sticky. She grasped it tightly in her palm, a tiny grin playing on her face.

  “Hey, Thorn,” she called softly over to where he still had his head buried in his knees. “What do you know about Spydens?”

  CHAPTER

  14

  The next morning, Claire woke to a crinkling tap on the outside of the ReflecTent.

  “Hey, are you awake?” Thorn called softly. Blearily, she opened her eyes to see a Thorn-shaped shadow outlined on her tent by the newly risen sun. The shadow raised a hand and tapped again. “Claire?”

  “I’m awake,” Claire mumbled and, stifling a yawn, she pulled herself up. She had tried to stay awake to help Thorn, really she had, but after two nights of almost no sleep, the world had gone fuzzy around the edges. Thorn had been the one to pull the ReflecTent out of the pack and tell her to rest. Claire had been too groggy to argue.

  Claire yawned again. “Everything all right?”

  “It’s done,” Thorn said simply.

  Any trace of sleepiness immediately vanished. As quickly as she could, Claire crawled out of her sleeping bag and out from the tent. There was a chill to the air, and frost laced the ground. Claire reached back to grab the Royalist cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders before hurrying to Thorn’s side under an apple tree. In his hands, he held what looked like two lumpy, loosely knitted ski hats.