“Your Majesty!” he yelled, running forward. “The unicorn! Take its heart. Stop your Shadowing!” But before he could utter another word, the diamond hooves slammed back down on the ground, and the unicorn kicked back—connecting with Jasper’s chest. The former commander of Stonehaven flew against the wall and slumped down, knocked unconscious.
But the damage was done.
The unicorn sank to his knees, his glorious horn drifting toward the ground next to Estelle, who still held the ram’s head cane. Estelle’s black hair was now brittle white, her skin so cracked that it reminded Claire of fissures in the desert. She looked all of her more than three hundred years, but her eyes—gray as Dad’s, gray as Claire’s—were the same. And her hands still clutched the ram’s head cane.
“No!” Claire said, terrified. Estelle was going to take the unicorn’s heart! Suddenly, Claire found she could move freely again. She leaped to her feet and reached to grab the cane away, but she was too late. Estelle had already lowered it to the unicorn’s streak of red. The blood no longer glistened, it gleamed. Like rubies.
Claire faltered. Estelle was not trying to harvest the unicorn’s heart for a last chance at immortality. Estelle was trying to heal the unicorn.
But she was fading too fast.
They both were.
The queen and the unicorn looked as though they were eroding away, like rock beneath a waterfall for a millennium—all in five seconds.
“The sun,” Claire thought she heard Estelle whisper into the unicorn’s ear, and with the last of his strength, the unicorn lifted his horn to Estelle’s heart.
Together, he seemed to say.
Wishing stars and wishing hearts can’t be all that different, can they? Sena had once said, not so very long ago. Claire knew, from tales and life, that sometimes a heart could contain a wish so big, it was capable of changing everything.
The chamber was filled with a sudden rush of wind, throwing dirt and dust into the air. Coughing, Claire squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to stumble closer to the unicorn, but she tripped, sprawling onto the floor.
The breeze settled as quickly as it had come.
All was silent.
All was still.
Jasper must have regained consciousness and fled, because he was gone, and it was only Claire and Sophie in the octagonal chamber.
No queen. No unicorn.
Except there, where the last queen and the last unicorn had stood, in the middle of the broken rocks and stones, grew two flowers: a single snowdrop and a morning glory, the first flower that greeted the sun each morning.
And, encircling them both, the Crown of Arden.
Coughing, Sophie staggered over and sat down next to the blossoms. “Claire,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse, “the Spyden was right. Your Spyden and the one in the unicorn’s memory!”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked, coming to sink down beside her sister. She was so tired, she thought she might sleep for the rest of her life. “The Spyden told me only a queen could defeat a queen, and Nadia isn’t here—and she wasn’t crowned!”
Sophie’s fingers skimmed the petals, stark white against the crown’s ebony. “But a queen did defeat a queen. Queen Estelle was defeated by … Queen Estelle.” Her sister looked up, and Claire saw a veil of tears over her eyes. “All this time, all those years, Estelle thought that the only thing that would prevent her from turning completely into a wraith was if she had a new heart. A unicorn’s heart. But all she needed was a change of heart. A moment when she, at last, decided to break her own pattern.”
Bewilderment pressed on Claire, pushing her forehead into a frown and the corners of her mouth down. It seemed impossible, improbable, but Sophie knew things. Still … “She did terrible things,” Claire said fiercely. “She wanted horrible things. That doesn’t erase it.”
“It doesn’t,” Sophie agreed. “And Arden won’t forget. But her story won’t end entirely in shadow.”
“Hmm,” Claire said. She wanted to make sure that whenever a new poem was written about the last queen of Arden, it would contain all the correct details. And she knew just the Spinner she could trust who would take down Claire’s every word. A ray of light tumbled through the stained glass. Sometime during the struggle, dawn had broken.
“We need to go tell—tell everyone,” Sophie said, looking exhausted by the thought.
Claire nodded, but her attention had snagged on something: a bit of gleam in the grit.
“Sophie, look,” she said. The moontears, whole and perfect, lay just a few feet away. With a strangled cheer, Sophie shot to her feet and put the moontears around her neck. But Claire didn’t feel like cheering. Estelle was gone, the moontears retrieved, but something still felt … wrong.
And suddenly, she realized what it was. “Sophie, it’s dawn!” The unicorn’s memory of the Spyden came back to her.
“So?” Sophie asked as Claire scrambled for her Hollow Pack and grabbed the spyglass.
When the last unicorn with crystal horn is extinguished the wraiths will no longer have anything to fear, not even the sun.
Claire hurried to the window and peered out with the spyglass. All across Arden, she could make out pockets of shadows, like billowing smoke. But it was not smoke. Horror gripped Claire in its jaws.
“Estelle’s warning,” Claire croaked out. “ ‘When the last unicorn with crystal horn is gone’—oh, Sophie! It happened.”
The sun had risen, but the wraiths remained.
CHAPTER
27
Claire and Sophie sprinted out of the stained-glass chamber and clattered into the hallway. Slipping a bit on the marble floors, they sprinted down the corridor and toward the “Forbidden” sign that Claire had previously ignored. In the growing sunlight, she realized she did actually recognize this portion of the Citadel. If she and Sophie were to continue down that way, they would reach a spiraling staircase that descended deep into a large cavern filled with stone statues of warriors: the Memorial of the Missing, a remembrance for all the Gemmers whose bodies had never been recovered in the Guild War.
“This way!” Sophie called over her shoulder as they tore down another hallway. Sophie had somehow found the tail end of the abandoned B.P.S. and was frantically winding the yarn as they retraced their steps. Claire, meanwhile, had her hands full with the Crown of Arden.
Even though it hadn’t been blessed by a unicorn’s horn and still did not sing the way it had in the pencil’s memory, the crown remained a powerful example of jumbled magic. And with the approaching onslaught of sunlight-immune wraiths, Claire knew the guilds would need every last bit of help. But the crown was heavy, and that in combination with her Hollow Pack slowed her down. Up ahead, Sophie was already turning the corner—
“Ah!”
“Sophie!” Claire cried as her sister’s shout echoed down the stone hallway. Fear pushed her legs faster. Had the Royalists come back for Estelle and caught Sophie instead? With one last gasp of breath, Claire flung herself around the corner … and saw familiar faces.
“Claire!” Zuli said, the Gemmer apprentice’s tight curls bouncing with joy. “It’s so good to see you!”
“You mean, it’s great to see her!” Zuli’s twin brother, Lapis said.
“Stupendous,” Zuli shot back.
Behind the Gemmer twins stood Nett, Sena, and Thorn, all panting heavily.
“Slug soot,” Nett wheezed, “I’m so glad we found you! We thought the Royalists might have gotten you—”
“There was an infiltration!” Sena jumped in. “But this preamble”—she reached behind Thorn and pulled Lyric into view—“sounded the alarm and they were caught pretty quickly. That’s when Nadia and everyone realized that you two had disappeared, along with the Crown of Arden.”
“We thought you might have been kidnapped!” Thorn said, his voice tight. “But Lyric found me and told me she thought you were still somewhere inside Starscrape. She described it for us—”
“—and we gues
sed where you were,” Lapis finished.
“How did you do that?” Claire asked Lyric.
Lyric looked a bit sheepish. “When I lent you the B.P.S., I also kind of slipped a Snitch Stitch into your pocket. I overheard you describing stained glass windows and I heard the arrival of the Royalists. That’s how I was able to warn everyone in time. I’m sorry!” she added quickly as Claire reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out a thin red string. “I know you’re not supposed to eavesdrop, but you just disappeared last time, and I wanted to make sure I could find you again!”
Next to her, Sophie made a muffled sound somewhere between a snort and laugh. Claire shot her sister a look and Sophie pulled herself together. “That’s all right, Lyric,” she said. “I’m sure Claire understands. But where is Nadia now? We need to talk to her right away!”
“She was planning to ride out of Starscrape to look for the two of you,” Nett replied, worry in his eyes.
“No!” Claire gasped and dumped the crown into Zuli’s arms to pull out her spyglass again. She half-ran, half-stumbled to a narrow window. With an expert click, she slid open the instrument and held it up to her eye, searching for any flash of chimera that might have been sent out on a search mission. Meanwhile, she heard Sophie telling the others what had just happened—and what was coming for them.
“But if sunlight doesn’t work, we’re utterly defenseless!” Nett cried. “Nothing we have will protect us. Fighting wraiths like that will be like trying to fight a hurricane, punch a tornado, or hug a wildfire: Futile. Deadly. The elements will always win. The most we can hope for is to survive—to just survive one more day and the next and the next! It’ll be an unending storm!”
“But magic is always stronger surrounded by other magic,” Sena, always stubborn, pointed out. “With all the guilds together—and the crown!—maybe we’ll be all right.”
At that moment, Claire spotted Nadia, and relief rushed through her. She was still on the Wall. She was still safe. But that’s where Claire’s relief ended.
Because as she turned the spyglass beyond Starscrape Mountain, she could see dark clouds roiling across the land: wraiths. They were closer than they had been only a few minutes ago. Much, much closer. The wraiths were swarming toward Constellation Range and Starscrape Citadel, where they still thought they might find their queen.
She snapped the spyglass shut and whirled around just as Thorn spoke.
“But there’s just not enough magic left in Arden to face them,” he said softly. “We need unicorns.”
Sophie lifted her chin, and as she did, the four moontears at her throat winked. Claire wished that the unicorn had managed to wake them with his horn before he’d left, and she could feel her heart breaking.
“We still need to try,” Sophie said.
They all took off at a sprint.
If only there were more moontears, more unicorns, more magic. They would need an entire sky of falling stars—like Starfell—for that wish to come true.
Wishing stars and wishing hearts can’t be all that different, can they?
As she ran, Claire felt like she was trying to solve a puzzle painted by the Impressionists. A painting made up of millions of little dots that finally, if you stood far away, made a beautiful whole. For three hundred years, the guilds had been their own dots and taken with them their own sayings and traditions.
The Spinners celebrated Starfell by dancing with ribbons to imitate unicorn manes and tails as they ran up the mountains to meet the stars. But the Forgers celebrated something else—the finding of unicorns in the snow. Claire’s heart was pounding now. Maybe even unicorns in mountain snow. The Tillers celebrated the coming of winter with a cookie named after a springtime flower, but it was also a flower that bloomed in a unicorn’s steps. And the Gemmers—Claire looked around—they lived on Starscrape mountain.
She stopped running, while the others sprinted ahead. All except Sophie, who immediately fell back. “Claire? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Claire said, her heart racing as she remembered the dazzling display of falling stars from just the night before. “I know where there are more moontears!”
“What?” Sophie gasped, her hand flying to the necklace. “What do you mean?”
The answer to everything was right there, in all the tales and traditions of Arden. Individually, the guilds’ customs seemed like fun ways to celebrate, but together they wove a greater tapestry. A greater meaning. A truth that had been lost as the guilds drifted apart.
“Moontears,” Claire said, barely able to get out the words. “They’re falling stars that landed in the mountaintops!” She felt like laughing. She’d even thought that the stars had made it look like the moon was crying last night.
“Every year,” Claire hurried to explain, “the unicorns would run up the mountains to greet the stars—that’s what the Spinners say. But I bet it wasn’t just to greet them, but to waken the new moontears that had landed in the mountain snow. And no one ever realized that’s where moontears came from; because there were so many unicorns, it was impossible to know that more had been added to the herd.”
Sophie gasped. “That means—that means there could be thousands of moontears, collecting under the snow for the last three hundred years. But I can’t awaken them!”
“That’s all right,” Claire said, because she knew that it was. “Moontears are the Great Unicorn Treasure! They’re still incredibly powerful. If we can bring more down to Stonehaven, they will make all our magic stronger! Arden might stand a chance against the wraiths!”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Zuli and Lapis ran back to them, while the others sprinted ahead, calling out for the grandmasters to gather and for someone to get Nadia right away.
“We need to get out of the Citadel,” Sophie said. “Without the grown-ups knowing—No, Claire!” She held up a hand to stop Claire midprotest. “They won’t let us leave the walls, especially once they know about the wraiths and the sunlight!”
Sophie was right.
“We know a way,” Lapis whispered, as a Tiller journeyman sprinted down the hall, calling for reinforcements. “But are you sure you need to? Maybe the Crown of Arden will be enough.”
Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t sound right, but—oh!”
She broke off. Because for the first time since they’d left the stained-glass chamber, she listened, really listened. A song emanated from the crown—one as clear and strong as there had been in the pencil’s memory.
“It’s been singing this whole time,” Zuli said, looking down at the gleaming black circle “and it only got louder and louder the more we talked.”
Claire gaped. Maybe the Crown of Arden wasn’t a powerful tool after all. Maybe all it really was, was a measuring tool: a way to gauge the bond between guilds. When the bond was weak, the crown was quiet and magic seemed less plentiful. But as the relationship between guilds strengthened—as they bonded, planned, helped, and forged friendships—the crown’s song and Arden’s magic was at its most powerful.
The true strength of a leader wasn’t found in some crown, but in the strength of their people. The true crown of Arden … was the guilds themselves. And from the way Sophie had just gasped, Claire knew her sister had figured it out, too. Claire looked at Sophie and nodded.
“Yes,” Sophie said, her voice strong and full of hope. “We still need to leave. There’s no time to explain! We need to move fast, before the wraiths arrive, or else it will be too late. Can you show us the way?”
“Come on,” the twins said at the same time. “Follow us.”
With Zuli and Lapis’s help, the Martinson sisters slipped out of the Citadel using one of the secret entrances that was no longer manned by Gemmers.
All hands were now outside, helping to fortify the Everless Wall against the oncoming onslaught of shadow.
Starscrape Mountain was tall, but it wasn’t the tallest mountain of Constellation Range, far from it. There were taller peaks—peaks that were always capped in w
hite—one of which they could reach if they just followed a goat-trodden dirt path up for a mile.
The way was steep, and the air was thin, but both girls ran their hardest. Claire knew if they could make it to the peak and bring back moontears, it might be enough.
It had to be.
But.
Each breath Claire took felt like a knife to her lungs. She paused a moment to catch her breath. She shielded her eyes, but the jagged peak didn’t seem any closer than it had before. How much longer did they have until the wraiths reached Stonehaven? She fumbled for her cloak pocket and pulled out the spyglass and directed it at Starscrape Mountain. From here, the Citadel looked like an upside-down teacup, one of the porcelain ones she’d once helped Dad pack away. Something precious and beautiful and easily shattered.
She pulled the spyglass back a bit, then stopped. There was no need to refocus it.
The wraiths were already there—at the base of Starscrape Mountain! Which meant— Claire bit back a scream as she swept the spyglass over the rest of Arden.
Wherever she looked, there was evidence of wraith-burn. Entire towns and villages were full of shivering, gray-skinned people. And still it wasn’t enough for the wraiths, who continued their march on Starscrape Mountain, to finish what they believed to be their queen’s last wish: destroy the last unicorn.
Destroy Sophie.
But Stonehaven—and all of Claire’s dearest friends—would be destroyed first.
“We can make it,” Claire said, collapsing the spyglass with a snap so that the instrument seemed to agree with her. “Come on!”
She began to run, but almost immediately, she slipped. The path, which had only been wet before, was now icy as the wraiths drew nearer. Only then did Claire realize she didn’t hear the crunch of gravel behind her. “Sophie?”
Her sister hadn’t moved. Her back to Claire, she was still looking down onto the frosting swoop of the Citadel’s topmost turret. Though Claire couldn’t see Sophie’s face, she could see the taut lines of her body as she held perfectly still, her entire being focused on their friends below. She was so quiet, Claire wondered for a second if her sister had forgotten how to breathe. Only her ponytail, dark with its Milky Way streak, held any movement.
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