“What?” Claire shifted and swallowed more of her stew.
“Oh nothing. It’s just … do we really trust these scholars? Poison? And what about those Hypnotizing Opals you were telling me about?”
“Mesmerizing Opals,” Claire corrected automatically, and shuddered. That had been Identification Class, which Claire thought might be easier, since it didn’t involve direct magic, just a sharp eye for detail. Which, her art teachers had always said, she had. But as Claire had picked up a seemingly harmless black stone, it began to flicker with different colors. She had paused, unable to look away from the shifting rainbow that darted just beneath the rock’s smooth surface. The rock seemed to be winking at her, calling her to follow it …
Claire. Claire!
She had not wanted to look away. She could not look away.
Somewhere deep within her, Claire had known that this was strange, but she had not cared. The rock had been enough. The rock had been everything …
“Claire!”
Suddenly, the rock had been pried free from her fingers, and the spell had broken. With increasing horror, she had learned that she’d fallen into the entrapment of a Mesmerizing Opal, a dangerous bit of Gemmer magic that allowed the gem’s wielder to ensnare the mind of whomever looked directly at it. A horrified Master Pumus hadn’t known how the opal had ended up in the apprentices’ training stones, claiming that the Citadel had banned them a hundred years ago.
For the rest of the day, the apprentices hadn’t been allowed to touch so much as a single jeweled button and had instead spent the remainder of the afternoon reviewing the more dangerous and deadly gemstones. Claire hadn’t had a full night’s rest since.
“Yeah, Mesmerizing Opals, S.A.S. Class—that’s scary stuff, Claire.” Sophie chewed on the end of a carrot stick but her voice had taken on a familiar, ominous tone. “I just wonder what else they’ve got planned.”
Claire sighed. “Is this about the battle plans again?” Sophie hadn’t been able to let that go.
“I don’t know why you don’t believe me.” Sophie took a sip of goat’s milk. “Just today, the Wraith Watch was crafting arrowheads that are supposed to pierce through metal. I saw them come into the kitchens for extra silverware to use as targets.”
“So?”
“So, the Wraith Watch is supposed to only protect against the wraiths,” Sophie said. “These arrows are specifically made for targeting metal. And metal means—”
“Forgers,” Claire said. “So?”
“So,” Sophie hurried on quickly, “yesterday I also saw one of the guards try to make a stone arrow—no wood on it at all. Which was something they did back during the Guild War, so that the Tillers wouldn’t make their arrows burst into bloom midflight. I wish there was some way we could let Aquila and Anvil know. I’m telling you, Claire, the Gemmers are up to some—”
“Sophie, stop.” Claire dropped her spoon. She was so tired she thought she might cry. “I know what this is about.”
“It’s about the Gemmers plotting something!” Sophie exclaimed.
“No, it’s about you being bored. And I’m sorry, but I need to concentrate or I’m never going to wake the moontears, and we’ll never go home.”
Home. Mom. Dad.
“Claire,” Sophie put down her carrot. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Claire sighed. Sophie just didn’t understand. Even though she tried to give Sophie magic lessons every night before bed, sharing what she’d learned from the day, there hadn’t been the tiniest crumb of change in Sophie’s Gemmerhood.
And now, it was time for Claire’s nightly meeting with Terra, where, once again, they would try something new with the moontears.
“I have to go,” she told Sophie, and grabbing her tray, left the table.
By now Claire had a better sense of her way around the echoing halls of Stonehaven, but she still couldn’t shake Sophie’s unsettling words as she made her way alone down the passageway that led to the stairs in the north tower, which housed Terra’s study.
When she finally arrived outside the door, Claire automatically reached for the knob—the study had become familiar enough by now that she didn’t need to knock anymore—but something stopped her from turning it.
There were voices coming from inside. Angry voices.
She leaned closer to the door to try to hear.
“She’s dangerous,” a man’s voice scratched out. Claire’s heart flipped upside down. It was Jasper’s voice.
“She’s a child,” Terra admonished, and Claire’s pulse slowed a little until she heard a third voice.
“If she can’t prove herself soon, we will do what we must.” That was Grandmaster Carnelian. Claire heard a rat-a-tat and imagined him tapping his large cane against Terra’s desk. “We can’t have people pretend to be royalty every day. If this gets out to the lowlands, they may think we’re trying to crown a new queen of Arden, which would mean …” Carnelian trailed off, but Jasper finished the thought:
“War.”
CHAPTER
9
Claire’s stomach practically fell to the floor. So Sophie was right. They were preparing for war. Or at least, that is what it sounded like! And it was all because they didn’t believe in Claire—they thought she was a fake.
She turned to run back down the stairs and find her sister when there was the scrape of a chair being pushed, followed by Terra’s voice, “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I must end this meeting. We’re scaring Claire.”
Claire swiveled around just as Terra swung open the study door. Claire looked up into Terra’s magically magnified eyes. Had she been able to see Claire through the door? What could those odd spectacles see?
Behind Terra stood Jasper, scowling, of course, along with Carnelian, the wrinkles of his face folding into amusement.
“Hello, Claire,” Terra said calmly, pulling the door open wider so that Claire could enter. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I must attend to my next appointment.”
“Very well,” Grandmaster Carnelian said as he leaned on his cane. “I have my own appointment with that delightful-looking pudding Cook Koal created. Commander, will you join me?”
Jasper’s eyes glittered, and Claire had the sensation of tiny beetles crawling over her skin. There could be no doubt about it: the commander did not like her. The line of his jaw locked, but finally he nodded. “If you insist, Grandmaster.”
Without one last glance at Claire, the two men left. Terra walked to her desk, the layers of her amethyst dress fluttering out behind her like purple smoke.
And then, just as she did every night, the scholar opened her desk drawer and removed the moontears.
“Tonight,” she said, placing the necklace in front of her, “I thought we’d try—”
“What’s the point?” The words burst from Claire just as her Grail had this afternoon: unexpected and all over the place. “Why do you keep making me try if Stonehaven doesn’t believe me?”
Peering over her spectacles, Terra fixed a stern glare on her. Claire shrank back. She knew better than to talk to grown-ups that way, especially teachers. She waited for Terra to announce her punishment—lines, more homework, an hour helping Sophie clean the goat pens—but instead, the scholar folded her hands in front of her and said, “What makes you think it matters if Stonehaven believes you or not?”
Taken aback, Claire scowled down at the book in front of her. This one was entitled Ivory and Mud: The Rise of the d’Astora Family. “Please don’t tell me something cheesy about needing to believe in myself.”
“I would never.”
Claire looked up, unsure if Terra was teasing her or not. “How am I supposed to believe in myself if I can only make things explode?” she demanded. “No matter what I do, I’m doing it wrong. I have magic, it just doesn’t listen to me. Sophie—”
She broke off.
“Sophie, what?” Terra asked, bowing her head toward Claire. Tonight, the scholar had offset her evening lavender dress with te
n or so tigereye chokers that wrapped around her neck like a turtleneck. And though Claire’s neck was bare, her throat felt tight, as if she were the one wearing all the necklaces.
“Sophie should be the Gemmer princess,” Claire said quietly.
“Why do you say that?”
Claire opened her mouth to respond, then stopped, unsure how to articulate her sister. Sophie was everything Claire was not. She was brave. She never gave up. She liked adventures. And it was Sophie who had first figured out Prince Martin’s riddle. Sophie cared deeply about Arden’s history and its unicorns. While Claire … well, Claire just wanted to wake the moontears and bring her sister home.
“Because she wants it,” Claire said, looking Terra in the eye. “She came to Arden looking for an Experience. For magic. I only came here looking for her.”
Terra sat back in her armchair. “Have you ever considered that’s why the magic chose you?”
Surprise jolted Claire like an electric current. “What do you mean?”
“Sophie doesn’t need magic to make her try new things, while you, Claire, might wait around forever hoping everything stays the same.”
Claire blinked, uncomfortable again under the spectacles’ gaze. There was such a thing as seeing a little too much.
The funny thing was, though, Sophie had needed the magic. Unbeknownst to Claire, Sophie had first run away into Arden seeking a cure for a mysterious disease. And when the unicorn had healed Sophie’s chest wound on the Sorrowful Plains, he seemed to have also cured the rest of Sophie as well. Sophie had even said as they journeyed with Anvil that she felt even better than she did before that awful summer—and Claire believed her. Her sister had never seemed stronger, or more Sophie. Maybe Sophie wasn’t a Gemmer because she generated her own brand of magic, a mixture of strength and courage.
Wanting to break Terra’s gaze, Claire asked, “Do you believe us?”
At that, the scholar smiled and tapped the manuscript in front of her. “From what I’ve been reading, I believe that you and your sister are both stubborn enough to be d’Astoras.”
“I’m not stubborn,” Claire protested. “Mom always said I’m the easy one.”
Terra raised her eyebrows. “So it’s not stubbornness that makes you keep coming to me evening after evening even though we’re no closer to waking the moontears than we were before?” She paused. “It’s not always a bad thing to be difficult.”
Claire wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t want to tell the scholar she was wrong, so she stayed quiet.
“All right, then,” Terra said, picking up the necklace and putting it in her desk before standing up. “Follow me.”
“What about the moontears?” Claire asked, still in her armchair.
“They don’t seem to be in much of a hurry,” Terra said with a glittery shrug. “They can wait another night.”
Left with no choice, Claire stood and followed Terra.
At night, Stonehaven seemed to be carved from moonlight rather than stone. Tall candelabras bedecked with glowing diamonds lined the larger halls, while the tiny corridors were left in indigo darkness. Claire shivered slightly. A breeze had found its way inside, and it seemed to be brushed with the scent of autumn. She couldn’t help but feel that she was at the end of something, but she wasn’t sure exactly what she was at the end of … or what the new beginning would be.
As Terra swished through the hallways, mostly empty except for a pair or two of drifting Wraith Watch on duty, Claire heard a hum. It was different than the hum of magic that would surge through her bones while she crafted, but nevertheless, it seemed to settle deep in her chest. The hum grew louder, and as they turned a corner, Claire could make out a distinct melody. A few steps later, the hum turned into words.
Spring in its steps,
And flowers of snow,
There the unicorn goes.
Hey diddle dee
And hey diddle low.
Terra opened a door, and Claire found herself in a cozy chamber filled with the Gemmers of Stonehaven. But they were far from the tired, solemn people Claire had grown used to seeing at dinnertime. The men and women she usually only saw in clay-splattered smocks or carrying pickaxes from the quarry now lounged about the chamber, some on benches, some on pillows set out on the floor. Many held clay mugs in their hands, from which steam wafted up like a careless thought. And all of them were singing.
Song in the crystal,
And stars under falls,
There the unicorn calls.
Hey la de lome
And hey la de la.
They sang without hesitation, each voice blending into the next. And as she took in the crowd of Gemmers, Claire saw the familiar faces of the apprentices scattered throughout the room, sitting with their families. Even obnoxious Geode, sitting between a freckle-faced woman and a man with a big furry beard, seemed to be actually enjoying himself.
“What song is this?” Claire asked.
“The Unicorn Song,” Terra whispered back. “It’s one of the most popular. They’ve been singing it every night since your arrival. And do you know why?”
Claire shook her head.
“Because Gemmers know the secret in stone is pattern. Rocks are made up of crystal structures that repeat over and over and over again.” Terra raised an eyebrow above her spectacles as she looked down at Claire. “We are like rock. Patterns form in rock and in us. Our lives are made up not from crystal structures but from stories, and stories—history—often repeats. And so when we sing this song, night after night, we remember that stories repeat, which lets us hope that one day, the unicorns will return.” Then Terra joined in, her voice low and round like the notes of a cello.
Bridle of gold,
Beneath doors of fate,
There the unicorn waits.
Hey diddle lee
And hey la de lome.
As the song wound its way to the end, Claire watched Zuli whisper something to Lapis, who burst into quiet giggles. Grinning, Zuli glanced up and caught Claire’s eye. A smile broke across her face, and she waved for her to come over.
Terra leaned down and whispered, “Go. Join Lazuli and the others. Princess or not, you are one of us. Stories repeat. Don’t forget it.”
With gratitude, Claire crouched and hurried to sit next to the twins.
“It’s good to see you here,” Zuli said with a grin.
“It’s not good, it’s excellent,” Lapis corrected.
“It’s stupendous,” Zuli shot back, crossing her eyes.
An older woman with pearl-white hair stepped into the center and began to sing a soldier’s farewell to his lover, who vowed to transform into rubies and smoke if he never returned. As Claire listened to the song, Zuli gave her a nudge.
“Lapis has something to give you,” she whispered, and her brother reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a charred clay marble.
“Is that—”
Lapis nodded. “Yep. All that remains of your Grail. On the mountain, we say that your first piece of a new craft holds special luck.”
“Some luck,” Claire muttered.
“It is,” Zuli said earnestly. “Didn’t you see Geode’s dive under his desk? He was literally hiding from some clay dust!” She smiled and Claire felt the corners of her mouth tug in response.
The singer’s voice grew louder as the soldier in the song approached the battlefield, and his lover cut her hair to prove her dedication.
“I wish it was that easy,” Claire sighed. And when Zuli and Lapis looked at her quizzically, Claire hurried to explain, “to prove myself.” Even here, encased in diamond light, she couldn’t shake Carnelian’s doubt or Jasper’s accusatory stare. While Terra’s words were nice and all, they were just that: words.
“I just want to get one thing right,” Claire said, and Lapis patted her knee sympathetically as the song soldier and lover died a spectacular death on the battlefield, all that whining and promise-making for nothing.
T
he chamber burst into applause and the woman curtseyed. “Quarrel in the Quarry!” someone shouted out, and the rest of the Gemmers cheered in agreement.
“Oh, I like this one,” Zuli said, leaning forward. Two journeymen with fiddles struck up a bouncing melody and the whole chamber joined in. The whole chamber, that is, except Claire. For a few lines, she tried to sing along, guessing the words, but it was like they were speaking a whole other language that Claire couldn’t grasp.
Slowly, she stood up from the cushion.
“Where are you going?” Lapis asked.
“I’m tired,” Claire said, and it wasn’t a lie. She was—plus she needed to practice. Maybe if she worked a little harder on polishing, she’d be able to finally wake the moontears. Squeezing the clay marble in her pocket, Claire hurried out.
The music and warmth of the sing-along faded, but Claire could still make out the deep-voiced men as they sang a song of the mountain. Though she could no longer distinguish the words from one another, the melody resonated within her, sending shivers up her arms. She wished, for a moment, that she could be in there, sure of herself and belonging to Stonehaven instead of just being a strange little nobody who had Gemmer magic, but could not make it work.
When she arrived at their room, it was empty. Where had Sophie gone? It wasn’t possible that Grandmaster Carnelian had called on her for more errands, was it? But Sophie could take care of herself, she always had, while Claire needed to practice. The misshapen marble in her pocket dug into her thigh as she sat cross-legged on her bed.
The sooner she could control her magic, the sooner she could wake the moontears, and the sooner they could go home—to a place where Claire knew her spot at the dinner table between Mom and Dad. To a place where she could sing along with the music Sophie always blasted when it was her turn to do the dishes.
Fighting back exhaustion, Claire dutifully took out the ruby earring and a polishing rag. Her bones began to tingle as pink light trickled out between her fingers—but she needed to make it brighter. Stronger.
Biting her lip, Claire scrubbed harder.
“You can do it,” she urged the glow, as the hum of magic swelled inside her. “Come on, you got this!”
Secret in the Stone Page 6
