And as she felt the coral’s hello, she became aware of a welcoming song in the water all around her, the tiny notes cradling her and carving away the panic for one single instant. And into that space, a memory came to her in startling, water-clear detail:
Late-afternoon sunlight streamed into Starscrape Citadel’s classroom as the apprentices settled around their millstone desks, craning their necks and whispering excitedly to one another. Bowls of brightly colored powders lined the front table, looking like ground sidewalk chalk. Some were a rich mustard, others a rusty red, while one pewter pot held a blue so dark that it could have been a piece of crushed midnight.
The classroom door opened, but instead of Scholar Pumus, Grandmaster Carnelian strode in, his ram’s head cane beating a staccato clip as he wound his way among them.
“Wake up, apprentices,” he grumbled as he moved to the front of the workroom.
The students sat up straighter. “Good afternoon, Grandmaster,” they chorused.
“Scholar Pumus is needed today to work on the Grand Hall’s gargoyles. The last storm did significant damage to the pipes. He’s asked that I show you a bit of my specialty: glass.”
Claire cocked her head, frowning.
“Claire, do you have a question?”
Claire’s ears burned red. The grandmaster never seemed to miss a beat. “Uh, I was just wondering … what does glass have to do with rocks?”
The titters that flitted through the classroom were all Claire needed to know that she’d asked a silly question.
Carnelian stood at the front, glaring at his charges until they quieted. “Apprentice Claire has asked an excellent question,” he said. “One that we should all review. Who would like to help answer her?”
Zuli’s hand slowly rose into the air, and when Carnelian nodded at her, she spoke. “Glass is melted sand,” she explained. “And sand is comprised of rocks that have been beaten by the elements, like wind or water, until they turned into small grains.”
“Well said.” Carnelian nodded. “Glass is my favorite form of rock. Mountains might be tall and mighty, but they’re young. Sand grains, though, they are the ancient mountains. They’ve traveled the world, the oceans, the air. They’ve taken so much but withstood so much, too. Nothing, in my opinion, holds our history better than glass. It’s fragile, yet it protects. With glass, you can even paint light …” He held a prism up to a sun shaft, and suddenly rainbows swirled around the workroom.
The class let out a collective breath of wonder, Claire among them.
“What are you waiting for?” Carnelian said, dropping the prism into his pocket. “To the front!”
Claire now knew who sang those tiny notes of welcome. They were the greetings from the millions upon millions of sand grains that floated in the sea’s endless waters. Claire was surrounded by possibility—so long as she didn’t pass out.
A jolt shot up her arm as the Lode Arrow hit the seabed, sending up a billowing cloud of sand, and with it came another memory: a family vacation, not so long ago, when Sophie had just started getting embarrassed about playing make-believe in public. But on this trip, a rare one for the Martinson family, whose vacations usually consisted of a week camping in a state park, Sophie had played make-believe with a vengeance. There had been Experience after Experience: from the secret messages in every bottle to the cracking paint in their vacation rental that Sophie claimed was actually a coded treasure map. Sophie even had, for one morning, played dolphins with Claire, and they’d spent the entire afternoon building sand châteaus and mermaid tails.
The memory gave her an idea.
With her one free hand, Claire grabbed at the sand on the seafloor. It disintegrated into a blurry cloud around her. But she kept the memory of playing in the sand with Sophie close.
Using her artist’s eye, she spotted the curve of a fin in the murky sand, the same way she would have spotted a sheep in summer clouds. She moved her hand wildly back and forth, thinking about all the times she and Sophie had scraped wet sand into a pail and turned it upside down, followed by the nervous anticipation of lifting the bucket away to reveal either a slender turret or a crumbling mess.
Sand liked to cling together. Each little grain had once been a part of something large, of something more than itself.
Whenever you feel small, Mom always used to say to her, just remember that we are all part of something much bigger, even if you can’t always see it.
Claire called to the bits of sand that had come from the coral, from the living stone, and asked them to remember what it had been like to be a part of a giant animal.
From some of the grains, she caught a whisper of snow and pine. This was the sand that had once been the mighty shoulders of Constellation Range.
Stick together! Claire pleaded. Ignore the water that separates you!
And meanwhile, she would try to ignore the burning sensation in her chest and the black dots creeping into her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the end coming.
She was running out of time.
Were her fingers tingling? She couldn’t tell. They were numb from the cold of the water. Her heartbeat seemed to be slowing, and she feebly waved a hand, urging the sand to remember its capability to traverse the currents, its ability to shift and change and adapt …
Then: something hit her hand—the one stuck to the arrow.
Claire’s eyes flew open as a great sandy beast rushed at the arrow again.
And it was either the rough scrape of sand against her skin or her utter shock at the grin of the newly sculpted Sand Dolphin, but in that moment, the connection between her palm and the Lode Arrow broke.
Claire was free.
But she was also out of air and out of time. She was too weak.
The Hollow Pack on her shoulders shackled her down, and the magic—the great, tremendous magic she’d just crafted—had wrung her out like a sponge. Reaching the surface was impossible.
There was a nudge again, this time at the small of her back, as the Sand Dolphin pushed her up with its nose. In a swirl of bubbles, it was suddenly in front of her, its backfin between her fingers. With the last drop of her strength, Claire closed her fingers around the fin and clung.
With the power of a geyser, the Sand Dolphin shot upward. And even though Claire could feel grains of sand slipping away as it pulled her up through a dozen feet of water, she still held on.
They burst from the water! For one soaring moment, the salt water and raindrops were one and the same, and Claire was a part of it all—sea and sky, water and rock and breath.
The Sand Dolphin neatly tucked itself in for the dive. They hit the surface, and the Sand Dolphin disintegrated on impact.
The grains twirled around Claire’s arms and legs, as if to say they’d had fun and they should do it again sometime. One more gentle nudge, and she realized the sand had swept her close to a beach on the far side of the Needles, hidden from the Spinners’ town. A few yards later, she was able to touch the bottom.
She dragged herself through the water and waded onto the pebbled beach, where she promptly collapsed, taking hungry gulps of air, feasting on it. She hardly noticed the rain that still poured down, even though the thunder was diminishing in the distance.
In fact, Claire hardly noticed anything at all, until the creak of a door reached her ears, and she realized she was not alone.
CHAPTER
3
Claire struggled to sit up, her waterlogged tunic clinging uncomfortably to her. As she pushed herself onto her forearms, she clearly saw the pink of her skin. The Invis-Ability had completely washed away, leaving her as exposed as a shell-less snail. In fact, with the rain clouds still thick over the setting sun, all color seemed to have vanished as well.
And maybe that was why she hadn’t immediately noticed the little gray house perched precariously on a rock jutting into the hidden bay. It was more of a squat tower, really, with beach stones haphazardly stacked on top of one another like Dad’
s stack of overflowing books. A tiny staircase of driftwood wrapped around it, leading to a landing a few feet above the still agitated waves—and an opened door.
Claire scanned the pebbly beach she’d washed up on. She didn’t see anyone. All there seemed to be was this house, her Hollow Pack flung a few feet away from her, and the sharp rock wall that shielded her from the eyes and ships of Needle Pointe.
Which meant that whoever had opened the door must still be inside the house, watching her. Could it be a Spyden?
Claire tried not to be afraid. After all, finding a Spyden was why she’d come all this way. To save Sophie.
On that night on the Sorrowful Plains, which seemed so long ago now, Sophie had been pierced by a Royalist’s arrow, and the unicorn Claire had released from Unicorn Rock had healed Sophie. Or so they thought. It turned out, however, that the unicorn had changed Sophie instead, setting her on the path to becoming one of its own kind: a unicorn.
But why—that Claire still did not understand. Or how.
Would Claire wake up one morning to find that her human sister was completely gone, replaced by the creature of starfire she’d only glimpsed once before? Or would it be a slow and gradual change, with all of Sophie’s hair turning creamy white first, and then … what—a delicate crystal horn protruding from her forehead?
Claire shook her own head, wincing at the thought. She knew lots of girls who wouldn’t mind becoming a unicorn. She’d been to plenty of unicorn-themed birthday parties in the past, and even her own Language Arts folder had a picture of a unicorn galloping in the moonlight. But that was just it: unicorns belonged on invitations, on cupcakes, and in magical worlds—not in her family.
And Queen Estelle believed that the only place unicorns belonged was on a shelf—as a hunting trophy. Unicorns were creatures of pure magic, and unicorn artifacts crafted from their manes, their tails, their hides, could make guild magic stronger.
Sophie, as far as Claire knew, was the last unicorn in Arden. The unicorn Claire had freed from the rock seemed to have vanished into thin air. Which meant that all of Queen Estelle’s focus would now be on hunting Sophie so that she could drain the last of the unicorns’ magic for herself and regain the throne …
Unless Claire could find a way to keep Sophie human—and safe.
Which meant she had to be brave—had to seek out a Spyden and ask it the right questions.
“Helupf?” Claire coughed. Her mouth, which had only minutes before practically swallowed the entire sea, was now as dry as chalk. Dragging herself to her knees, her tunic squelching uncomfortably, she felt for the smallest outside pocket in her Hollow Pack and pulled out her pencil. It was slightly damp, but luckily it hadn’t snapped in two. Pencils were hard to find in Arden, which was why Claire had held onto it, even though it came with memories of Terra.
Scholar Terra had been the Martinson sisters’ first defender at Starscrape Citadel and their biggest advocate. She’d taught Claire how to coax the magic from stone on purpose, had believed Claire’s wild story of calling a unicorn from stone, and gifted her with Charlotte Sagebrush’s famous pencil. Around Terra and her mass of curly black hair, glittering rings, and magical spectacles that seemed to always cut through to truth, Claire had felt that maybe she’d found a place in Arden where she belonged. Terra was a friend—until Claire learned that her name wasn’t Terra at all but Estelle. Queen Estelle. And the only reason she’d helped Claire was because she needed a Gemmer princess of Arden to call the last unicorn to her.
In Arden, one always had to be ready, and so Claire kept the pencil in her hand as she called out again, “Hello?”
Her voice was barely a scratch, but there was a response this time: the sound of many footsteps behind her.
Claire twisted around and tried to scramble to her feet, but her legs felt about as sturdy as sea-foam. And so she stayed where she was, on her bum, her Hollow Pack now too far away to nab anything useful from it. And though there were rocks all around, she was so tired. So, so, so tired.
The footsteps stopped. And then …
“You look like a pretzel.”
No. Water must still be in her ears, because Claire was definitely, one hundred percent hearing things. Because that voice—Claire knew it as well as her own.
She snapped around to see the figure of a girl emerging from behind a few boulders lying on the beach. And though the girl wore a long black gown edged in lace and a funny tall cone hat with a gossamer veil that quivered as she jogged over, Claire recognized the wide, wild grin beneath it.
“Sophie?”
“Of course it’s me!” Sophie said. “Who else would you be expecting?”
The answer was practically anyone else, ranging anywhere from an angry Royalist, to a suspicious Spinner, to Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. When Claire left Woven Root a week ago, Sophie had been curled up and fast asleep in their tent. There was no way she could have traveled here this fast, ahead of Claire, without Claire even knowing.
… Could she?
“B-but—” Claire spluttered. “When did you— What did you— How?”
“I came by cloak,” Sophie said, shooting Claire an older-sisters-always-know look as she came to a stop next to her. “Obviously.”
Claire tried to close her gaping mouth. Sure, she knew Sophie was a Spinner. They had all only recently discovered it: that Sophie could pluck the chords of potential within fabric so that they could snag the wind’s currents and fly. She just didn’t realize how quickly Sophie had mastered her new ability. It had taken Claire weeks to even spark a ruby.
Sophie reached down to pull Claire to her feet, and even though Claire’s legs were wobbly, she remained standing. Her knees seemed to have locked in shock. She still couldn’t believe this. Sophie was supposed to be in Woven Root, where it was safe. And yet here she was, always one step ahead of Claire—and never listening to her.
“I told you to stay in Woven Root!” Claire said, her voice shaking. She couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion, or anger, or something else entirely. Her emotions seemed to bleed into one another, like splattered paint.
First there was fear: that her sister wasn’t behind the protective secret curtain of Woven Root.
Then annoyance. She should have known better than to think Sophie would ever let her do anything by herself. That Sophie would ever trust Claire enough to take care of something on her own.
Finally—and worst of all—relief. She wouldn’t have to do this all herself. And for some reason, the relief made her even angrier.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Claire stated, twisting the pencil into her hair.
Sophie held out her hands, her expression wounded. “Did I do something wrong? I was just trying to look out for you!”
“But you don’t need to!” Claire yelled, too tired to rein in her fury. All that sneaking, the nights spent pressed under carrots, the slippery climb up the crow’s nest, the lightning, the near-drowning—it had all been for nothing if Sophie was not safe.
“Shh,” Sophie said, her eyes growing wide. “The Spyden might hear you.”
Claire wanted to stamp her feet. “How do you know about that, too?”
“I just …” Sophie sighed. “I sense these things.”
It was as if Sophie’s sigh had blown out Claire’s anger. Because it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Claire feeling hollow and alone.
Sense these things—because her sister was an almost unicorn. Was that what she meant?
“But what about all this?” Claire asked, pointing to Sophie’s strange outfit. She looked like she belonged in an old oil painting and not at all like she should be on a beach.
“Hey, let’s get you inside,” Sophie said, gently brushing a wayward curl off Claire’s forehead. “You’re shivering. I can tell you everything once you’re dry.”
“Okay but … have you actually seen any Spydens?” Claire asked, eyeing the strange house and the open door warily.
“Don’t worry—it
’s safe. I’ll explain everything. I promise. But now that the sun has set, we should, you know …” Sophie didn’t have to say anything more, because Claire knew what would happen when the sun set: the wraiths would begin to stir.
No one knew where Arden’s hordes of wraiths had come from, but they had started to appear around the same time the unicorns had begun to go extinct. They were creatures of coldness and shadow, their forms skeleton-like but horrifically elongated, with odd swinging gaits, and they could wield fear like sharp claws. According to Arden lore, Queen Estelle was supposed to be able to defeat them. The legend had been kind of right. Because while Queen Estelle might be able to defeat them, she had no reason to: the creatures of terror obeyed her every command.
Claire quietly watched Sophie bend down and sling Claire’s Hollow Pack over her shoulder. And when she felt her big sister wrap an arm around her shoulder, Claire let herself sink in. This was how they always were, and maybe this was how they would always be.
Together.
They skirted the scalloped edge of the sea and made their way up the driftwood stairs and to the open door.
A strange smell tickled Claire’s nose as she stepped inside, but she brushed it away like a crumb and took in her surroundings. It was dark, except for a few embers that glowed in the small black stove at the far side of the room and provided enough light to see. It wasn’t as cozy as Aquila Malchain’s gold-and-blue-painted cottage, nor was it as airy as Claire’s tent in Woven Root, but it was clean, and the spare wooden furniture had a certain elegance to it.
The only thing that hinted at luxury was a dusty tapestry that hung over a spinning wheel. Claire wondered if a spinning wheel could turn straw into gold here, but there was no straw in sight, just a basket of lumpy wool and a blue sleeve.
A jolt of electricity shot through her spine.
Stepping away from Sophie, Claire hurried over to the basket. A royal-blue cloak—just like what Royalists wore—lay there like a deflated balloon.
Fire in the Star Page 2