Secret in the Stone

by Kamilla Benko

  “Like that flagstone?” Sophie pointed to a large swath of darkness on the floor.

  The flagstone was the only one in the entire cell that had no glowing outline. Claire grinned at Sophie. “Exactly.”

  Sandwiches forgotten, the sisters spent the next hour trying to pry up the door with their fingertips … to no avail.

  “Nothing’s easy,” Claire told Sophie, who was beginning to complain.

  “I know, I know. That’s what Mom always said before we went to the hospital.”

  “And what did you say to that?”

  Sophie snorted. “That she was welcome to get stuck with needles instead of me.”

  Claire smiled slightly. She used to hate talking about that time, the time when Sophie was first sick, but now it seemed so far away that maybe it was okay to laugh about it. Their old world, the world they had come from through the chimney, was beginning to seem hazy, while Arden was so alive and so real. And though Sophie had started to get sick again in the real world, the unicorn from the rock had healed her. Arden had healed her. Anyone could see it.

  Mom and Dad would see it, too, just as soon as they got back home.

  Claire turned back to the flagstone trapdoor. “If only there was a handle …,” she muttered.

  “I wish you still had your pencil,” Sophie said with a groan.

  “Oh!” Claire reached into her hair, which was now somewhere between a beehive and a nest rather than an updo, and withdrew the pencil. “Terra gave me this—but how would it help us?”

  “Excellent,” Sophie said. Still on her hands and knees, she tapped the flagstone. “Why don’t you draw a doorknob right here?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “I’ve seen how good you are with a pencil. You know how to make things look all realistic, like a photograph. If you draw a doorknob, maybe it’ll become real, too.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” Claire said. “If that were true, I’d be able to draw unicorns into existence. Or maybe a way to get home.”

  Sophie tilted her head, but didn’t say anything. And Claire knew she wouldn’t until she’d tried. Sketching in an arc, Claire tried to think of how doorknobs looked at home. And what one would look like in the mortar’s dim light. This pencil didn’t fit in her hand as well as the one she’d lost in the wyvern’s cave, but it still felt good to draw again. This was a kind of magic she understood.

  “Don’t forget screws,” Sophie said, leaning in so close that tips of her hair brushed the floor. “It won’t turn without screws.”

  Claire rolled her eyes, but added them in.

  “Hey, that doesn’t look bad,” Sophie said a few minutes later. “Try now?”

  Sticking the pencil back into her hair nest, Claire sat back on her knees. She tilted her head. Sophie was right. The handle didn’t look bad. In fact, if she squinted a little, it even looked pretty real. Reaching out her hand, she tried to grab the smooth handle—but her fingertips just scraped against bare rock.

  “It doesn’t work,” Claire said. “I told you it wouldn’t.”

  Sophie elbowed her over. “Let me.”

  Claire scooted back, her silk skirt catching. Miserably, she looked at the billowing fabric. This dress was meant for sitting at a banquet table holding a goblet. It was not meant for a prison break.

  “I got it!” Sophie whispered triumphantly.

  Claire’s head jerked up. “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of flat, but if I pinch it—get back!”

  The flagstone beneath them groaned, then slowly rolled back to reveal a stone staircase that spiraled down into the darkness.

  “How did—did I really do that?” Claire gasped.

  “Not without my help,” Sophie said. And as she said it, Claire realized it was true. Her magic may have made the door handle, but she’d never have thought of it without Sophie. It was like Sophie had a magic all her own, a kind of magic that inspired Claire’s, that made Claire’s magic clearer and stronger. They were a team.

  Standing up, Sophie shook out her skirts, took a breath, and then studied the map in the glow of Claire’s sapphire light. “I think I know where this leads. There are some chutes in the kitchen cellar that were once used to send war supplies down the mountain quickly.” She grimaced slightly. “I thought it was a garbage chute at first. Cook Koal fixed that mistake.”

  “Then let’s go,” Claire said. “The faster we can get out of Stonehaven, the sooner we can find Anvil, and go home.” The image of Mom and Dad popped into her head. She wondered how much time had passed since she and Sophie had last gone up the chimney, and whether they were worrying about them even now.

  “Home,” Sophie repeated softly. “But what about the moontears? Are we just going to leave them behind?”

  The white stones flashed into Claire’s mind. The moontears. Unicorns. Maybe they weren’t ever supposed to be woken. Maybe Prince Martin hadn’t meant for them to be given back.

  “The moontears are better off here, in the hands of the Gemmers,” Claire said quietly. “I’m not the princess. And if only the true princess can awaken the unicorns, then there’s no use in taking them.”

  Sophie was quiet, thinking. “There’s so much I’d miss if we went home,” she said at last.

  For a moment, Claire thought of the friends she’d met here: Nett and Sena. Aquila and Anvil. Even Zuli and Lapis. But she and Sophie were now wanted people in Arden. Not only did the Gemmers think they were spies, but the Tillers believed they were thieves, and the Forgers knew they had broken guild laws. It wasn’t safe for them.

  And now that Sophie had been healed, there wasn’t any reason, really, why they should stay. But still, she didn’t want to seem like a coward, not after everything they’d been through.

  “Where else could we go to be safe?” she asked.

  Sophie shrugged. “We’ll be safe if we can call the unicorn back. That’s why I grabbed this.” From her gown’s long sleeves, she pulled out something long and delicate: the crystal flute.

  “Sophie!” she gasped. “Why did you do that? The flute doesn’t work. And they’re going to know it’s missing!”

  “They’re going to know we’re missing, too. That’s why we’ve got to hurry, silly,” she said, grabbing Claire’s hand.

  Claire looked at the steps. “But we don’t even know the way!”

  “Obviously, I remembered this, too. Just in case.” Sophie pulled the bronze Kompass out from her gown’s pocket. “You may be the one with magic but I’m obviously the one who plans ahead. Now, let’s go.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  The stairs and tunnels were completely dark, except for the glimmer of light that seeped through the cracks between stone blocks. With regret, Claire had extinguished her sapphire. If light could get in, it could also get out.

  It felt like they’d been running for hours, though it could only have been minutes. Claire and Sophie had taken off their shoes to make less noise, and now Claire’s feet were beginning to ache from running along the stone floors of the secret passageway, and the silence around them, except for their panting breath, had begun to close in on Claire. It was as though they were moving through the internal organs of the Citadel—the dark was so dense that it sometimes seemed like the walls themselves were breathing.

  And then, suddenly, the passageway wasn’t silent anymore. A man’s voice drifted toward them. Was someone else inside with them?

  But no, the voice was coming through a crevice in the wall. Clutching her skirts, Claire walked forward as quickly as she could, hoping that the tinkling clatter of sapphire against sapphire would be mistaken for old pipes rattling.

  A line of light filtered through the crack.

  “And what do the Tillers say?” the man’s voice asked.

  Claire froze. It was Jasper!

  “The Tillers don’t want to be involved, one way or the other,” a second voice, female, trickled through the wall in answer to Jasper’s que
stion. Claire frowned. There was something familiar about that voice …

  Sophie stopped short, and Claire nearly ran into her. She had obviously recognized the voices, too.

  “One week from today,” the female voice continued, “you will be Grandmaster of Stonehaven—the head of all the Gemmers. You just need to do your part.”

  “I’ve already done my part,” Jasper said sulkily. “I’ve locked up the imposters. I don’t know what else the Royalists need from me.”

  Mind spinning, Claire pressed fingers to her temple. Sophie had been right! The Gemmers—or at least Jasper—had been planning something. She tapped Sophie on the shoulder, wanting to let her know how sorry she was for not believing her. But Sophie, instead of looking at her, sank down onto her knees, and pressed her eye to the crack.

  Curious, Claire leaned over her crouching sister, and peered through, too.

  She was staring into a small office with a checkerboard floor and austere fireplace that had been lit with something that made the flames cherry red. The only decoration, as far as Claire could tell, was a display of obsidian spears fanned out like turkey feathers above the mantel.

  Jasper was seated behind a desk, and a white-haired woman in a blue cloak sat opposite. The same woman who haunted Claire’s dreams: Mira Fray.

  To most in Arden, Mira Fray was a renowned Spinner historian who spent much of her time along the Rhona River collecting stories and was respected by all guilds as a woman of truth and honor.

  But what most did not know was that Fray—educated, intelligent, practical—was also the leader of the Royalists, a secret society that believed Queen Estelle had been turned into a rock, and that when she awakened, she’d defeat the wraiths, bring back unicorns, and magic would flourish again.

  It was Mira Fray who had ordered the Royalists to kill Sophie that awful night on the Sorrowful Plains—willing to risk anything, even human life, on the chance that Queen Estelle would emerge from stone, and defeat the wraiths once and for all. Which would have been great if it were true.

  But the truth was that the real queen had been evil, and that she’d been the one who’d ordered a massacre on the Emerald Plains, which had ever since been known as the Sorrowful Plains, now a place of desolation and dust … and the home of the destroyed Queen Rock. The space between Claire’s shoulder blades prickled. What had happened to the monolith?

  “Master Jasper,” Fray said, her voice a little too kind, “do you know why the Tillers will often let whole forests burn?”

  Fray didn’t wait for Jasper’s response. “It’s because things that are sickly and weak sometimes can’t be healed. Sometimes, fire is necessary to clear away the mistakes of the past so that in its devastation, a new and stronger forest may emerge. Guild magic is weak, and the leadership of the grandmasters has brought us no closer to ridding the land of wraiths or ensuring our children are born with the ability for magic. It is time to return to the past to seek out our former greatness. It is time to tear down, so that we can rebuild.”

  “Historian Fray, what exactly is the Royalists’ plan?”

  Fray slowly stood up, the red flames outlining her frame, as though she’d been traced in molten lava.

  “War,” she said.

  “What about the girl?” Jasper asked. “She’s only a child.”

  Fray smiled. “Her death will be the key to our victory. S—”

  Sophie’s warm hand slapped over Claire’s mouth, but she was too late. Twin gasps of surprise filled the tunnel.

  “What was that?” Fray asked sharply, interrupting herself.

  “What?”

  “I heard something, from the walls.” Fray spun around. “Do you have spies watching me, Jasper?”

  “No,” Jasper’s voice broke slightly, and Claire realized he was afraid. He should be. She’d once seen the woman crack a grown man’s ribs with only a piece of thread.

  “The Citadel is old, Historian, and all sorts of mice skitter within its walls.”

  “Sounds bigger than a rodent,” Fray said. “But be warned. If you’re lying to me, I have ways of finding out. Bring me to the imposters.”

  There was the scrape of a chair as Jasper stood. Claire held her breath as she heard their footsteps lead to the door. Then there was a click as the lock shut behind them.

  “Go,” Sophie whispered hoarsely. “We need to get out of here before they realize we’re missing!”

  Terror washed over Claire, a relentless punch of fear that would sink her if she didn’t start moving. Now. She began to run.

  As they pounded through the passageway, Claire thought she heard an alarm—and yells of Gemmers in the distance.

  Soon the smells of the kitchen began to hang in the air. They were getting close to the edge of the map. They were getting closer to freedom.

  Sophie stopped once again, and Claire ran into her, squashing her nose into her sister’s back.

  “It’s here,” Sophie said, and grabbed a large lever protruding from the wall. “This is the cargo chute.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “No.”

  “Sophie—”

  There was a loud clanging somewhere above them. There was no denying it. The Gemmers knew they had escaped.

  Sophie pulled the lever, and a giant hole opened up in the ground, leading down into pitch blackness. Quickly, she tied the laces of Claire’s slippers together and looped them over Claire’s shoulders so that her hands would be free. “Sit!” she commanded.

  Claire did. Brushing her fingertips against the floor, she thought she recognized the stately hum of marble. Maybe she was getting the hang of this Gemmer stuff, after all.

  “Keep your toes pointed straight,” Sophie instructed. “And don’t be scared!”

  “What—?”

  And then there was a push on her shoulders, and she felt herself slipping … and then hurtling down into darkness.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Claire screamed as wind whistled past her ears. She wasn’t falling into a void. She was sliding into it. She couldn’t see a thing, but she was aware of marble all around her, of its cool touch against her palms and the whisper of her gown’s silk against stone.

  Quickly, Claire squeezed her eyes tight, and tried to focus on the marble. She felt beneath her fingers the fine grain and beneath that, the marble’s memory of intense heat and high pressure, of being melted in the furnace of the earth’s heart.

  I don’t need the heat, she tried to tell the marble. Just your shine—your ability to gleam.

  There was a tingle in her fingers. Slowly, light bloomed around her, emanating from the slippery marble slide as she sped along it, and reflected, flickering, from the sapphires studding her gown. Finally, Claire could see what was happening. She was speeding down a large marble pipe that twisted and turned like a hamster village. Whatever marble her dress slipped past glowed for a few seconds before fading into darkness. She was her own raft of light in a sea of shadows.

  “Pretty!” Sophie called behind her. Claire twisted back to see the soles of Sophie’s bare feet as Sophie slid down behind her. “Get ready now, the landing might be …”

  But Claire suddenly slipped around a bend and she couldn’t hear her sister. Might be what?

  The pipe seemed to level, and one more unexpected bend later, Claire shot out of the tunnel, and into—a forest.

  She came to a skidding halt on a carpet of moss, stopping just short of a small pool fed by a waterfall. She blinked.

  “Move!” Sophie’s bellow echoed out of the tunnel, and Claire lurched to the side just as Sophie crashed into her landing spot.

  Sophie sat there for a moment, looking stunned, then flopped back onto the moss, arms and legs spread wide as though she were making a snow angel, her skirt a crush of lavender and silver threads beneath her.

  “That was faster than I expected,” she said, between deep breaths.

  Claire crossed her arms but remained seated. She wasn’t entirely su
re her legs could support her right now. “And what, exactly, did you expect?”

  Sophie moaned and struggled into a sitting position. “A softer landing, for one.” She began to pull her slippers back on.

  Looking around, Claire saw they were in the middle of a wooded glade. From somewhere far off, a morning dove cooed. Sunrise was just around the corner.

  “Where are we, then?”

  Sophie scrunched her nose and tilted her head. “I think somewhere on Starscrape Mountain, maybe halfway down.” Getting to her feet, she walked over to the reflection pool. Sophie’s purple headband had slipped too far back, and her usually sheetlike hair was more like a knotted basketball net.

  Standing by the reflection pool, her sister looked like a wilted wildflower … a little bit sad and lonely. But at this exact moment, Claire didn’t really care. “You don’t know?” she asked, her voice rising in a screech. “You didn’t want to find out before you pushed me down a slide that was half the length of a mountain?”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” Sophie said, pulling the Kompass from her pocket. “You’re all right. At least we’re free.”

  “No we’re not,” Claire said. “Not really. We’re outside Stonehaven’s protection. All our supplies are still back there, including anything that could have protected us from the wraiths.” She stopped, the horror of her words only sinking in when she spoke them. Wraiths.

  They would never be free in Arden.

  No matter where they went, what they did, there was always danger. They’d had the Great Unicorn Treasure in their hands, and now the moontears were lost to them, locked behind the cold walls of Stonehaven. All they had was a flute that wouldn’t play. And a princess who wasn’t a princess at all, just the Royalists’ pawn.

  The Royalists who wanted to start another Guild War. The Royalists who wanted her.