“Thank you!” Claire said. At last, something was going right! Just then, a small hourglass chimed. Glancing at it, the seller nodded. “There’s an hour to sunset and to your welcome feast.”
“Already?” Claire exclaimed. She was going to be late to meet up with Sophie. “I gotta go!”
“Don’t forget this,” he said, waving the spyglass at her as she made for the door. She doubled back to take it with a smile, then darted through the door as the man called out with a chuckle: “It was good doing business with you.”
Claire wove her way frantically through the tents, trying to find her way back to Mayor Nadia’s. Thinking about home had only reminded her of everything that was at stake. They needed to get out of here.
But she found herself getting more and more lost in the tangle of market stalls and magical wares. What had seemed delightful to her earlier in the day now seemed alarming and distracting—everything was too bright and too musical and too oblivious. Did no one know that the Royalists were planning a war? Didn’t they care? Consumed by her questions, she didn’t notice a wayward tree root until she tripped on it.
She just managed to catch herself before sprawling on the ground. Looking up, she saw a hunched figure hurrying toward her.
“Sophie!” Claire called, waving. “I’m over here—Sophie ?!”
The girl who stood in front of Claire certainly looked like her sister. She was wearing the same outfit Claire had last seen her in. And there was still a constellation of freckles across her nose. But her hair, which had previously sprung from its ponytail in an inky fountain was no longer dark … but white.
Claire stared aghast. “What … what happened?!”
“I look awful!” Sophie wailed and buried her face in her hands. “I … I bought Bramble’s unicorn potion. I thought it would wake my Gemmer magic but instead, it did this!”
Poor Sophie. It wasn’t funny, but … Claire smothered a giggle.
“It’s the inside that counts,” Claire said, trying to sound soothing. And she must have succeeded at least a little bit, because Sophie peered through her fingers. Trying to think of a way to coax her sister out more, Claire asked, “Did you manage to bring the flute to a shop?”
“No,” Sophie moaned. She dropped her hands. “I spent all the guilders. I thought it would be worth it if the potion made me a Gemmer. Then I could try the flute, and that could work.”
Hurt flared within Claire, but before it could entirely engulf her, something blew it out: understanding. Claire didn’t feel princess enough, but then again … Sophie didn’t feel magic enough.
“Sophie, it doesn’t matter that you’re not a Gemmer,” Claire said softly. “You’re still the bravest person I know.”
Sophie sniffed.
“And,” Claire cast about, trying to think of what would make her feel better, “it could have been worse. We’re in an alchemist village, after all. Your hair could have turned into leaves or something.”
Sophie stared at her a moment, then burst into laughter. “Ugh, you’re right,” she said, dragging an arm across her face, and sniffling slightly. “Bramble said the color change should only be temporary, anyway. And we should get going. We’re late!”
Before Claire could say anything, Sophie had begun to join the crowd of people trickling to the campfires.
Claire quickened her pace to keep up. “Wait for—ow!” Her toe throbbed as she sprawled onto the ground, catching herself with her palms just before she planted face-first into the grass.
Sophie glanced over her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Claire muttered, the back of her neck warming. She stood and wiped her hands on her new clothes with a grimace. “Let’s go—ow!”
“What’s wrong with you?” Sophie asked. She walked over to where Claire had tripped again. And fallen … again. “I know you’re clumsy, but this is getting ridiculous!”
Scowling, Claire looked up at her sister. “I’m not doing it on purpose!”
Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly her lips snapped shut and her head whipped to the side. There was a rustle in the undergrowth, and then Claire thought she saw a movement, long and whiplike, shudder toward her through the fallen leaves.
A crawling sensation tickled Claire’s shoulder blades and her skin tightened into goose bumps.
Please don’t be a snake, Claire prayed. Oh please!
A spray of dirt exploded near Claire’s feet, covering her in dark soil and leaf mulch. Yelping, she leaped away from—
—the tree root that had just burst through the dirt.
“What is going on?” Sophie cried, watching as the root spread fibrous hairs and pulled itself along the ground … toward Claire.
The rest of Woven Root had noticed now, and shouts filled the air.
Frozen in shock, Claire could only stare while the root, as wide as an elephant’s trunk, reached for her ankle and wrapped around it.
With a scream, she tried to kick the root off her, but it was as tight as a too-small hair band on a wrist.
Crack!
Nadia suddenly appeared, cracking her whip expertly on the root.
The root slackened, then froze, all the tiny hairs lying as flat and still as the shadows on the moon.
Scooching out from its grasp, Claire lurched to her feet. “What’s happening?”
Nadia’s fluffy hair sprang out in all directions, but now she no longer looked like a dandelion: she looked like a lion. Her body seemed coiled, as if she were about to jump, and her eyes relentlessly scanned the scene of displays and tents that had been overturned as the alchemists of Woven Root had run for cover.
“There’s an intruder,” Nadia all but growled.
Claire couldn’t breathe. Had the Royalists found them? Nadia had said the entire point of Woven Root was to keep people safe, but what would happen if it turned out they had led the Royalists straight here?
From the edge of the Camouflora, Claire could see Cotton sprinting over to them. “We got him!” he yelled. “Lieutenant Ravel has him!”
Him. She looked at Sophie, and could see her own horror reflected in Sophie’s face. Could it be … Jasper?
But as the band of Wraith Watch marched toward them, Claire didn’t see the thin, tall frame of Stonehaven’s commander. In fact, she didn’t see anyone not in uniform until the band stopped, and two of the watch stepped aside to reveal their small captive’s shaggy black hair.
“Thank green and greenest!” Nettle Green cried as his bright brown eyes landed on Claire. “I’ve found you!”
CHAPTER
24
“Nett!” Claire shrieked joyfully.
She only had a moment to note that his black hair tufted as usual and his brown skin had healthy undertones of pink—a far cry from the boy Claire had seen being dragged out of the swamp after a nasty encounter with razor mud—before the Woven Root command closed in around him again.
Mayor Nadia whirled on Claire. “You know this boy?”
Claire nodded. “Yes! And you might know him, too. He’s Nettle Green, and an apprentice of Greenwood.”
“Green?” a man from the forming crowd said. “Not Francis Green’s grandson?”
“Yes!” Nett’s voice piped up from behind the wall of tall commanders. A grin spread across Claire’s face. Even under these circumstances, Nett couldn’t resist answering a question he knew. She looked around to share the joke with Sophie, but Sophie seemed to have melted into the crowd.
“Elaina, is this true?”
It took Claire a moment to realize that Nadia was talking to her. “Yes,” she said hastily as all eyes turned on her. Nett frowned slightly, but to her relief he didn’t ask why Claire was suddenly being called Elaina. Claire held her breath as she could practically see another question forming in Nadia’s eyes, one much more difficult to answer: How did a Gemmer and a lackie from Stonehaven know a Tiller?
“Sena Steele is his foster sister,” Claire said, hoping this would exp
lain away the question. She wished Sophie hadn’t disappeared on her. She was much better at these kinds of things. “We were actually all traveling together and got separated …” Claire trailed off as Nett’s face fell, and Claire had the feeling she was teetering on the edge of a cliff. “Nett, where’s Sena?”
“That’s why I needed to find you,” he said slowly. “When she took me to Dampwood to cure me from the razor mud, the Tillers recognized her as one of the girls accused of stealing the Unicorn Harp.”
“A Unicorn Harp was stolen?” Mayor Nadia interrupted.
“Yes,” Nett mumbled, looking as miserable as a wet wool sweater. “And now Sena’s going to pay for it.”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked.
Nett’s eyes shone overbright, and he let out a deep, shuddery breath. “As we speak, she’s waiting for her trial in front of the Grand Council of Arden—in front of all the guilds. And if she’s found guilty … she’ll be exiled from Arden, not just the Forger Guild—or worse!”
Claire’s heart plummeted.
“That’s why I needed to find you. You can give testimony to the Grand Council of Arden and help me prove she’s innocent! If enough of us say it, they just have to believe us!”
“I’ve heard enough,” Mayor Nadia said. Her expression didn’t brighten, exactly, but she did seem less likely to pounce. “If you, Nettle Green, seek the safety and protection of Woven Root, you are welcomed here. As for your foster sister … I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
Nett looked alarmed. “Loss? She’s not lost yet. Her trial isn’t for another few days. There’s still time.”
“It is the rule of Woven Root to not meddle in the guilds’ affairs. We welcome any who seek us, but we do not seek others.”
Claire gaped at Nadia. “But Sena’s just a girl!”
“Yes,” Nadia said with a nod. “Exactly.”
As Nadia and the rest of Woven Root made their way to the feast, Ravel released Nett. Running up to him, Claire hugged him. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “We’ll help you.”
“It’s good to see you,” Nett said, squeezing her back. “You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you!”
“And what about me?” Sophie asked, stepping forward.
His eyes widened. “Sophie! I found you! And your hair—it’s white!” He considered it, then nodded. “I like it.”
Sophie grinned. “Actually, Claire found me a little while ago. And it’s Andrea for now—Claire is Elaina. The hair is fine, I guess.” She walked over and hugged him tightly.
For a second, Claire felt left out. She’d had her sister all to herself and now she’d be sharing her again. From what she could gather from Nett and Sena’s conversations, the three of them had become good friends. It was only later that Sophie had learned that she’d been framed for stealing the Unicorn Harp, when really it had been Sena who had done it. Claire was sure that Sophie would understand when Sena explained why she’d done it: to trade the harp for information on where her mother was.
“What happened? Where did you go?” Nett demanded, breaking through Claire’s rush of thoughts. His head swiveled between the sisters so quickly that she thought it might just twist off.
“It’s a long story,” Claire said just as Sophie replied, “Stonehaven.”
Nett’s eyebrows shot straight up. “You went to the Gemmer village? And you came back alive?”
“Not all Gemmers are bad,” Claire protested.
“But they did imprison us,” Sophie pointed out.
Nett frowned thoughtfully. “No wonder the Root Tracker didn’t work, then.”
Claire had forgotten how Nett had a habit of throwing around words she didn’t know. Some might have found it annoying, but she didn’t mind. It meant that he didn’t think of her as an outsider. The lonely days of Stonehaven faded just a little more.
“What’s a Root Tracker?”
“All the trees in Arden are connected,” Nett said. He bent down and patted the now still root as if it were a good dog. “You tap into one, you can tap into all of them. But I bet there weren’t any trees in that Citadel of theirs, were there?”
Claire hadn’t really thought of it, but now as she remembered the cool arches and echoing corridors, she realized that Nett was right. She shook her head.
“Interesting,” Nett said with a nod. “So since there were no trees, the roots couldn’t find you. I only got a sense of you yesterday morning. More of a thud than a sense, really.”
“But how?” Sophie cut in, and Claire was surprised to hear an edge in her sister’s voice. “If all Tillers can track people using tree roots, then why haven’t we been found yet?”
Nett beamed with pride. “Not all Tillers can. It’s highly advanced, and you have to have a good sense of the person you’re tracking. I’ve only now gotten the hang of it, actually. I was worried I’d get here and you’d be two complete strangers. But this …” He looked at the tents of cloth and leaves that speckled the valley. “This is an alchemists’ village, right? Why won’t they help?”
He turned his face to the line of tents. Any other time, Claire knew he would’ve dived into the magical wares, asking questions, exclaiming over things he didn’t think possible. But now he seemed like an autumn leaf, barely clinging on. She wished she had the magic to make people feel better—be better. It seemed more useful than knowing how to craft a Grail that didn’t explode or produce a Gemglow brighter than Geode’s. How long ago it seemed that had been her only worry!
But she did have something that might make Nett feel better.
“Here,” she said, pulling out the spyglass and handing it to him. Nett looked at the object quizzically first, then gasped.
“Is this what I think it is?” he asked, light coming back to his eyes as he examined the jumbled object. “Does it actually work?”
Claire nodded. “I tried it out myself.”
“Spectacular,” Nett said, and Claire smiled. “Spectacular” was Sophie’s favorite word, right after “Experience.” “Forgers haven’t been able to make a spyglass like this in years—at least, not without an entire museum’s worth of unicorn artifacts.”
“It’s not just Forger magic; Gemmers helped, too,” Claire said, remembering the day she’d first learned that glass was a Gemmer specialty as Nett fiddled with the lenses. Grandmaster Carnelian had shown them how molten glass could be blown into useful bowls or cups, and he’d finished off the lesson by using his breath to craft a glass swan that had been able to fly for a few moments before the magic left its wings.
Stonehaven held so many wonders—all of Arden did. It was a shame that the guilds didn’t have a chance to see how beautiful the other crafts could be without worrying about inspectors and guild Grand Councils.
Maybe once they had found the unicorn and woken the moontears, things would change. Her heart twinged; she hoped the moontears were still safe. When Nett was done with the spyglass, she would try to peer through to Stonehaven and see what had happened to them. Most likely, Terra still had them safely locked in her desk, but Claire trusted Jasper just as much as she trusted a Stonehaven goat not to nibble on her dress.
A short yelp broke the air … and Nett sat hard on the ground.
The sisters looked at each other, eyes wide, before hurrying over to him.
“What’s wrong?” Claire asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Nett seemed dazed. He shook his head.
“Did you see something?” Sophie asked sharply.
Taking a shaky breath, he nodded. “It’s—it’s Sena,” he said, so slowly that it seemed like each letter must be a knife against his throat. “She … they—” He broke off, letting out a strangled cry. Claire waited, chest tight, for the words that came next.
“I saw,” he said with a gulp, “they took Sena to the Drowning Fortress. And her trial is over. They found her guilty! They’ve locked her up and sentenced her to …” He swallowed. He looked like he was going to throw up. “To death.”
For a moment, the only sound Claire could hear was the pounding of her heart in her ears, and her knees slightly swayed. She could barely breathe, let alone offer words of comfort as Nett wailed, “I’m too late!”
“We are not.”
Claire glanced over at Sophie, who’d spoken. Her brown eyes were determined. Even though Sena had betrayed Sophie’s trust, even though Sophie had no magic, she always did the brave thing. She always knew exactly what to say. “We leave tonight.”
“But even if we escape,” Claire protested, “how would we ever make it to the Drowning Fortress in time?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sophie asked with a flick of her ponytail. “We steal a chimera.”
Silent as the clouds drifting over the moon, Claire, Sophie, and Nett darted from one shadowed space to the next as they hurried again to the chimeras’ stables.
Though Claire had done more sneaking in the past month than she had in her entire life, she found it hard to be quiet. For one, in between telling Nett all that had happened, she’d eaten a little too much of the potato pies and candied pears at the welcome feast. It had been since before the crystal flute’s test that she’d devoured a full warm meal. And even that breakfast she hadn’t enjoyed much because she’d been so angry with Sophie for getting them in trouble.
How long ago that worry now seemed.
How small.
How slight.
“Wait here,” Sophie whispered as they crouched behind a hedge just next to the stable. She sidled off into the final few feet of darkness alone, Claire unable to watch.
She tried to focus on breathing as softly as possible, but for some reason, that only made her breath sound louder. Dropping her eyes to the ground, she stared at the little crush of blossoms at the toe of her boot, the white petals a stark contrast to the maroon and umber of autumn leaves. It was a combination she’d like to re-create with her pastels. They were like pearls resting on velvet or snowflakes set in a dark winter sky.
Or.
Like flowers of snow that trailed a unicorn’s steps.
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