Secret in the Stone

by Kamilla Benko

  Her eyes flew to the hedge as if they already knew what she would see: four luminous strands spun of starlight. And perhaps it was the angle of moonlight, but these seemed even brighter and more beautiful than the ones she’d found before. The unicorn wasn’t far.

  “Sophie’s waving at us,” Nett whispered. “Let’s go.”

  Pinching the strands off, Claire hastily wound them around her pencil and tucked them carefully behind her ear before hurrying after Nett.

  Sophie waited until they reached her before she opened the door with ease. “Come on,” she said, whispering over her shoulder. “Follow me.” Then she shimmied into the darkness.

  Claire tried, she really did. But her feet wouldn’t move. Frowning, she again tried to take a step.

  “Sophie—I’m stuck!”

  “I am too!” Nett said. Claire looked behind to Nett’s feet that had sunk into the ground. But it hadn’t rained. There was no mud. Glancing down at her own feet, Claire almost forgot to stay quiet.

  Her feet, too, were in the ground, but the earth around them was perfectly solid. It was just as though she’d stepped into an open chain and it had clasped around her, except this time, the earth itself was the manacle.

  “Nett, what’s happening?”

  “I … think …” Nett huffed and puffed as he strained against the crushing weight of the earth on his feet. “That Sophie … set off some sort of … trap.”

  “Close.”

  If Claire hadn’t already been stuck to the earth, she would have frozen. Instead, she could only just keep a yelp from coming out.

  Mayor Nadia was behind them, holding a lantern in one hand, Ravel and his whip on one side and Cotton with a lasso at the ready.

  “I warned you,” Mayor Nadia said, sounding disappointed. “I cannot allow you to risk Woven Root and all we’ve worked for.”

  “But don’t you see?” Claire said, finding her voice and surprising even herself. “It’s not fair—you can’t just keep your eyes shut when the world around you is falling apart! You have to do something! What kind of a safe place is this if you’re ignoring the real problems Arden is facing? This land is falling apart—magic is dying, and you’re all just celebrating in hiding as if it doesn’t matter!”

  Ravel took a step toward them, and something broke loose in Claire.

  “Sophie!” she screamed. “Sophie—run!”

  A split second later, Sophie came bursting out of the stable. And not through the door—through the roof.

  Sophie soared over them, clinging to her tattered silk cloak. But her cloak was no longer hanging limply down her back. Instead, it billowed above her like a sail.

  She looked like an avenging angel.

  For a second, Claire half expected to see a chimera beneath her—some sort of flying creature, a metallic eagle perhaps. But all she saw was Sophie and the majestically billowing cloak, as if the cloak itself was what held her aloft …

  “Don’t leave me!” Claire said as the inhabitants of Woven Root watched below in awe.

  “Throw your cloaks over your heads and blow!” Sophie yelled back.

  Before Nadia or Ravel could stop them, Claire and Nett followed her instructions. A second later, Claire felt a massive tug on her arms as her cloak strained to join Sophie in the night air.

  Sophie swooped down lower, and Claire reached up. Their fingers brushed by once, but it was enough. Their hands clasped together. There was a giant sucking sound as Sophie pulled Claire and Nett up from the ground, clumps of dirt clinging to Claire’s boots as though they were the roots of an uprooted tree.

  “Hang on!” Sophie cried, and she blew more air into the domed cloak above her. “Pull your feet up!”

  Claire did as she was told, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Nett do the same—just in time for them to clear the Camouflora wall and float into the starry void of night.

  CHAPTER

  25

  “So you’re a Spinner?!” Claire yelled across the rush of damp night air. The thought had come to her as the cloak billowed around Sophie in the sky, and now it seemed so obvious. She remembered how even back in Windemere, Sophie had always been the one interested in clothes, and how she’d seemed particularly fascinated with the beautiful, ancient tapestries hanging on Great-Aunt Diana’s walls. And how, most of all, she was capable of weaving the most elaborate stories, even if they were part truth and part imagination. “When were you going to tell me?”

  The sound of laughter—gleeful, wicked, wild, joyous—came back to her on the wind.

  “I am a Spinner, aren’t I?” Sophie called as she maneuvered a dizzying twist and floated toward Claire. “Here, let’s tie the cloak to your rucksack so your arms don’t get too tired.”

  “How is this happening?” Nett called as Sophie’s fingers—Spinner fingers—quickly knotted the cloak securely to Claire’s rucksack. The fabric billowed above her head like a parachute or—since she wasn’t falling—like a mini hot air balloon.

  “I’m not really sure!” Sophie said as she did one final tug on Claire’s cloak. Nodding, she drifted toward Nett to help him adjust the cloak into a more comfortable position.

  “One second, I was in the stable, terrified that this was it. That they were going to take you away from me. And then …”

  “Then what?” Claire asked, adjusting her grip slightly around the shoulder of her rucksack as a new gust of wind buffeted her. It was cold up high, though she wasn’t exactly sure how high they were. In a world without electric lights, the land beneath was an endless shadow. She only knew that they were higher than the trees, but lower than the moon.

  “Then I heard your voice,” Sophie said. “What you said about magic dying out. It was like something in me rose up, angry, like a fire. I didn’t want magic to die. And I was just sick of it …”

  “Sick of what?” Claire asked.

  “Sick of being afraid.”

  Afraid? Claire had never thought of Sophie as afraid of anything.

  “But I’m not scared anymore, Clairina!” she said. “I’m not afraid of—of anything! I’m not even afraid to die.” Her voice showered over them, sounding magnificent and magical and free. But what did she mean, she wasn’t afraid to die? It scared Claire a little. She wasn’t going to die. None of them were. They were going to escape and go home, just as soon as they made sure Sena was safe.

  Sophie was still talking, clearly ecstatic over her transformation. “You guys, it was like my whole body had become a song!”

  “What kind of song?” Nett asked, curious as ever.

  “Like … like a violin string,” Sophie said. “Like a chord that was plucked. And the sound grew louder and louder, drowning out everything, until suddenly, I knew what I had to do to make the silk fly. Exactly which thread I needed to pluck so that the fabric would snag on air.”

  Nett had drifted a little too close; she gave him a slight push and he bounced forward, his legs swinging. Grinning, she turned to face Claire, and Claire could hear the wonder in her sister’s voice. “Did you know silk comes from cocoons? The silk—I don’t know—told me that it comes from moths. It knew that it could have wings.”

  “Told you?” Claire asked. “Told you how?” But she thought maybe she already knew.

  “I’ve been hearing a soft chord in the background of everything for a while now, but it was never this loud. Never really meant anything to me. All of a sudden, it did.”

  There was another gust of wind, and Claire looked straight down. It was a mistake. Her stomach tilted as she saw her legs dangling freely in the air. Sophie might not be scared of anything anymore, but she was. Quickly, she looked up, out toward the horizon, just in time to see Sophie fling her arms out.

  Sophie began to laugh again, a sound as exuberant and free as a rushing river, and just as fierce. “Look at us!”

  And for a moment, Claire imagined what they must seem like to anyone on the ground glancing up—like three wisps of storm clouds or maybe even bits of dandelion
seed buffeted by the wind. She glanced over to see Nett’s hair being blown straight back, as if he had a hair dryer beneath his chin. A giggle slipped out and her stomach leveled.

  Pumping her legs as though she were on a swing in the park, Claire propelled herself faster along the air currents, putting all her trust in Sophie, as she always had, to carry her.

  The fun of flying quickly faded.

  Mostly because it wasn’t really flying, it was floating. They had to catch updrafts, and were helpless to the whims of the wind, though Nett did figure out how to shimmy slightly so they could head the right way, toward Lake Drowning. Using Nett’s knowledge of navigation (impressive for his age, but not necessarily in-depth) and the spyglass, they were able to coast in the lake’s general direction.

  As the night wore on, Claire’s arms began to ache and she could barely remember a time when she didn’t have them clinging above her head. At one point, when they’d all drifted together, they’d taken turns knotting the cloaks to the handles of one another’s rucksacks. It was more comfortable, but Claire still hung onto the straps, just in case. Bobbing in and out of clouds wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded or even looked—the low clouds they brushed against were cold and damp, soaking their cloaks so that they became heavier.

  “There it is!” Nett said through chattering teeth. “Look!”

  Claire did.

  Silhouetted against a brightening sky were four towers jutting from the center of a large gray lake.

  “Why four separate towers?” Claire asked above the rushing wind. “Why not just one fortress?”

  “It is a single fortress,” Nett called. “You’ll see when we get closer. During the Guild War, the Forgers ran out of metal and began to take ore from the tiny island in the middle of Lake Drowning. Eventually, they destabilized the island, and the fortress began to sink. Now, three hundred years later, the first floor is completely underwater, but the second and third floors and the towers are accessible by boat. It makes it hard to—to attack …” His voice trailed off, and Claire guessed he was thinking about Sena.

  It would be difficult enough to find her in the fortress, among the Grand Council of Arden, but then once they got her … how would they sneak her away? There were only three silk cloaks, and already the wind had ripped holes into them. Claire didn’t think they would fly a second time.

  The three children swung their legs harder, propelling and floating themselves as close to Lake Drowning and its fortress as possible, but eventually, even the strongest bursts of wind weren’t able to keep them and their waterlogged cloaks aloft. They dipped lower and lower, until Claire’s toes skimmed the tops of evergreens.

  “We’re going to crash!” Nett yelled, and a second later, Claire felt a throbbing pain as her foot nailed a trunk. She dipped wildly.

  “Keep swinging!” Sophie cried. “We’re almost to the lake.”

  Anxiously, Claire blew air into the cloak above her. But it no longer billowed; instead, it looked more like a crumpled sock. There was a hard thump to her back—a helpful shove from Sophie. Claire spurted forward, just clearing the tree line as her tired cloak gave up. Gently she sank to the soft grass edging the lake, Nett and Sophie just a moment behind.

  Gasping for breath, Claire took in their surroundings. They were safely hidden from view of the fortress. The rising sun had not yet burned off the hazy mist of Lake Drowning, and through it they could just make out a fleet of rowboats and the shining silver of armored guards. Forgers, Claire guessed. Most likely, the inspectors whose job it was to make sure all was in order along the trading routes of the Rhona River.

  “What an Experience,” Sophie breathed as she shrugged off her tattered cape. Her eyes were bright, and the wind had snapped pink into her cheeks. She looked like the very definition of healthy, and Claire was once again grateful to the unicorn that had cured her sister. And at the thought of a unicorn, her spirits rose.

  Maybe they would rescue Sena, and tell her and Nett to go find Anvil so that she and this happy, healthy Sophie could just go home. But looking at her sister’s flushed face—her sister who had just discovered that she, too, had magic—Claire knew there was no way she’d be able to get Sophie home anytime soon.

  “How do we get in?” Sophie asked. “Ugh, I wished I hadn’t left Fireblood in the stable. Everything happened so quickly!”

  Nett shook his head. “Fireblood wouldn’t be helpful here,” he said. “And only grandmasters are allowed on Arden’s Grand Council.”

  “But they probably don’t come just by themselves, right?” Claire asked. She tried to remember Grandmaster Iris of Greenwood Village. There had been a boy who’d fetched her belongings and taken notes. “Wouldn’t they have—what do you call them? Scribblers …?”

  “Scribes!” Nett said, “that’s genius!” Claire flushed as he excitedly continued, “We just need to convince the inspectors that we’re scribes for one of the grandmasters and they’ll let us in.”

  “And how do we convince them?” Sophie asked, eyebrow cocked.

  “We’ll get …” Nett trailed off. “Oh,” he said, seemingly stumped.

  But Claire was already pulling her pencil out from behind her ear and opening her rucksack, looking for the extra pages she’d traded her picture of Mom and Dad for. “I can draw up papers,” she said. “I saw a Spinner journeyman’s papers once. I can make something similar for us.”

  Nett tilted his head. “Do you remember exactly what it looked like?”

  “Yes,” Claire said, but as soon as she said it, she began to doubt herself. “Well, I know it had her name on it and listed her rank …”

  Sophie stood up and shook pieces of tree bark and sap from her trousers. “Maybe they won’t look that closely if we look the part.” She pointed toward Nett’s soft shirt and Claire’s tunic. “Our clothes are obviously Spinner-spun,” she said. “We just need to style our hair to match what the inspectors will expect from Spinner scribes.”

  “That should work,” Nett said, nodding so eagerly that Claire got the sense he would have said yes to anything—so long as it was a step toward saving Sena. “We need to hurry. We don’t know how long she has!”

  Sophie had lost her hair ribbon somewhere along the way, and her hair hung in front of her eyes like one of the ponies at the petting zoo. Her hair was slowly turning dark again, except for one stubborn streak of cream. It made her seem younger somehow, more vulnerable. But then Sophie tossed her head, and she was back to being the big sister. “Then what are we just standing around for?”

  After that, they moved quickly. Sophie used the remains of the cloak to weave ribbons into Claire’s hair and even somehow managed to work a few into one of Nett’s tufts. When Nett had seen himself in the lake’s reflection, he’d studied himself quietly, then given a sharp nod of approval. “I like it. It looks kind of like I sprouted my own blossom.”

  As they prepared, they occasionally peered behind the rock to keep an eye on the fleet of rowboats. Some of them had started to cross, and Claire hoped that meant that it was usual for grandmasters and their scribes to arrive late.

  Finally, Nett declared that they looked enough like proper Spinners. “I am a proper Spinner,” Sophie said, a delighted smile spreading across her face. But before they stepped behind the rock, a sudden fear snagged Claire. She reached out for Sophie.

  “Is it safe?” Immediately, Claire felt foolish, but to her surprise, Sophie didn’t laugh.

  Instead, she leaned over and adjusted a bow in Claire’s hair. “What is safe, anymore?” Sophie said quietly. “Starscrape Mountain, this place, home … Anything can happen at any time, Clairina.”

  And with that, she stepped out from behind the rock. Nett looked impressed and quickly followed.

  Sophie glanced back, catching Claire’s eye. Ready?

  Claire gulped and nodded.

  Ready.

  CHAPTER

  26

  They approached the dock just as one of the rowboats broke away from th
e fleet and slipped into the mist. After a second, it disappeared the same way that sparks break away from a bonfire and disintegrate into the air. But the moment before the boat disappeared, Claire caught a glimpse of its passengers. They seemed familiar. One was oddly tall and spindly while the other appeared to be an older woman with white-blond hair … just like Mira Fray.

  And beside her was …

  Claire’s heart stopped.

  Commander Jasper.

  Were they both part of the Grand Council?

  Her heart jumped into action again, beating harder and faster. They may have avoided the Royalists on Starscrape, but by coming here, to Drowning Fortress, they had more or less walked directly into their arms.

  “We need to go back,” Claire hissed. “We need to plan!”

  “Shh,” Sophie whispered. “The inspectors!”

  Two men stood in front of them, clearly Forgers by the long broadswords dangling at their hips and battle hammers across their backs. They seemed even more armed than the ones she’d glimpsed on the Rhona River, and she couldn’t help but think a gathering of guilds in one place was like lighting a match around dried wood and expecting it not to burn.

  “Papers?” the tallest inspector asked.

  “Good afternoon!” Sophie said brightly. “We were wondering if we could borrow a rowboat—”

  “Papers,” the inspector said again, and held out an armored hand.

  “Of—of course,” Sophie said, her smile slipping slightly. “I’d love to, but we lost our papers recently. I can assure you, though, that we have permission to be here.”

  The inspector’s eyes narrowed. “No papers, no entry.”

  His partner, a large woman with bulging biceps, looked them up and down coldly. “And without papers of any sort,” she said, “we’ll need to take you into custody. Hold out your hands.”

  Claire shuffled back, instinctively clutching her hands behind her back. Nett managed to keep his hands by his sides, though his fists clutched the extra fabric of his tunic.

  “Stay back,” Sophie said, so forcefully that Claire blinked. She seemed to have surprised the inspectors, too. While they didn’t step back, the woman hesitated.