As soon as Jasper turned away from her, Sophie tilted her head and widened her eyes in a very familiar Look. It was the very same Look Sophie gave when she was trying to tell Claire something without Mom and Dad knowing. But now, she wasn’t staring at Claire but across the dais, toward Thorn. Then, so quickly that Claire thought she might have made it up, Sophie nodded. A signal?

Before Claire could figure it out, Estelle had slipped a knife out from the ram’s head cane. A long knife.

A carving knife.

“Kneel,” Estelle commanded, and Sophie was pushed to her knees before the queen. Placing long gloved fingers under Sophie’s chin, Estelle forced Sophie’s face upward, exposing her neck and the bit of collarbone that bore a pale-pink star where the unicorn had touched her, just above her heart.

She needs a unicorn’s heart, Thorn had told her. And now she would take it.

As Estelle raised the knife, Claire’s breath caught. The queen’s plan was as brilliant as it was cruel. Estelle would murder Sophie, right here, in front of everyone, blaming Sophie-as-Claire for the queen’s own crimes while taking the unicorn heart she wanted—and still seeming to be the heroine of lore.

The knife began to press down, and it was as though it cut through the shock that had frozen Claire.

“NO!” Claire screamed, and with one last shove, she was through and onto the dais! “I AM CLAIRE MARTINSON!”

She’d surprised Estelle. Everyone turned to look at her. Everyone but Thorn. In the two seconds everyone turned to Claire, he’d started sprinting across the dais toward Sophie.

“Stop!” Estelle said, changing the direction of her knife to point it at Thorn. But he dodged it easily, knocking it out of the queen’s hand as he ran past both her and Sophie. And that’s when Claire realized his real target: the last unicorn.

There was a flash of silver in Thorn’s hand: the scissors Scythe had given him—the ones that could cut through anything. And then they were plunging into the unicorn’s white mane. Snip!

A horrified wail rose from the crowd as bits of grit, Spyden silk, and unicorn mane slithered to the floor to reveal a plain gray horse.

Now Claire understood why the unicorn had seemed so still and tame. Now she understood why she’d found a Royalist cloak in the Spyden’s cottage. The queen, too, had needed the rare silk to craft an illusion strong enough to trick the people of Arden—and to use as bait to lure Sophie to her. Sophie, the true last unicorn of Arden.

“Estelle lies!” Thorn shouted to all the guilds of Arden. “It’s an illusion—all of it!”