The ground continued to tremble, and Claire knew she couldn’t stand up yet. And so she began to crawl as fast as she could through the garden, twigs and pebbles jabbing into her knees and palms. Her breath came in fast white puffs as the air grew colder and colder. Wraiths spilled into the garden.

All around her, she was aware of others running, and she wished she could call out to them—to ask them if they were Sophie or Nett or Sena or Thorn or Lyric—but the cold had teeth, and it tore at her. Around her, shouts turned to sobs as the wraiths’ cold carved away any memory of warmth or love from the people who couldn’t outrun them.

From somewhere nearby, Claire could hear the rusty screech of the chimera as their metal joints froze. She could tell that the riders—those who had managed to stay on—were fumbling for their cotton nets of spun sunlight that could keep the beasts at bay. A few bright bursts broke the night, followed by the inhuman shriek of a wraith hit by a Mulchbomb. But the humans had been surprised, and there were too many wraiths: more than Claire had seen in the Drowning Fortress. More than she had seen on the Sorrowful Plains. And they kept coming.

Claire didn’t know when she’d stopped crawling, but she suddenly realized she was face-first in the leaves. She tried to roll over, to look up at the bare branches of fruit trees, but she couldn’t move. Her body was frozen, and soon, her mind would be, too. But … she was holding out longer than she had before. Now she was aware that though she was cold, the earth still felt warm beneath her, as though Estelle’s magic had given it a fever. If only Claire could help heal it. If only she could stitch the fissures back together, maybe she could stop the never-ending swell of shadows.

But some things could not be fixed. Not even with magic.

With that knowledge, Claire cut herself adrift into a tattered darkness.

One without friends or hope.

One without sisters.

“THIS IS FOR MY GRANDFATHER!”

A hot shout cut through the drowning black, pinching Claire, urging her to wake up. To fight. She knew that voice. Her first friend in Arden, Nettle Green. What, she wanted to ask, is he doing for Francis?

And suddenly, the black beneath her eyelids was replaced with gold. Bright, shimmering gold. Claire opened her eyes and saw that the garden was on fire.

With a yelp, she squeezed her eyes shut again, but the image was seared onto her brain: the fruit trees, the overlarge leaves, the rosebushes, the autumn leaves coating the ground, everything was a golden glow—a sun’s glow.

It wasn’t fire. It was sunlight!