“Who lives here?” Claire asked. She looked wildly about the room, half expecting Mira Fray to appear from the shadows. Fray was one of the Royalists who had captured Claire and Sophie in the Drowning Fortress two weeks ago. The Royalists were members of a secret society, one that was often laughed at for their belief that the stone monoliths on the Sorrowful Plains had truly been the living forms of the last queen and the last unicorn. They had worked for years to try to free the queen from the stone she’d been transformed into, believing she’d bring about a better day for Arden. Now they’d succeeded and were her most loyal followers, aside from the wraiths.

Sophie shook her head. “Nobody, as far as I can tell. A Spinner probably lived here once, but look.” She pointed to a corner of the ceiling, where Claire could just make out a colony of cobwebs. “I think it’s been a while.”

Claire shuddered slightly. She was still worried about the Spydens. Though she had intentionally set out to find one, she knew they had to be wary—Spydens were known to be tricky. They could easily weave you into a dangerous web of half-truths if you weren’t careful.

But Sophie didn’t seem concerned about any Spydens bursting through the door and claiming this musty old house. And she didn’t even seem, come to think of it, all that surprised that Claire had found her. Or that she had found Claire.

Claire looked around at the modest home. “Did Nett mention this place to you?” she asked. “Did he come with you?”

Sophie shrugged and walked over to the stove to stir a pot that bubbled on top. From behind, with her face turned away, she looked kind of like a fairy-tale witch. “Nett?” Sophie spoke his name like a question.

Claire felt a sigh well up inside her but pushed it down. Even here, miles and worlds away from home, Sophie liked to tease her. Well, two could play at that game.

“You remember Nettle Green—my height, black hair, know-it-all? The foster brother of Sena Steele, the tall redhead who likes to stab things.”

“He didn’t want to come with me,” Sophie said. “Neither did Sena,” she added.

“Really? They stayed in Woven Root?” Claire guessed it made sense, but still, she was disappointed. She thought they would have wanted to come, after all they’d been through together. But she supposed the knowledge that Sena’s parents weren’t dead had changed the Forger girl’s goals. The second-to-last time Claire had seen her (the last, last time, she’d been asleep in a hammock hung next to Sophie’s), Sena had been poring over her parents’ notes and journals, trying to figure out their experiments at the seams of the world, with an eager Nett practically standing on his chair with excitement.