Reunited. Like the four tines of Arden needed to be.

“It’s almost dawn!” Claire said. The guilds would soon be gone, along with their tines and their only chance to defeat Queen Estelle. “What do we do now?”

“Do?” Sena’s amber eyes glittered, but Claire couldn’t tell if it was with fear or excitement. “We’re going to open the seams of the world. We’re going to get them back.”

They scrambled around the tent collecting items while Sena ordered them about, as though she had taken notes from General Scorcha. And as Nett, Sophie, and Claire worked on their assignments, Sena pored over her parents’ journals, occasionally reading out loud some of the more interesting passages:

“Magic is in the material, but what makes up the material? The elements of the universe: earth, fire, water, and air.… The Way Between is the place where one possibility ends and another begins …”

“What does that mean?” Nett called from his place in the center of the tent. He was tying vines around three large branches, lashing them together to form the outline of a freestanding doorway.

“Shush,” Sena commanded, and continued reading. “The few travelers who have managed to safely traverse the Way Between and arrive in other worlds brought back stories of strange and most wondrous magics: of horseless wagons made of steel, and hand-sized, block-shaped wands that can contain entire libraries, sing on command, and make communication across vast distances. They are called ‘fohnes.’ ”

“Phones?” Claire looked up from where she’d been placing geode bookends from Aunt Nadia’s desk around the base of Nett’s doorway, hoping it would help keep the wood upright. “Like—cell phones? And cars?” She’d never thought that there was magic in her own world before, and from the expression on Sophie’s face, she could tell her sister was mulling it over. Maybe there was magic, only it was called by another name.

Sena shrugged and flipped the page. “I don’t know anything about selling the ‘fohnes.’ ”

Finally, the doorway was complete.

Taking a step back to eye their handiwork, Claire winced. It looked rickety and a bit silly, a door leading to nowhere. Sena had informed them that they didn’t only need to open the seams, they needed to make sure that the unicorn and the Steeles would be able to find the door—it had to act as a beacon, a kind of lighthouse, as well.