She stumbled back, away from the door. From the round eyes of her friends, she knew they heard it too. Because even though nothing seemed to have changed in the tent, there was a sound coming from behind the door. An endless, deafening hum. A vibration of rock scraping across rock, strings disturbing the air, metal bending, green things growing. The sound of the winds of the worlds racing across the mouth of a chimney.

The copper bell chimed as the door began to shake. Flecks of moss flew off and the hinges groaned in protest.

“Open it!” Sena said. “Sophie—open it before it collapses!”

“Not yet!” Sophie said, the silver in her eyes seeming to shine brighter than ever. “They’re not there yet—and if I open it too soon, I’m scared we’ll get trapped in the seams!”

The door shook harder.

The wind behind it whipped, and its rush filled Claire’s ears with a rhythmic drumming. No, not a drumming—hoofbeats!

Sophie reached for the door, but Claire grabbed her sister’s other hand. A wave of dizziness washed over her as the world warped, but she wasn’t about to let her sister get lost between worlds. Behind her, she felt Nett grab her other hand, and knew that Sena must be holding on as well.

“We got you, Sophie!” Claire yelled above the noise. Sophie’s hands clasped around the ribbon handle—and opened the seams of the world.

Time seemed to slow and bend on itself. Claire caught a glimpse of her sister’s face as she stepped back to make room. Sophie looked like an extended breath, poised on the edge of leaping, staring at something in the distance. Then—

The unicorn returned to Arden.

She was aware of chaos, of shouts, and cracking as the doorway disintegrated into nothing, but when Claire looked at the unicorn, all of it fell away.

He was serene power. Calming strength. Known purpose.

And as he turned his great head toward them, she saw entire galaxies in his eyes, and the tip of his glorious horn spiraled into a sharp point. It radiated with the strength of the sun that was now rising.

“They need you outside,” Sophie croaked, tears of joy streaming down her face.

Faster than Claire could blink, the unicorn was gone.

But the tent’s flap remained gusted open, revealing the sunrise breaking over Greenwood Village. In the pink light, Claire could see Spinners and Forgers trudging toward the boundary of the Camouflora that was just beginning to open to let them out of the village, but suddenly, the guild members stopped and turned toward something bright and wondrous galloping toward them—toward Nadia.

“Mama! Papa!”