The song, it was there, but it was still so quiet. Claire had thought that when the tines were connected, they would be as loud as they had been in the pencil’s memory.

“Go on, then,” Grandmaster Carnelian said. “Bring it to Nadia. Hurry!”

Clare tried to shake her uncomfortable feeling loose. She had the Crown of Arden. In just a few minutes, her aunt would officially be queen.

“I’m not sure where Nadia is,” Claire admitted. “She said she would be on the wall, but I don’t know where.”

“Here!” Lyric said, and she pulled out her ball of yarn. She tied a knot around Claire’s finger and the string began to gleam. Lyric made one last twist then said, “The B.P.S. should take you straight to Mayor Nadia. I mean, the almost-queen! Oh, this is so exciting!” She threw her arms around Claire, giving her a spontaneous squeeze.

“Thank you,” Claire said, trying to smile, but something was pushing on her. Something about the crown and Lyric … but she couldn’t think what.

And so, she let the B.P.S. drop from her hand and began to jog after the gleaming golden thread and back into the Citadel. Following the B.P.S., Claire found herself in a part of the Citadel she’d never been in before. While she could still hear the clamor of Starscrape’s preparations, no one seemed to be working over here. The only things she saw were goat-chewed signs proclaiming the following corridors off-limits—for good reason, too, Claire was sure. Bits of the Citadel were always in danger of crumbling off the mountain.

She wondered if the B.P.S. was really working. After all, Nadia had said she would be outside, overseeing the jumbled magic. She clutched the Crown of Arden so tight, she could feel the Love Knot pressing into her palms.

Claire was about to turn around and head back when a pearly glow caught her eye. The marimo? But she knew Nett was in the classroom. Which meant …

The unicorn.

And suddenly, she realized what had bugged her. Why the crown’s song wasn’t as clear as it should be. Lyric had said the Crown of Arden had been blessed by unicorns.

Before it could be truly whole again—could sing again—the unicorn needed to set his horn upon it!

Claire turned left, ignoring both the B.P.S., which continued to roll right, as well as the signs that read Forbidden. There was no more room in her for rules, not when her question had grown so big. She had to speak to the unicorn and make him listen to her. Make him understand what he’d done when he’d transformed the wish into Sophie’s heart and turn her back into only a human girl, and nothing else.

Claire broke into a run.