“No more of these half steps and potions,” Estelle crooned to her former Gemmer army. “We will find the last unicorn. I will take its heart to keep my human form, and when the last light ebbs from his crystal horn, you, my darling wraiths, will move in the daylight once more.” The shadows swarmed her, but the unicorn knew that the queen did not feel their cold. She was already frozen, even as she promised to reunite them with the sun. “The last unicorn still gallops the Sorrowful Plains, and I will ride tonight.”

She was so focused on her wraiths that again she did not see the unicorn watching her through the branches of the petrified trees or notice him gallop off into the night in search of the lost prince.

Though her body still felt too heavy, Claire’s mind raced.

Arden legend promised that anyone who killed a unicorn would live forever.

Three hundred years ago, the Gemmers hunted unicorns to extinction. Three hundred years ago, wraiths swarmed Arden. The wraiths did not appear in Arden after the unicorns had died out. They appeared in Arden because the unicorns had been killed.

The unicorn hunters would live forever, but not as humans—as wraiths.

Which meant Queen Estelle, huntress of unicorns, had also been cursed, her transformation into a shadow only slowed down by the powerful magic of the unicorn artifacts she wielded.

But … surely Claire had seen Terra in daylight? Yet, as she combed through her memories, she realized she’d never seen Terra in the morning or afternoon. She’d only ever seen the woman in the evenings, after sunset, and always in the protection of walls or tunnels.

Estelle d’Astora was a wraith.

And her brother, Prince Martin, had known—and with this knowledge, he’d chosen to transform both unicorn and queen into the monoliths on the Sorrowful Plains. But why?

Claire glanced at Sophie … and saw the answer. And its urgency and clarity pulled Claire out of her own swirl of emotions as the unicorn again addressed the queen.

I remember, the unicorn seemed to be saying to Estelle. Do you?

“I remember how you lied,” Estelle snarled. “You and your kin tricked us with those stories of immortality! And you—you stole Martin away from me!” She raised the ram’s head cane.

“No!” The word scraped against Claire’s tongue.

Estelle looked at her in surprise. “Your magic has grown considerably to resist my enchantment,” she said, and for a moment she sounded like Scholar Terra, and that gave Claire strength.

She might not be able to reason with Estelle, Hunter of Unicorns, but maybe, just maybe, she could with Scholar Terra, her friend. Her teacher.

Maybe Claire could reason with the little princess who’d loved the duck pond that Claire had glimpsed in the pencil’s sketch.

The big sister Martin had come back for.

“Martin never abandoned you,” Claire said. “He loved you!”