“Hey, what’s going on?” Zuli and Lapis ran back to them, while the others sprinted ahead, calling out for the grandmasters to gather and for someone to get Nadia right away.

“We need to get out of the Citadel,” Sophie said. “Without the grown-ups knowing—No, Claire!” She held up a hand to stop Claire midprotest. “They won’t let us leave the walls, especially once they know about the wraiths and the sunlight!”

Sophie was right.

“We know a way,” Lapis whispered, as a Tiller journeyman sprinted down the hall, calling for reinforcements. “But are you sure you need to? Maybe the Crown of Arden will be enough.”

Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t sound right, but—oh!”

She broke off. Because for the first time since they’d left the stained-glass chamber, she listened, really listened. A song emanated from the crown—one as clear and strong as there had been in the pencil’s memory.

“It’s been singing this whole time,” Zuli said, looking down at the gleaming black circle “and it only got louder and louder the more we talked.”

Claire gaped. Maybe the Crown of Arden wasn’t a powerful tool after all. Maybe all it really was, was a measuring tool: a way to gauge the bond between guilds. When the bond was weak, the crown was quiet and magic seemed less plentiful. But as the relationship between guilds strengthened—as they bonded, planned, helped, and forged friendships—the crown’s song and Arden’s magic was at its most powerful.

The true strength of a leader wasn’t found in some crown, but in the strength of their people. The true crown of Arden … was the guilds themselves. And from the way Sophie had just gasped, Claire knew her sister had figured it out, too. Claire looked at Sophie and nodded.

“Yes,” Sophie said, her voice strong and full of hope. “We still need to leave. There’s no time to explain! We need to move fast, before the wraiths arrive, or else it will be too late. Can you show us the way?”

“Come on,” the twins said at the same time. “Follow us.”

With Zuli and Lapis’s help, the Martinson sisters slipped out of the Citadel using one of the secret entrances that was no longer manned by Gemmers.

All hands were now outside, helping to fortify the Everless Wall against the oncoming onslaught of shadow.

Starscrape Mountain was tall, but it wasn’t the tallest mountain of Constellation Range, far from it. There were taller peaks—peaks that were always capped in white—one of which they could reach if they just followed a goat-trodden dirt path up for a mile.

The way was steep, and the air was thin, but both girls ran their hardest. Claire knew if they could make it to the peak and bring back moontears, it might be enough.

It had to be.

But.