Claire couldn’t speak, even though she knew the answer—had known it a long, long time, since even before they’d ever climbed up a ladder, back when she’d tried her hardest to ignore her parents’ late-night whispers behind the bedroom door. Back when she’d purposefully overlooked the fact that Mom and Dad had taken off work for an entire summer, not just to clean out his aunt’s manor but so that they could spend a last summer with both their daughters.

Claire had known the answer even when she sought out the Spyden, and she had been secretly relieved to have to change her question at the last moment. Because even though she’d known the answer, she had been too cowardly to have it confirmed. Even now, she couldn’t speak it out loud.

There were some things even magic could not change.

Claire met Sophie’s eyes and nodded.

Fumbling, Sophie set the moontears on a twisted stump. They gleamed in the morning sun. They had each grown to be the size of a river stone, fitting comfortably in her palm. Faint pink stars had started to appear in the lightly purpled moontears, stars that did not look unlike the little pink scar situated at Sophie’s collarbone.

Sophie looked up. “Claire—are you sure?”

Claire knew she could take it back. One word and she could stop it all. But she knew what was needed: a change of heart. So instead, she said, “I’ll be all right.” The truth had never hurt so much.

“I love you, Clairina,” Sophie whispered; then she smiled her wild smile, showing all her teeth. Sophie began to run, and Claire tore after her, even though this time, she knew she would never catch up.

Sophie moved faster and faster, her stride lengthening, stretching. She seemed to loosen like long hair released from a ponytail, unspooling like a silver ribbon, unfurling like a blossom, strengthening like tempered steel, and sparkling—sparkling, sparkling, sparkling—like a jewel.

Like a star.

Like a sun.

With a cry, Claire fell back, flinging her arms up and over her watering eyes, as the world turned blinding white.

For a moment, nothing seemed to exist. It was as though the light had swept away the entire world along with Claire’s five senses. But somewhere in that infinite vastness, Claire heard the tiniest of sounds: a hum. Slowly at first and then quickly, the hum elongated and rounded into a note and then into a melody that found its way into the heart-shaped hole in Claire’s chest … and filled it.

Joy—swift as the winds, deep as the seas, bright as all the suns in all the skies in all the worlds—engulfed Claire in a warm embrace. And with the joy came courage.