A grin broke across Claire’s face. This wasn’t a faded memory or a guess at what her sister might say—it was Sophie.

Hang tight! Sophie said, her voice chime-like around the edges, and Claire did.

Claire had ridden a wyvern, escaped on a chimera, and flown through the clouds with a cloak, but none of it had prepared her for what it was like to ride a unicorn. A unicorn wasn’t like riding the wind. It was becoming the wind. A lightness filled her, and she felt she might float away if she was not tethered by the tresses of unicorn mane wrapped across her fingers. All around her, the unicorns surged forward, their diamond hooves pounding out Arden’s heartbeat as they galloped down the mountains to where the wraiths had already begun their attack.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

CHAPTER

28

Starscrape Citadel had been swallowed by shadows. Skeletal shadows that howled, tore, and raged. Shadows so thick that Claire wondered if she was not looking at creatures but instead a hole, a void, a nothingness.

And yet.

Here and there, there was a flash of white marble. The Everless Wall still stood, helped along by the most ancient oaks’ strength woven with the hardness of steel. Helped along by the magics of each guild, from each preamble to the wisest grandmaster.

“We’re coming!” Claire shouted, even though she knew she was too far away for anyone to hear. “Hold on!” She leaned low over the unicorn’s neck. The silvery mane whipped back, tickling her nose. Any moment, the unicorns’ magic would make all the guilds’ magic stronger.

Any moment, the magic in Mulchbombs and Sunlight Ropes and Sun Swords would be able to cut into the shadows, stronger and more powerful than ever before. A tiny seed of light suddenly flitted from a tower. Claire was still too far away to see, but the unicorn could, and she pressed into Claire’s heart the vision of a bird, woven from the mossy fuzz of a marimo, shining with a pearly light, its beak edged with sword steel that could glow in the night and cut back the wraiths.

Nett’s marimo, shaped by Thorn and edged with Fireblood’s tip.

For a moment—a single, magnificent moment—the little bird withstood the storm. But just before Claire could let out a ragged cheer, she saw the wings of light bend, and the bit of alchemy was sucked into the vortex of shadows.

Gone.

Swallowed whole.

The wraiths were space without light, swallowing it, devouring it, like the black holes that lurked in space, eating stars.