Slowly, Claire dragged her eyes away from the girl and to the Spyden, who had done just as the girl had asked and was standing as if frozen near the fire. Her stomach twisted at the sight of its bristly, too-long legs and eyes. So many eyes. Large ones, small ones, but all orbs of inky blackness, so it was impossible to tell where the Spyden was looking, except for the creeping feeling that skittered across Claire’s shoulders that told her it was very much watching her.

“Just to be clear,” Claire said to the girl, “I can only ask one thing.” Even though her voice was squeaky, she was careful to keep her words flat and unmarked by a question.

“Yes. But Mama says asking a Spyden is just asking for trouble.” She began to criss-cross her braids over her ears, forming makeshift earmuffs out of her thick hair. A second later, Claire knew why.

“Are you really going to believe a duplicitous-tongued Spinnerling,” the Spyden clacked at Claire, “or me, whom you have sought out? Ask all the questions you would like. I know how to make you the richest person in the world—or the most beautiful. I know the easiest way for you to go home. I know where unicorns can be found.”

Claire stayed silent, her panic-drenched brain racing, trying to keep up. One question—but which? Technically, Claire already knew where more unicorns could be found: in the moontear necklace that now hung around Queen Estelle’s neck. But would even unicorns be enough? Last time a unicorn had helped Claire and Sophie, it changed Sophie. She needed to ask a question that would fix everything.

Fix … everything. Claire tried to think. Three hundred years ago, Queen Estelle led the Gemmers into war against the other guilds, and in her quest for power, she’d called for a unicorn hunt. Arden legend said that killing a unicorn would make its slayer immortal, but that had not been true. However, unicorns were beings of pure magic, and they made all magic greater, all things possible, and while a living unicorn was the most powerful of all, a hair, a hide, or a horn of a unicorn worked just as well … and could be controlled.

The only useful unicorn is a dead unicorn, Estelle had sneered at Claire. Estelle wanted the last unicorn. And while there was a chance a second unicorn might still be out there, roaming the fields and mountains of Arden, there was definitely at least one unicorn—she just happened to still be a human girl. Hopefully. But as long as Queen Estelle was looking for a unicorn, Sophie would be in danger.

And it wasn’t just Sophie. Arden would be in danger—and the land was already suffering.