“Coming!” Claire replied. But as she followed Lyric and her glowing string up the twisting path, the Royalist cloak around her shoulders felt as heavy as a lie and twice as dangerous.

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER

7

By the time Claire and Lyric had trudged the rocky path from the beach to Needle Pointe the sun had started to rise, but the morning fog had not yet burned away. It rolled in from the water, adding iridescence to the newly hoisted sails of the ships. In this light, they looked more like butterfly wings than simple sheets.

Right before the narrow path merged with the main road, Lyric paused to rewind the B.P.S. while Claire studied the layout of the Spinners’ only permanent town. It was a city of crescents; the water from the harbor was carefully guided into a series of circular canals that, even from this vantage point, Claire could tell were crowded with Spinner narrowboats. The Rhona River hugged the city before running out into the sea, making the entire settlement one little island. As far as she could tell, there were no walls or gates or inspectors, but still—she knew Arden had ways of dealing with unexpected guests.

Her hand drifted to the pencil wedged securely behind her ear, and the weight of her Hollow Pack on her shoulder was a friendly one. She wasn’t powerless the same way she’d been when she first climbed up the chimney-well and stepped into Arden. After all, Claire knew how to polish a gem just right so that it could remember how to glow. But even though she knew she wasn’t helpless, she didn’t exactly feel not helpless, either. And she wouldn’t—not until she managed to find out more about this “Crown of Arden.” But to be able to do that, she had to make sure she wouldn’t be caught as soon as she stepped foot inside the city limits.

“Lyric,” Claire said, interrupting the girl’s current monologue on what kind of gown Queen Estelle would most likely wear to her coronation, “what exactly are we telling the inspectors about me again?”

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Lyric said, waving an airy hand, and Claire suspected that she had never been interrogated on the waterways before. Because if she had, she would certainly know that to not worry was impossible. “We just need to stick to The Story, and everything will be all right.”

The Story, as Lyric put it, was one she’d happily pulled together as they’d followed the glowing B.P.S. It involved a dastardly shipwreck, lost papers, and a daring, dashing Lyric who’d discovered Claire on the beach when Lyric had slipped out to collect early-morning sea urchins. For dye, of course. Tragically, upon finding Claire’s unconscious body, she’d lost her entire morning’s catch.

It made Claire’s head spin.