“She’s a Royalist, sir,” Lyric jumped in, and Claire’s heart inched back down. “She had her cloak on when I found her. And it’s not just any cloak—it was woven by Historian Fray herself and marked with the queen’s own seal. I checked the tag.”

Claire tried to keep her face blank. She hadn’t realized that! With so many Royalists now in Arden, she hadn’t thought to check to see whose cloak she might have been wearing. If it was one woven by Fray herself, then that meant it probably belonged to one of the Original Royalists on official queen’s business. Which meant someone before her had gone to the Spyden with questions—someone who worked directly for the queen.

She didn’t know what it meant, but the thought unsettled her.

“Hmm,” the Director said, weighing Lyric’s words. He looked around at the circle, which had grown to include not only dancers but other stage assistants. “Journeyman Weft,” the director said to someone Claire couldn’t quite see. “Is what your sister says true?”

A young woman—maybe sixteen—stepped forward, her long black hair neatly looped into thin braids, then twisted into a knot on the top of her head. She wore a floating canary-yellow dress, and in her hand she held a notebook with one page marked by a feathered quill sticking out of it.

Suddenly, Claire realized why Lyric’s smile had seemed familiar and where she’d seen Mistress Weft’s dark eyes before. And she realized that Lyric wasn’t saying Kay but K. A single initial. A nickname for a sister named—

“Kleo,” Lyric said, looking relieved.

She was indeed the same Spinner who’d helped Nett and Sena and her escape the Fyrton inspectors when Claire first journeyed up the river. Kleo, who’d spent afternoons with Thorn and Sophie in Fray’s floating library, sharing stories about unicorns, their histories and their magic.

Kleo, who knew exactly who Claire was.

“Yes, sir,” Kleo confirmed to the director, “that’s what our mother told me as well on the Hearing Thread.” Her brown eyes took Claire in, and there was not a spark of recognition within them. Could it be possible that Kleo didn’t recognize her?

“If that’s the case, perhaps she should be at the infirmary instead,” the director said. “Especially if she can’t remember the warnings for a Smother-Ring.”

“No!” Claire blurted out. If she were sent to a hospital, there would be no way she could steal the tine by Starfell. “I mean,” she backtracked quickly, “I feel better when I’m here, in the Historium, sir. I have a feeling my—my parents—” She tripped over the words. “They will come searching for me here.”

“And why, exactly, did you go close to the podium?”