“Oh, I love it, don’t you?” Lyric said. “This is supposedly a sketch that Queen Estelle drew—well, Princess Estelle, actually. This is just a copy—I think the original might have gotten destroyed in the great flood, about one hundred and fifty years after the war.”

“Do you mind if I borrow this?” Claire asked, already shutting the book and clutching it to her chest. Lyric nodded, and Claire hurried to the guest room and closed the door. She went to her cloak pocket and pulled out the sketch she’d done, along with the pink marble she’d found in Woven Root. Carefully, she flipped open the book and placed her sketch next to it. With barely a thought, she polished the pink marble to a glow so that she could see the details more carefully.

Claire’s breath caught. Her sketch was exactly the same as the one in the book, right down to the border of geese. But how, if Claire had never seen this image before? Nervously, she nibbled on the end of her pencil.

The pencil.

Claire pulled it away from her lips.

Letter stone was rare in Arden, and pencils were treasured. This was the only pencil she’d seen in Arden. Legend was that it had belonged to Charlotte Sagebrush, who’d created Arden’s first alphabet. Claire wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but she knew for sure who had been its owner before her: Scholar Terra. Otherwise known as Queen Estelle d’Astora.

What if Queen Estelle had had this pencil since she was a little girl? It was a rare enough treasure to be fit for a royal gift.

Her fingers traced the drawing she’d done that afternoon. Rocks held the memory of the earth—isn’t that what she’d learned in Arden? They contained imprints of all the creatures that had once swum in the seas and walked on the land. Claire had even witnessed for herself how a stone forest could keep the echoes of a unicorn hunt. If petrified wood could do all that, why couldn’t the letter stone in her hand remember what it had been asked to draw before?

Wonder swept through Claire. Her sketch was not her sketch at all but an echo of the queen’s sketches, done so long ago. The pencil had somehow recognized the crown Claire had been drawing, and its memory of that moment had been released. That dream within Claire, that almost memory, was a memory, but not Claire’s. It had belonged to Princess Estelle.

Claire’s eyes darted to the corner of the page, and excitement began to course through her. She knew how to open the Diamond Tree Vault!

A slight gasp came from over her shoulder. Claire had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t even been aware of Lyric opening the door to the guest room.