“YOU NEED TO BE SAFE!” She was shouting now, ignoring Sena’s and Nett’s stunned faces. It didn’t matter. She knew only that she had to make Sophie understand. That Sophie had to be safe. “I CAN DO THIS, SOPHIE! I DON’T NEED YOU TO DO THINGS FOR ME! YOU DON’T—”

“Claire!” Sophie said. Reaching out, she gripped both of Claire’s shoulders. “Calm down! We’re not following you. I know you can do things by yourself. We’re here because of the unicorn!”

“I— What? ” Now it was Claire’s turn to blink in surprise.

“The unicorn!” Sophie repeated. “The one from the rock—he’s been trapped!” She spoke fast, seeming to try to get the words out before Claire could recover from her shock and start yelling again. “The night you left, I had a dream—more than a dream, really. A message from the unicorn.”

A strange mixture of awe and worry washed through Claire, sweeping away her fury and leaving only Sophie’s incredible statement: a message from the unicorn.

“What?” Claire breathed again. “You—you spoke to the unicorn? Where is he?”

Now that it was clear Claire was done yelling, Sophie released her shoulders.

“Kind of. We share dreams,” she said, with a quick glance to the two adult Forgers. She kept her voice low, and Claire understood Sophie was protecting the secret of her creeping change. “I’m able to see his dreams, and he can see mine. He doesn’t really talk, but he shares his memories and feelings with me—feelings of being confined, but always by different things.”

She raised her voice again to a regular volume and continued. “Sometimes it’s metal, other times it’s thread or stone or roots, which makes me believe that one of the guilds has him, but I’m not sure which one.”

“We have some ideas though!” Nett piped up.

Sophie nodded and held up four fingers. “We know it’s not the Gemmers, since you and me, Claire, were at Stonehaven and we would have definitely heard about it.” She put down a finger. “And it’s not the Tillers—we just spent a couple of days in Tanglevine, the biggest Tiller village, but the only things we found there were a few snapdragon bites and a nasty run-in with a Guarden Rose.”

Over Sophie’s shoulder, Claire saw Nett roll up his tunic sleeve to show off his arm, which was mottled black and blue and punctuated with thorn-prick-sized scabs.

“So,” Sophie continued, now with only two fingers held up, “that left us with either the Forgers or Spinners. We were closer to Fyrton and also, since the Forgers have declared war on Estelle, it made sense to us that they would be the ones to keep a unicorn hidden—to use as a secret attack, or something. We snuck into Fyrton and then went to their treasury, but then—”