Hope — Deby Adair

'Daughter of the Sootstress,' Candela breathed, 'we have a task for you.' Candela paused, her eyes gentle pinpricks. She spoke the next words unflinchingly. 'It will test you.' The small hairs stood on my neck. My easy manner slipped from me as I placed my right hand upon my chest, below my throat, the way I had been taught, when... I could not remember...it was a memory of shadows. I looked Candela, the unicorn -- the mother of all unicorns -- straight in the eyes. 'Test me, then,' I whispered.When a cryptic messenger reveals veiled words of prophecy, things change in Wish, forever. The high tower keeper, Hope, has gone missing. In her bid to complete the Circle of Light, everything depends upon Hope being found. The bleak invader leaks further into the land of Wish as the unicorns gather to battle the darkness. And so the plight of Sarragh deepens as she seeks the inscrutable Hope in places that even unicorns cannot go.