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to help.’
    ‘Mmm, it might do,’ said Erin.
    ‘The darkest impostor must be Marianne,’ said Chloe. ‘But what does it mean about an arrow of fire and a grey feather? I was wondering if the arrow of fire might have something to do with me. After all, I can make arrows of fire with my summer magic.’

    ‘It probably means lightning or something like that,’ Erin said.
    ‘But it could mean me,’ persisted Chloe.
    ‘How could arrows of fire help? I bet it doesn’t mean you,’ said Erin, shaking her head.
    Chloe frowned. ‘Oh, why? Because it’s always got to be you? Is that it? You want to do it all yourself.’
    ‘Of course not. I –’ said Erin in astonishment.
    Chloe didn’t let her finish. Temper flared in her eyes. ‘It’s always all about your weather-weaving powers at the moment, isn’t it, Erin? You doing stuff with Tor. You seeing Marianne. You healing Kestrel. Well, the prophecy says two can help . And that means it’s not just you in this, Erin. I’m important too. You’ll see!’
    She turned and flew off, tears in her eyes.
    ‘Chloe, wait!’ Erin was completely taken aback by Chloe’s outburst. She looked all around, but Chloe had gone.

CHAPTER
Eight
    Dear Mum,
    It’s been a weird night. Good in some ways. Bad in others. There’s no news from Xanthe, and Chloe and I had an argument because she’s been feeling left out. She thinks the prophecy says something about her, but I don’t think it is her. When I said that, she got mad and lost her temper. I guess I should have noticed that she’s been feeling a bit cross about stuff, but I’ve just been so busy thinking about everything else. We never seem to be able to use the hidden gateway and Tor thinks there’s another storm coming, but we can’t stop it because my powers are too weak. I really wish there was something I could do.
    Erin didn’t want to write more – she didn’t want to think about how frustrating everything felt. Instead she picked up her mum’s diary and turned to 20 June, today’s date, wondering what her mum had been doing on the same day when she had been eleven.
    Mum and I are going to seal the gateways again tomorrow. We have all the things we need. I can’t wait!
    Erin quickly turned the page and looked at the next entry. Every seven years, her granny and then her mum had performed a spell to seal the gateways to the cloud kingdom so that no one could pass between the worlds. The spell had run out last year, almost seven years after her mum had died. She read on.
    Mum and I went to the giant hagstone gateway first. She held a seeing stone in the centre of the gateway, put it into the silver bowl and then she brushed air over it with the grey feather…

    Erin broke off. A grey feather! Was that the same grey feather that the prophecy had mentioned – a grey feather to seal a gateway? Was it a special grey feather or would any grey feather work? Her eyes skimmed quickly over the rest of the words.
    Then she dropped water on it from the bottle, passed it over the candle flame in the bowl and then covered the hole in the stone up with earth from the jar. The spell uses the four stardust elements – air, earth, water and fire – and mixes them with hagstone magic. After she’d done everything, she held the seeing stone in the gateway again and said, ‘Be sealed.’ The air inside the gateway seemed to shiver and then that was it…
    Erin reread the entry several times. She wished her mum had written more, but that was all there was. Turning her light off, she tried to go to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the grey feather and the prophecy. She reached under her pillow, her fingers instinctively curling round the hagstone underneath it. Her hand started to tingle.
    She pulled the hagstone out and looked at it in the darkness. The hole was growing and she could see a picture. A study with a large desk. There were shelves around the room, a dark bureau with hagstones on it in one corner and