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The Cloud Castle is the fourth book in the Thea Stilton special edition series.

Description[]

What is the secret of the clouds?
The Thea Sisters have received an urgent message from their friend Will Mystery. The magical Land of Clouds is in danger. The mouselets must find out why the clouds are disappearing! Once they enter the kingdom through Mount Everest, the mice meet fairies, elves, and unicorns on their way to the majestic Cloud Castle. But who can the Thea Sisters count on to help solve the mystery? It's an incredible journey to restore harmony to this enchanted land![1]

Plot[]

Warning! This article section contains major spoilers. Read on at your own discretion.


 

Thea Stilton invites the Thea Sisters to a fantasy language course in the Seven Roses Unit, with the girls happily accepting the invite and giving Thea the green light to arrange it with Will Mystery. Plans are interrupted, however, when an urgent delivery from the Seven Roses Unit itself comes and Will Mystery contacts the group with a highly secure emergency call phone that the delivered package contained. Will quickly explains the situation at the Seven Roses Unit and arranges for the girls to be picked up by helicopter and taken to headquarters ASAP.

Once Thea and the Thea Sisters arrive, Will briefs them on the situation. The Land of Clouds, a fantasy world that the unit is monitoring, is in great danger, and Will has to head there as quickly as possible in order to figure out the cause of the problem and fix it. Since traveling to the Land of Clouds via the Crystal Elevator is too risky because of the condition the world is currently in, the group opts to find the natural entrance at the world's highest peak: Mount Everest.

The group quickly follow the directions provided to them by the Unit's supercomputer and proceed to climb Mount Everest, meeting Airavata, a seven-trunked elephant who gatekeeps the entrance to the Land of Clouds and also explains the situation. Apparently the inhabitants of the Land of Clouds has stopped weaving clouds for whatever reason, and now Airavata is the only one left making clouds, allowing it to snow over Everest. Upon request and after seeing the group as trustworthy, Airavata opens the gateway to the Land of Clouds and helps the group learn to walk on the passageway, and in no time at all, the Land of Clouds is in sight.

The group eventually meets an exiled Weaver Fairy (the fairies in charge of making clouds) named Ariette, who tells the group both the story of her exile and the story of how the Land of Clouds crumbled into the state it is currently in. The Weaver Fairies acquire the silver thread required to make clouds by dreaming, and Ariette was accused of disrupting her fellow Weaver Fairies' sleep by telling stories about The World Below and was therefore sentenced to exile in a tower and had her magic crystal pendant taken away from her so that she can't escape. Without her crystal, which is the vessel for a fairy's spirit and the core of their being, she is unable to fly and will eventually lose her powers forever.

Ariette pleads them to help clear her name by stealing her crystal from the Color Pixies and returning it to her so that she may see for certain if her talks about the World Below have truly jeopardized her companions' dreams and their ability to make silver thread in their sleep, and the group reluctantly agrees. The group makes their way to the Color Pixies' village, seeing the effects of the reduction in clouds on the way. Upon arriving at the Color Pixies' village, the group quickly gains the trust of the Color Pixies and gain some intel on the pixies' perspective on the whole situation (essentially blaming Ariette and fully trusting the word of Queen Nephele, the ruler of the Land of Clouds), but Pam accidentally blows their cover and the group is sent to Cloud Castle to be confronted by Queen Nephele in court.

In the royal court, Queen Nephele refuses to listen to the group's reasoning, and she declares that Ariette will stay in the tower forever and that they will eventually be sent back to the World Below. Galatea, a fairy in the royal court and Ariette's best friend, brings the group under her watch and asks them to help Ariette clear her name and prove the royal court wrong about their fear-based prejudices of the World Below. The group formulates a plan to pull off their mission from behind the Queen's back: half of the group will stay in the castle and distract Queen Nephele while the other half goes to Ariette with Galatea's crystal so they can break her out of the tower and get her crystal from the Color Pixies.

After Will, Paulina, Nicky and Colette sneak out of the castle, their part of the plan is put into action. The four return to Ariette's tower, give Ariette Galatea's crystal, and head towards the Color Pixies' village under the cover of night. After being forced to briefly take shelter from a star storm, the group finally makes it back to the Color Pixie Village. They work fast to beat the indignant Color Pixies attempting to recapture them, going past the Color Theater Maze, getting Ariette's crystal back and shaking their pursuers and heading back to the Cloud Castle.

Meanwhile Galatea, Thea, Pam and Violet decide to do something besides stay in place. Galatea has reason to believe that Ariette's key to the Weaver Fairies' chambers was confiscated from her during her exile, so the group decides to retrieve a copy of the key from Queen Nephele's treasure room. Naturally, this is easier said than done- the room is accessed by a secret passageway and is then connected back to a hallway through a Hall of Mirrors, a dangerous corridor that reflects an infinite amount of false illusions in attempts to scaring non-fairy intruders from being able to get out. Moreover, the treasure room itself is guarded by a pair of crystal eagles who will steal the dreams of those who look into their eyes and stop them from ever dreaming again. Regardless of the danger, the girls decide that they have to get the key for Ariette so that their plan will work, and they make their way to the treasure room.

The plan goes smoothly-the girls quickly find the key, make it out through the Hall of Mirrors and its illusions, and reunite with the others who arrive with Ariette so they can go to the Weaver Fairies' chambers. Ariette gives Galatea her pendant back and sneaks into the Weaver Fairies with the Thea Sisters, Will and Galatea in tow to investigate. She discovers that not only are the fairies dreaming happily and are producing silver thread, but a songwing, a luminous bird that leads children to good dreams with his radiant golden wings, is responsible for the lack of silver thread because he eats them every night to give his recently dimmed wings their former shine for a limited amount of time. After failing in their attempts to negotiate with the songwing, Queen Nephele and her entourage appear.

Ariette explains to Queen Nephele the situation at hand, and Queen Nephele undoes the royal court's unjust punishment on her and pardons her for stealing her crystal from the Color Theater. Then, turning to the songwing, the queen tries but fails to negotiate with the songwing, but as an act of pure selflessness, Ariette gives the songwing her crystal so his wings can shine like he needs them to. The songwing flies away happily with the crystal around his neck and his wings shimmering in the night.

Ariette is given the Diamond Crystal, the brightest crystal in the Land of Clouds belonging to the most selfless and gold-hearted fairy, as a replacement for her crystal and as a reward, and Thea finally openly addresses something that happened during her group's excursion to the royal treasure room: Violet, in an attempt to protect Pam as she lunged for the box against the eagles' wishes, had accidentally looked into the eagles' eyes and has had her dreams stolen. This is quickly fixed by using the Diamond Crystal to give Violet her dreams back.

In gratitude to the Thea Sisters, Thea and Will for saving their kingdom, Queen Nephele throws them a party in their honor at the Hall of Stars. After a dance, a royal banquet and a box of special paints as a souvenir, the group sadly have to return to their world the World Below. They are sent on their way back, and they find themselves back at Mount Everest, where their helicopter is waiting for them.

The girls part ways with Will and make it back to Whale Island. Thea is invited to come to Colette and Pam's room, and to her surprise, the Thea Sisters reveal that they have painted the walls in the room with the paint gifted to them in the ball.

Trivia[]

  • In this book, it says that the Thea Sisters painted the walls of the room with the paints. However, the next book of the series-The Treasure of the Sea explicitly mentions that they painted the ceiling instead. This might be a writing error.

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References[]

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