“Something…drab?”
“Something that does not appear supernatural.”
“Plain and boring, like the demon over there?”
All of us glanced at Bathin. His hands were curled into fists at his sides now, and his jaw was locked, nostrils flared.
“I. Am. Not. Plain. Or boring.”
Okay, maybe I liked this unicorn. She obviously knew how to get under Bathin’s skin, and anybody who could do that was a plus in my book. If she knew how to needle him, she just might know how to make him give back Delaney’s soul.
“Which herd and meadow do you hail from?” I asked. I knew my unicorn lore. I might not know as much as my father, but I was getting there. Plus, I had a library full of books and scrolls and tablets. I could consult any one of them at any time and get the information I needed.
“My meadow,” she hedged. “It is no more.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “It is why I seek a new home meadow. This Ordinary meadow.”
“And your herd?” I asked.
She tipped her nose in the air. “They have abandoned me.”
Bathin rubbed at his forehead as if a headache had just hit him.
“Without your meadow and herd, will you be able to access enough magic to change your shape?”
The unicorn nodded, mane jangling like jingle bells. “Ordinary is justfullof magic. Let me think a moment.”
She shifted from hoof to hoof, one after the other, not lifting them all the way off the ground, but bending her knees in a little pop-diva wiggle. Any minute now I expected her to break into the Running Man or Moon Walk.
“Oh! Easy.” She pulled on magic. I could see it gather around her, sparkling up out of the grass, gold and green, turquoise of the sea, orange of the sand. It spun around her slowly, and then there was no longer a unicorn standing in front of a vortex to Hell.
There was a horse. A very small horse. A horse no bigger than a medium-sized dog.
The horse was also pure white, except for the black mark right in the center of her forehead. Her mane and tail were a soft yellow, like straw shining with sunlight, and her hooves matched. Even her eyes, which had been an alluring sapphire, were now a warm, deep brown.
“Lemme guess,” Bathin said. “Pony.”
She lifted her head and gave a very sweet, horse-like whinny.
“Pony,” he said again.
Xtelle stomped one tiny foot. “Miniature horse, you ass,” she hissed.
I laughed, and Bathin cracked a smile. “If you say so.”
“You are dead to me,” she declared. The miniature horse once again turned her back on Bathin.
“I wish,” he muttered.
Xtelle’s pointed ears swiveled back, then forward, as she stared steadily at Delaney, ignoring him. “Will this do?”
“As long as you don’t talk, I think it will work fine. We don’t really have wild horses, miniature or otherwise, here on the coast, so I think it would be best if we found someone who would agree to own you.”
There was nothing but complete silence.
Okay. Weird reaction.
“You know there’s a vortex to Hell we still haven’t addressed,” I pointed out.
“I know,” Delaney said. “I’m getting to that. Ryder, can you stand here without trying to run into that thing?”
