

Ūnicornis

By Skye Garcia

Copyright © 2015 Skye Garcia

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

Lucerna was dreaming. A small circle of dry land was all she had to stand on. The ocean of night sky swept in, and she was afraid it would wash her away. The waves lapped ever further towards her; she could see the stars chasing through the collapsing bubbles. Even the moon was out there, a silver glimmer tossed on the galactical tide. If I could only destroy the sky, she thought, then it couldn't wash me away.

"Nothing to fear... nothing to fear..." sighed the starry waves. Lucerna panicked. She couldn't trust the sea, it was lying. Of course there was something to fear, she would drown! Then she looked up into the atmosphere, and noticed that the ground was a landscape of flame. I will drown, or I will burn, she thought desperately. And then she tripped over something. She crouched down to pick it up. A lamp. A glowing lamp, and written around the top were the words: so turn water to silver and fire to gold, lies to truth and new to old.

Lucerna lifted the lamp. The beam shone out, a ray of darkness with a shadow of light. The sky-water smoked away, and plunged into the land above, quenching the fire. Left alone in a misty grey fog, Lucerna held the lamp ahead of her and walked across the desertion. The ground was metal, but at least she hadn't been swept away. And now there was nothing to sweep her away...

Lucerna woke abruptly, soft grey light reaching through the window to snare her out of sleep. The images were still replaying in her mind, and the misty early morning was eerily like the dreamscape she had just left.

"Lilian!" she screamed to her serving girl. The timid, round-faced Lilian opened the door and asked tremulously if everything was all right.

"Fetch me some breakfast, and send for my horse. I am going to the town at once."

Lilian decided that action spoke louder than words and saw to the request.

When Lucerna arrived in the town of Stellaria, she had written out her dream on a roll of parchment and went to the stone hall of the dream counsel. They greeted her with enthusiasm, because most of their customers turned up with vague, doubtful recollections of their dreams and a moth-eaten dream catcher and expected it to be untangled for them.

It was in the interest of the dream counsellors to give positive feedback, knowing that most people wanted to hear good news and would be more likely to return if they heard what they wanted to hear. And they wanted to hear that their dreams meant they would have health, wealth, and happiness in abundance forever. In truth, the dream counsel were also working on a narrow time frame, because to really analyze what any of the stuff meant would take a long while, longer than most customers' patience. The result was a brief, incorrect, and censored analysis that sounded wise, professional, and full of incredible future prospects.

As is human nature, people usually took this with a pinch of sugar rather than salt, and swore by it as the gospel truth. They would leave with their untangled dream catcher and the promise of success, fortune, adventure, and life long contentment. It was mostly a placebo effect, but sometimes they were right by accident.

This time was no exception. Lucerna wanted to believe this dramatic dream she had had was an omen of extraordinary and wonderful things for her. So she was very pleased when the counsellors told her "It is a foretelling of great upheaval. You are likely to discover a misdeed or lie and be the first to tell the truth of it. You will have a chance to make great riches and have a good influence on people. You may become a leader and shine the truth like a lamp, guiding others where they are afraid to walk."

Lucerna trotted back on her lovely black horse with an air of self-importance. The morning had simply confirmed her innate sense of entitlement and she felt determined to make herself powerful. Of course, she thought. I'm not stupid, like Lilian. I was meant for better things than that.

Her mother and father had been merchants who had left her the estate she now lived on, and she was very comfortable staying there. She did not, however, like the idea that if any trouble occurred there was a possibility she might have to downsize, and imagine living on twenty acres instead of sixty! If any trouble occurred, she might not even be able to afford a servant. Imagine having to wash clothes yourself! It couldn't be countenanced.

Whatever made her powerful would also have to make her rich, and vice versa, because it was more secure to have both. She thought and thought and then, in one swoop of utter brilliance, the idea fell into place.

***

The book was published. It had taken her quite a long time to write it, and she was impatient to get it into the scope of general reading so that she could execute her plan. She pondered on how to begin the whole process, and decided that going back to the dream counsel and presenting the book to them was a good way of exposing it to customers and therefore potential candidates for her plan.

She visited the stone hall again with the same air of smugness she had left with last time, and when she stated she had a business proposition rather than another stupid dream to interpret about the end of the world and stuff, they were all ears. Within reason. Dream interpretation did get boring after not very long.

They went through the book and listened to Lucerna's idea with glee, because they were business oriented themselves, after all, and they could see this might get them more money than ever before if they said the right things.

They said as many of the right things as they could – would Lucerna like to use the dream counsel hall for these meetings she planned? Would she like to send them more books so they could sell them? Perhaps they could explain it all persuasively to their customers? And perhaps, given all this brilliant marketing they were going to do for her, they might get a small percentage of the profits?

Lucerna agreed.

The following week, Lucerna began the first meeting at the stone hall. Quite a lot of people turned up. Stellaria was a notoriously tedious place to live, due to the general attitude of those who lived there and a somewhat isolated landscape. So they tended to take any line that was thrown just to make things more interesting.

Most of them had bought books, and were all rather impressed by Lucerna, dressed convincingly in a long cream coloured robe and reading chapters from the book with great authority. She was tall and imposing, and the audience happily donated their cash at the end under the impression that it was necessary to keep this Deity, the Deus Curo, happy too. They were told that the Deus would look after them and help them to achieve things, if they were dedicated and paid up, but that they might be left out or even punished slightly if they didn't. They had to place their donations in front of a large eye painted on the wall of the hall; it had been there for ages anyway, but it was a great symbol to hijack. This eye, said Lucerna, would watch them all the time. It would be seen exactly who was dedicated or not.

"And this is not new, friends," Lucerna reminded. "This is an ancient truth that has been forgotten and denied for many years. If we are to save ourselves from the power of the Deus, we must give generously."

Lucerna privately laughed at how non-ancient six months was. But they didn't need to know that.

"The more a follower should give, the more they will receive. But if they should fail to give, and revolt against the true word of the Deus, they will experience the terror of the Deus."

This surprisingly successful first meeting was enough to inspire the dream counsellors to convert the hall to accommodate the dedicated followers of this highly profitable belief system. They embellished the painted eye with the words 'Deus Curo' and Lucerna hired the counsellors as marketers. She gave them half the payout, which seemed a lot to them, but Lucerna was happy – they had to share and she didn't.

The second meeting had markedly more people than the last; it seemed families and the community at large were delighted to latch on to this scheme to give them something to define themselves by. They solemnly nodded in agreement of nearly everything Lucerna had to say. Because it was nice for them to believe in something, especially something that would purportedly reward them later.

"For the word of the Deus Curo is the one way, the only way. It is the life, the death, the ascension. To achieve ascension you must put aside all other ideals and temptations and devote your belief purely to the Deus Curo."

The audience were only too willing, because they had nothing else they believed in anyway.

Between the meetings, Lucerna would talk to the former dream counsellors about what they should do next to make this venture sustainable.

"They will not believe blindly forever," said one. "We must prove it to them."

Another said critically, "but we cannot really stage fantastical happenings. Whatever can we do to convince them?"

Lucerna spoke up sharply. "You are both right. But I have a solution. We have ample opportunity for convincing – two words: punishment, and reward."

The rest of them were silent.

Lucerna walked around the Hall.

"Say," she began thoughtfully, "say somebody might contribute something particularly valuable," she paused to place five gold coins on the table, and separated four from one. "The usual suspects-" she tapped the single coin, "will notice that the less guarded purses-" she tapped the group of four coins "receive...benefits...blessings...rewards. And then, of course, somebody is bound to slip up. And then they will – pay – for it in kind. But it won't look like anything to do with me."

She slipped the coins back into her pocket. "Reward," she said, "and punishment. Proof."

The first counsellor blinked. "Incentive," he stated, "reinforced by fear. I like it. I like it a lot."

"You wouldn't, if it was you," said Lucerna. "But you'd play along anyway, because you wouldn't know any better."

The counsellor frowned. "But I do know better," he claimed.

The second counsellor tutted. "Yes, but they don't. That's the point."

Lucerna interrupted. "I will tell them that a message has been sent to me, after much divining, from the Deus Curo. A plea for a more generous gift, and whoever shall show the most devotion will be rewarded."

"And how shall we reward them?" enquired another counsellor.

"With the junk I need to clear out my loft," Lucerna supplied absently. "Lots of old bits of armour, shields, stupid things like that. Most commoners seem to like such garbage."

The first counsellor waved a hand and thumped it on the table. "Done," he asserted. Then he added, "ouch."

***

"Miss Lucerna?" Lilian asked anxiously, standing in the doorway of Lucerna's study, wringing her hands.

Lucerna looked up from her writing, raising her eyebrows. "What?" she said distractedly. Lilian cringed with awkwardness. She was very shy.

"Um," Lilian began; Lucerna's irritation was tangible, almost an object in it's own right. Lilian found her words, apparently on her shoes. Addressing her left shoelace all the while, she said, "I have to – confess to – reading some of your most excellent book, and I would be honoured, Miss Lucerna, if I could attend your meetings too."

Lucerna gawped at Lilian. "You can read?" she said incredulously. She was exaggerating on purpose, to make Lilian feel even more uncomfortable.

Lilian nodded. "Yes, Miss Lucerna," she replied, wanting to say something subtly defensive and forcing herself to remember that it wasn't an option.

"Well, let me think," Lucerna said, taking up her quill and waving it like a fan. It was quite warm, as it usually was in Stellaria. She considered. At last, when she'd had her full enjoyment out of Lilian's embarrassment, she replied, "don't see why not. Just don't expect special treatment."

"No! Of course not, Miss Lucerna. I thank you extremely, I-"

"It's nothing. Keep the book. You'll need it."

Lucerna knew the importance of keeping people in debt to you when you needed them to do what you wanted.

***

Lilian sat in her room in Lucerna's house, where she lived as part of her job description, and read through some more of the book again. She had been right the first time. This was not real or ancient; it was some rubbishy scheme Lucerna had dreamed up to make herself lots of money. And if Lilian knew anything about Lucerna, to make herself something of a celebrity as well.

Worse, though, was that people obviously believed this stuff, or Lucerna wouldn't have written the names of about a hundred of them that had turned up to this meeting she had held. Lilian was informed of Lucerna's movements only by her absences and all the stuff she wrote down. It was lucky that Lucerna seemed to obsessively write down everything about anything that had the slightest thing to do with her. Even things that didn't have anything to do with her. And lucky that she left everything on the desk in her study without a thought. And lucky that she was too lazy to clear up anything whatsoever, so Lilian was called upon to clear up Lucerna's desk as well.

Maybe all that would change now Lucerna knew that Lilian could read.

Of course, it was possible that once she'd made enough money out of this, Lucerna would give up and everyone would be left in peace again. But Lilian had a feeling it wasn't going to be quite like that; some of the things written in this book were deeply sinister and manipulative. She knew she would be able to tell if she went along to the meetings for a bit. Then she would be able to see how far Lucerna was really taking this...

The first meeting she went to, Lilian arrived after Lucerna, so nobody would think they were connected in any way. Lilian was terrified of embarrassing Lucerna. So much so that she left it almost too late, hurrying into the Hall at the last moment with silent apologies. She sat and obediently followed everything, glancing around to see what everyone else was doing, and copying them.

Just before the end, Lucerna made her announcement.

"Now that it is time to pay our debt to the Deus, who brought us all we have, built our world and wealth and health, I must share the vision I was just last night given. Our Deus demands a token of dedication, from one here tonight. The Deus expects the usual donation of devotion from all of us; however, one of you will have the privilege of being rewarded for a more generous gift. Who shall it be?"

Nobody moved. Then a man called Crowther, another merchant – Lucerna thought she might remember him having made a deal with her father – boldly walked to the painted eye and placed a great sack of coins in front of it. Lucerna spoke, as he did so, "this believer will surely be rewarded by the Deus for his faith. Take this as an example of a true believer."

The rest of the congregation paid up, Lilian having to frantically ask anyone if they had some spare change.

"Once again, we shall meet here in seven days time," announced Lucerna. Then they were filing out; the believers, the debtors, the faithful.

And Lilian, who belonged in none of those categories.

Chapter 2

Names. Numbers. Notes.

Lucerna had cleverly made it mandatory to write about yourself in the visitors' book if you attended a meeting at the Hall. Thus she knew quite a lot about them all now. Their relatives. Their addresses. Their birthdays. Their careers.

Which meant she could say the right things to the right people at the right time to ensure she could upkeep the appearance of being all-knowing. She liked to write everything down, she was enjoying profiling all these people.

Still, she asked herself, it might get stale for them, mightn't it? She would have to think of some new captivating plan to keep them interested. They would all be pleased when they saw the bronze shield Crowther had been sent. She'd had the dusty old thing brought out of the loft and sent to be propped against Crowther's house wall. That would convince them all...

Then she remembered that she'd seen one or two younger people at the last meeting. Perhaps she could... send them on a field trip. No, one of them. One, because isolation made someone more likely to comply. If there were more than one, they might see sense and not do what they were told.

She turned over a fresh sheet of paper and began scribbling some more plans.

***

Lilian didn't know where Lucerna kept her money. Lilian didn't really mind, either, because stealing it was out of the question. She had no doubt Lucerna knew precisely how much she had at any one time – it was probably all written down somewhere.

Lucerna might think Lilian was stupid, but Lilian would have to be very stupid indeed not to realize what the 'Priestess' was up to. Lilian had served Lucerna for several years now and knew more about her than Lucerna would probably have liked. She knew about the best friend, Tessinika, that Lucerna had fallen out with. She knew about the tortoiseshell cat that had vanished into the forest after Lucerna tried to put a collar on it. She knew about the 'junk' in the loft and the swords in the cellar. She knew about the lists and plans and charts and documents. She knew and observed and considered and watched and waited and acted as though she was an idiot.

In short, Lilian was not stupid.

Which was the reason she had decided to take part in the visits to the Hall, because she didn't like the way this was going at all. Whatever Lucerna's motives, it was a thoroughly twisted thing she was doing, and Lilian rated this venture as the most twisted thing she'd seen Lucerna do yet.

All the same, she was struggling to comprehend why nobody else had seen through the whole thing. But then they were all the same around here – uptight, moralistic, well-to-do and precious with their reputation. They were not like the people in Lilian's home country at all. She originally came from Felixia, a big beautiful island on the edge of the Calidus Ocean. It had the most wonderful landscape: warm sea, mountains, emerald green forests and rivers with water so clean you could see every pebble. There wasn't loads of people on it, but all of them that Lilian had ever known had been friendly, welcoming, respectful of the land and each other too, not nosy and competitive. And she was fairly sure none of them would have fallen for Lucerna's stupid scheme in a million years.

She was also having trouble thinking of how she could stop Lucerna. How could you persuade a bunch of sheep to ignore a terrier that would tear them to shreds if they didn't obey?

***

When Crowther showed up at the Hall with a bronze shield, telling the story of its mysterious arrival outside his house, many of the believers were amazed. Crowther enjoyed the attention so much that he made up a dream that sounded like some kind of vision and told them all until he had almost convinced himself. He was encouraged still further when Lucerna presented him with a freshly printed copy of the book, updated and redesigned. She let everybody know that they would have to be dedicated if they wanted one as well. And in order to ensure nobody missed out, she expected a little more cash to appear next time...

Meanwhile Lilian had not written in the visitor's book yet. She and anybody else new were given the opportunity at once. Lilian thought it would be best to play along, so she wrote carefully, avoiding anything Lucerna didn't know about already and writing in a way that made it seem as though she wasn't used to writing very much. Lucerna would probably see through that...but then again she might not. She might just be reassured that Lilian wasn't very bright. Which suddenly seemed like a good idea.

***

It was at this point that people began asking Lucerna for guidance and advice. They would ask her after the meetings when they might speak to her, and she took advantage of the opportunity to establish her 'beliefs' in their minds even more at once.

She gave them appointments, and turned up at the Hall several days in the week to answer people's questions and discuss belief and the plans the Deus might have for their lives. They would bring their petty problems and she would read relevant chapters of her book to them and provide them with common sense to sort the problem. She was fascinated to discover how stupid and gullible most of these people were. What they considered as a major difficulty in their lives would have paled in comparison to anything Lucerna had ever had to deal with, and as far as she was concerned she'd had an unusually sheltered life. Which was why she was bored. And why she was doing this, because it alleviated the tedium a little.

When you were reciting this stuff all the time though, it began to sink in. She didn't have to read from the book anymore. It was all there at the front of her thoughts at any given moment. She began to take her own advice. She began to imagine the Deus was really watching them all. She began to imagine that the eye was really looking at them, that this greater power really would be disappointed if they didn't turn up each week. If she didn't turn up each week.

It came about slowly; she barely noticed.

***

Lucerna was scanning her audience with eagle eyes. She had chosen a particular person to go on a 'quest' for her. She didn't really think they were going to succeed, because eighteen or nineteen year olds rarely succeeded in anything. If Lilian was anything to go by, eighteen or nineteen year olds were apologetic brainless idiots who didn't know what to do with themselves. But that didn't matter, because the plan would work out so nicely regardless of the outcome. She had hypothesized and written out all the possibilities to the last detail.

There he was, she thought; instantly recognizable as a kid that had simply been dragged there by his parents: stony characters that she recognized as similar to how her own had been. And she remembered how they had been, deciding her future career and expecting particular standards, spoiling her with money and cold-shouldering her the rest of the time.

She couldn't have been more correct: Lord and Lady Payne were forever sending their son to interviews for work he didn't want; he failed every time because he was utterly useless at anything they wanted him to be good at. They wouldn't let him find himself employment or do anything remotely unorthodox because that might look bad on them. To distract him from the fact that he was semi-imprisoned, they spent money on him. Which meant very little, because they had a great deal of money.

She had memorized all her notes and she knew who the boy was, yawning and not listening to a word she was saying. And now she was going to stop that.

"Now before we leave, I must draw your attention to Chapter seventeen," Lucerna announced. "Here the Deus has proclaimed: 'the most evil of beasts is the Unicorn. It tells lies to innocent children and lures them away.'"

She looked at them all sternly as though she really was concerned about a bunch of hypothetical kids that meant nothing to her.

"I'm sure you have all heard tales of children vanishing without trace. Now you know that the Unicorn is responsible. Always."

She tapped the page of the book and continued, "the Deus here decrees that if one should find and slay the Unicorn, take it's horn and offer it to the Deus, the one should be rewarded with ascension at once. I have been advised by the Deus to choose a particular one of you to complete this task. You must understand that it is a great honour to do this for the Deus. It is not to be refused."

Everyone glanced around at each other, wondering who this honoured person would be who would go on this adventurous-sounding quest for the Deus. Lucerna walked slowly through them. She was enjoying the silent tension; it made her feel powerful.

Then she stopped in front of the boy, who was now retying his shoelace. Idiot, thought Lucerna.

"Quinn Payne," she said loudly. The boy looked up, startled.

"What?" he asked mildly.

Lucerna sighed. The idiot was ruining the atmosphere.

"Were you even listening?" she said irritatedly.

"Um, kind of," replied Quinn.

Lucerna glossed over it. "You have been chosen by the Deus to seek out and slay the Unicorn, the evil Unicorn. You must bring back it's horn and if you do so you will win yourself ascension."

"Oh, okay," said Quinn, not sure what that meant but guessing that winning stuff was quite good. Then he frowned. "Since when were Unicorns evil though?" he said bluntly.

Lucerna wanted to scream.

"They have always been and will always be. The Unicorn is a liar and has spread clever stories about its false goodness for hundreds of years. It is the manifestation of all that is wrong."

Quinn raised an eyebrow sceptically, but didn't go a bundle on all those long words, so he shrugged and offered, "alright. What do I do?"

Lucerna wondered if this was viable. "You will stay after this. I will explain."

Lucerna kept the boy for a short while after the meeting to talk some sense into him. She outlined the plan that he would have to leave in three days time and be back in three weeks time. It didn't really matter if he failed at the whole quest, but it would be more interesting for her if he was successful. She knew that Unicorns did exist, because her friend Tessinika had seen one twice. Tessinika had said she'd never seen anything so beautiful. It wasn't long afterwards they'd fallen out with each other, and although Tessinika was far from here now, Lucerna felt satisfied that her actions would be a way of getting back at her ex-friend for abandoning her.

***

Quinn was not as daft as Lucerna had understood to begin with. He was just honest, straightforward, rational and well-meaning – everything Lucerna was not. He wasn't really convinced that Unicorns even existed, and much less that he'd be capable of killing one, but decided he ought to humour this rather scary woman and at least try. Plus, it would get him away from his unbearable family for three weeks. He was one of five children and his two older brothers were a delight to his parents – the eldest one was married to a very glamorous girl and ran a business much like their parents'. The second one was much the same, minus the glamorous girl. The rest of them showed promising signs of being business minded also, apparently, and Quinn was the anomaly. He loved the outdoors, and quite liked having some money as long as he didn't have to count it and spend his life accumulating more of it by ripping other people off. For his mother and father, rich merchants and sneaky snobs, this was simply not good enough. They refused to let Quinn leave until he would conform. Quinn had reluctantly settled down to wait until they couldn't be bothered to badger him any more. And now he was only too glad to take a break from the whole lot of them.

He left with a plan of his quest and a stupid map that wasn't very helpful at all and wondering how he would tell the Priestess in three weeks time that Unicorns...weren't even real.

***

Lilian, meanwhile, had been hiding behind a large stone bench, wondering how she'd explain to the Priestess why she was so very closely examining a piece of street furniture.

She heard Lucerna wish Quinn good luck on his quest and Quinn's scuffing footsteps as he dawdled home. Lilian waited until she heard the clatter of horseshoes from Lucerna's horse fade away, then leapt from the ground to race after Quinn.

Quinn turned, somewhat alarmed, to see a clumsy girl with a very pink face due to having been squashed into the ground, and a variety of mud blotches on her cream coloured tunic. Also in her now very untidy hair.

"Stop," she said helplessly. "I've got to tell you something."

Quinn had had quite enough of women trying to tell him things by this time, but as he was a generally nice person, he gave the girl a chance to explain herself.

Lilian knew she didn't have time to say anything really. She was certain that she'd be in trouble, and would probably have to think up some convoluted story to excuse herself.

"I'm Lucerna's – the Priestess's – housekeeper," stuttered Lilian. She caught her breath. "And I hate her," she admitted, sounding rather surprised. "But that's not the point," she went on. Trust me, I've seen her plans and graphs and stuff, and she's not up to any good. She's started this whole thing to get money, that's where all those 'offerings' go – in to her pocket. I think the power's gone to her head. She has to be stopped. I don't know what to do... But if you do what she wants, I don't think you'll be very well afterwards. Just a hunch."

Quinn blinked. "Who are you?" he asked curiously.

"My name – my name is Lilian. I used to be in Felixia, but I had to earn a living and Lucerna picked me up while she was travelling there. I've been her housekeeper ever since. And nobody can see – everything she's doing – they think it's harmless, or real, or for the – greater good, or something, and I can't believe they're so stupid. It's all for her own selfish greed. And now you don't believe me, do you?"

Lilian glared hopelessly at Quinn.

Quinn was silent for a moment.

"Yeah, I do actually," he replied at last.

"I think I'll go and do this stupid quest, and when I come back I can tell her the truth, that unicorns aren't even real anyway. She ought to know that already really. She can't do anything if I can't find anything."

"She can," said Lilian, "to you."

"Hmm." Quinn thought about the tall, imposing priestess.

"When do you have to leave?" asked Lilian.

"Three days from now," said Quinn.

Lilian realized she was running out of time.

"I've got to go, or I'll be in trouble," she said. "But... be careful, okay? I don't know what she's doing, but I'll try to find out. And at least you know now, not to trust her one bit."

"Thanks. I won't." Quinn nodded. "Good luck, Lilian," he said slightly awkwardly.

"You too!" Lilian said, hurrying away.

***

It had never really been a question of whether she was in trouble or not; more how much trouble she would be in. Lilian sped back down the driveway of Lucerna's house in the dusk, heart in mouth as she saw that the windows were already lit. That was Lilian's call, and Lucerna hated having to do any chore herself.

Lucerna whipped open the door as Lilian arrived in front of it.

"What wonders. Where has the lovely Lilian been enjoying herself this past half hour?"

"I -" Lilian hung her head. It was just for show. She was thinking frantically. And she couldn't show any sign of thinking on her face or Lucerna might get the impression she had a brain.

"For the love of Curo, what in the world have you been doing that got you so filthy? Lilian, you are a disgrace."

Lilian was not shocked by the sentiment; but by the casual, natural and entirely subconscious way Lucerna had incorporated her invented belief into her own language, as though she really did subscribe to it herself.

"I - I fell, Miss Lucerna. I tripped over – over a molehill. I am rather clumsy, I'm afraid. I had to go by way of a different path, through the fields, so that I would not be an embarrassment to your prowess."

"Indeed. And thank goodness, because certainly you should have been an embarrassment." Lucerna felt a deep twinge of suspicion, yet couldn't quite put her finger on it. She decided to let Lilian off – and then watch her like a hawk.

"I do sincerely apologize, Miss Lucerna. I will try to be more careful next time."

Lucerna sniggered. "For your own sake, Lilian," she said with a cold affection. "Change your clothes and finish your chores. I can hardly punish you for such a petty mistake."

Lilian bobbed a curtsey, an ominous feeling of being lured into a trap creeping up on her. Lucerna let her in and Lilian bustled off to change her tunic. Slightly frilly cream coloured things, she hated them. Lucerna wouldn't let her wear anything else.

As soon as Lilian was gone, Lucerna murmured, "if indeed it was a petty mistake... what are you playing at, girl?"

Uneasily, she went to her study. If in doubt, write things down. She picked up her quill and turned over a sheaf of parchment. She rummaged in a folder and brought out a pile of lists, names... Then she began to write a few notes.

Sent Quinn Payne on quest. He is less idiotic than I first supposed, though not by much. Luckily it makes little difference, he will die anyway... even if he is successful. But they will not see it as death, it will be ascension. Ascension. Unless he brings back nothing, of course. Then it will simply be punishment. And those who disobey the Deus must be punished... I can always send a gift to those parents of his, in case they liked him. I don't think they do particularly either; he bears no resemblance to them in any case. Besides, I know they have plenty more. They won't miss one. Of course, he may be pathetic enough to get himself killed out in the forest. Certainly Lilian would, if it was her, I feel sure. It will be entertaining to see.

Lucerna considered. Either way, it would back up everyone's belief. And talking of which, it was time to make an example of somebody. She wanted to instigate the idea that punishment by death was perfectly reasonable, and not as bad as it sounded because it would benefit everybody else by showing commitment to the Deus.

Imagine if she could become the Queen Priestess Lucerna. The most influential, greatest, most powerful... And that really would be a triumph over Tessinika... She took up a fresh piece of parchment and wrote it. Queen Priestess Lucerna of the blessed chosen county Stellaria. Conqueror of the Unicorn.

She sat there and fantasized for a little while. Then she shuffled the papers aside and went to retire for the night.

***

The next day, Lilian was cleaning. She had prepared Lucerna's breakfast, and Lucerna was eating it in the grandiose dining parlour. Lilian, as usual, had got up that little bit earlier in order to make an extracurricular batch of toast for herself. She was well into the habit of stuffing quantities of food in very fast, sweeping buttery crumbs from her face and serving up a modest amount for her mistress without a flicker. Lucerna always took Lilian's pink cheeks as a sign of shyness, and mostly they were pink to ensure they weren't purple with jam.

After Lilian had left Lucerna to her breakfast, she would rush off to catch up with all the dusting, tidying and polishing that Lucerna's house required. As usual, Lilian started with Lucerna's study. Not as usual, she picked up the parchment on the desk and read it all the way through. She couldn't help it. She often glanced over things briefly and had gleaned a great deal of information that way, but to read it like a book was insane. She read the page about Quinn in horror. She read the 'Queen Priestess Lucerna'... Lilian felt her breath go faster. This was wrong. This was all wrong. It was even worse than she'd thought. This was – she'd have to – Quinn! How could she let him know? She had expected the outcome could never be good, but she hadn't thought that Lucerna was so very set on getting him killed whatever he did –

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

"Ah. Lilian."

Lilian whipped round, the parchment still in her hand. Her mouth opened in horror. Lucerna had finished breakfast early. Too late, Lilian realized she'd given herself away. Desperately, she tried to cover it up with her usual method: pleading utter stupidity.

"Oh heavens, Miss Lucerna, you did frighten me so. I was tidying your papers. Never fear, I cannot read a thing. At least, not in your beautiful writing!" Lilian corrected herself fast. Lucerna knew she could read, she had read the book...

It was as though Lilian had never spoken.

"Don't. You. Dare. Speak of it. You know what I'm talking about. If you breathe a word," Lucerna hissed, like an angry cat, "I will ensure you disappear. Do you understand, girl? You will die."

Lilian shook her head in disbelief.

"I – Miss Lucerna, I cannot – I don't – I didn't –"

"You DID!" Lucerna screeched. She snatched the parchment from Lilian and tore it to pieces. She threw the shreds in Lilian's face.

"There was nothing to see. You imagined it. It is gone. Now keep your mouth shut, you privileged peasant, and carry on."

She shoved Lilian out of the room.

Lilian didn't need her to – she was already leaving. Her ears were pulsing with hot blood. Two staircases down she choked on her tears.

Terror invaded her every cell.

What was she going to do now?

Chapter 3

Quinn, happily oblivious, was preparing to blunder off into the forest for three weeks. It was like a holiday. His parents had been sort of pleased – as pleased as they ever were about anything – it was a chance for him to do something worthy, and it would also get rid of him for a while.

Whistling to himself, Quinn packed a hammock into one of his saddlebags, along with food provisions – mostly sunflower cakes, which sounded much more exciting than they actually were; they consisted of sunflower seeds glued together with salt and honey. To ensure he maintained a varied diet, he took some made with pumpkin seeds as well. There would probably be some fruit in the forest, to count towards his five a day. Really, it didn't matter, did it? He could always take vitamins.

When he finished packing, he felt sure there was something he'd left out. He paused, and thought.

"A towel," he said. "I need a towel." Then he dumped the saddlebags in the corner and went to bed, because it was two in the morning and he was leaving that day. He was organized like that.

***

Lilian tried to think how she could warn Quinn. She couldn't send him a letter because she didn't know his address. She couldn't go to his house for the same reason, and also she didn't dare escape Lucerna's house because she might literally get killed.

Then she questioned herself as to exactly why it was necessary to save Quinn from Lucerna's plans at all. Quinn was not a friend of hers after all. But the idea of anybody dying at the hands of Lucerna because of her horrible moneymaking scheme was just utterly repulsive to Lilian. Also, she felt that preventing someone else's disaster would somehow alleviate her own personal powerlessness.

Plus, there was no way Lucerna could be taken down from everything else she was doing while she was having people killed and convincing everyone that such practices were okay just because it was for something in a book.

So Lilian couldn't just forget it; this had to be sorted out.

Lucerna had reverted, highly unnervingly, to a sickly politeness around Lilian. Not a trace of anger remained, yet the priestess was always there, wherever Lilian was she would pop up, conveniently seeing to some task. Lilian was distracted and distressed by this, trying to carry on as normal and think of a plan and not behave suspiciously all at once. It was exhausting, and after three days she hadn't found a solution. The day dawned when she knew Quinn must have gone, and she felt so revoltingly guilty for not doing anything about it. The more she thought about it, the more she couldn't bear the idea of an innocent person getting killed at the hands of Lucerna just because she, Lilian, had not had the courage to act.

She had to work incredibly hard to keep her composure all that day, and it didn't help that Lucerna seemed to be observing her extra closely. The priestess was very preoccupied in her study when she wasn't tailing Lilian, and that evening she went to meet with somebody, leaving Lilian locked in the cellar ironing sheets.

Lilian forced herself not to release any expression of her fear even then, because she didn't know who might be listening. She couldn't gauge how far Lucerna would go to catch her out. When the priestess let Lilian out, there was a triumphant, cat-with-a-mouse look in her eyes that made Lilian want to run away then and there.

***

It was sunny and warm as Quinn set off on his horse, waved off by nobody, glad to leave the uptight faithful fanaticism of this stupid town behind. He hummed to his horse, Daisy, as they went along the forest trail. Daisy was a lovely strawberry roan with creamy yellow hooves and a golden mane and tail, very unusual and Quinn's best friend for several years. Being much more reasonable than people, horses had been Quinn's saviour in his snotty family and he was reluctant to believe that a Unicorn, being essentially a glorified horse, could possibly be evil. And luring in children so that they vanished into the forest? Surely that was an old story taken in thoroughly the wrong light. Quinn had read fairy tales years ago about Unicorns only appearing to pure and beautiful girls, who they would befriend, as Unicorns were after all the epitome of all that was pure and beautiful. Quinn didn't know if that was true, but if it was, simple logic told him that he was very unlikely to find a Unicorn even if they did exist, given that he was not a girl and far from pure and beautiful.

He couldn't be bothered today anyway. As the afternoon wore on, he dismounted near a clearing and strung his hammock between two trees. He clipped a long line on Daisy's halter and tied the line to a stick he wedged into the middle of the clearing, so that the horse could graze. Then Quinn built a fire as the sun set, and was very glad he'd remembered to bring a lighter. He was hungry, and five sunflower cakes later he realized they were a finite resource and he ought to eke them out. He would have to do some foraging tomorrow, but it was too dark now.

He sat by his fire, feeding it twigs and singing to himself, until it damped down a little and he began to think about spiders. Quinn crawled into his hammock and stared at the stars through the tree branches until he fell asleep.

***

Lilian sat at the back of the stone Hall, feeling slightly dizzy and lightheaded. The constant fear was taking its toll on her. She could barely sleep at night, haunted by nightmares, the image of Lucerna's glowingly righteous face.

Lucerna had that look now, as she neared the end of this reading.

"And here, as you will see, this passage reads: 'devotion must be tested and reconsidered frequently, for to lack genuine devotion is a most punishable crime. Those who persevere and remind themselves of their debt to the Deus shall be rewarded; those who cannot summon enough commitment to their creator must be punished.' And so, we must provide everything we have today, or I fear I will be called upon to mediate this rule: 'If one should not show enough devotion, then the one must be the gift they will not give. They must be sacrificed as the gift themselves.'"

Lilian nearly passed out. She was going to be caught this time. How much was enough devotion? How could she lie? Was this Lucerna's plan? She felt as though that immaculate cherry purple smile was all for her, a smile of absolute delight in the ultimate control.

"So if you cannot give anything...we will know why, and you will know the consequences," Lucerna concluded quietly.

As usual, everybody went up one by one and placed their offer in front of the eye. Lilian noticed they all turned out their pockets completely, and she wondered just how much Lucerna must have in her safe now. Lilian had long since learnt to bring half her wages in her own pocket, because even that looked very conservative compared to what everyone else gave. Lucerna didn't pay Lilian a great deal.

Petrified though Lilian was that Lucerna might have planned this specially in order to pick Lilian out and have an excuse to get rid of her, her worries were not warranted.

It was someone else's call to be an example.

Lilian watched, as though through thick fog, a woman who's name she didn't know walk up to Lucerna and begin to talk, as though she was struggling to find words. She was wearing a grubby overall and evidently was both poor and hardworking. White faced, she stammered "Priestess...I beg you. I have nothing. I have been giving all that I have, all I have...is gone...I cannot give anymore, I have nothing left to give."

Lucerna raised her eyebrows. "If you truly have nothing you will give, you sentence yourself to eternal pain. Or you will die now and be spared that... that is not my tragedy, it is yours. Do you still have nothing to give?"

The woman was speechless. She looked so pale Lilian was sure she would fall down. Lilian wanted to scream out, "It's not real! She's lying! Just leave, now!"

Yet Lilian herself could not seem to speak either. Nobody could speak. It was like some kind of horrendous party trick.

As if in a trance, everyone heard Lucerna say, "this woman is the first to lose her life for lack of devotion. Rest assured however, that in sacrificing herself she will surely ascend. Second to the horn of the evil unicorn, one's own life is the greatest gift one can give."

This didn't seem to reassure anybody particularly though.

Lilian tried to make herself move. She braced herself ready to leap from her seat, but nothing happened. Move! She thought. I have to stop this, this is crazy, this is...why can't I move?

And then without a second of warning, somebody dressed in so many layers of cream cloth they were unidentifiable appeared from apparently nowhere. They threw the poor woman to the floor before she even knew what was happening, and stabbed her with a knife.

It was so quick it was silent. All was silent...

"And now we must leave," Lucerna spoke, suddenly hoarse. "So that...our eyes, should not be – be harmed, by the bright light of ascension."

Silently, the congregation filed out. Lilian was stumbling, not sure whether there was noise and she couldn't hear it, or if the shock had truly kept everybody absolutely wordless.

What just happened? What just happened? She kept asking herself. She had just seen it, she knew, but she couldn't, wouldn't, take it in.

***

Quinn was having a delightful morning. He had foraged a bunch of plants of various kinds and was cooking them over a re-stoked fire. He wasn't entirely sure what he was eating wasn't poisonous, but he figured he'd soon find out.

He realized he was thirsty and dug out the large steel bottle he had brought. It would need refilling, he'd have to find a stream. It tasted rather metallic. Perhaps it wasn't very good steel.

Quinn sniffed, and remembered a little too late that leaves are simply not as effective as Kleenex.

All of these mild inconveniences were not so much a mere trifle as a minute crumb of one of those foul biscuits people used as a base for one. Because compared to the stuffy, nagging, boring, boring existence Quinn normally had to endure, this small adventure was a glowing star in a sky full of grey murk.

After an interesting and far from risk free breakfast, Quinn packed up his stuff and loaded it on to Daisy, and they were away once more on the trail of the Unicorn.

"Or not, as the case may be," Quinn said to Daisy, patting her mottled neck. He tried to convince himself Unicorns were real, and found he was failing miserably. Here, this, in front of him was a living breathing horse; all the hype around unicorns was surely an indicator that they were imagined or else overly romanticized. And once again he truly couldn't contemplate them being evil. That really was ridiculous.

***

Lucerna was trying to sleep.

She wasn't having much success.

It's real, she reassured herself. I was right to do that...anyway, I didn't even do it. And everyone said it was right...they didn't like it but they said it must be done...

She thought of the secret meeting where they'd discussed the issue of making an example of someone, while Lilian had been ironing in the cellar. The Hall with her chosen people, and how she had felt so triumphant afterwards...so sure it was right...

The woman's face was imprinted on her eyelids. It was there when she blinked, and closing her eyes for any longer was hideous. A weight leaned on Lucerna's chest, a tightness that sickened her with guilt. It followed her everywhere, even here in her house, far from any watching eyes.

Is it real? Do I want it to be real? Or does that make it worse?

Lucerna tried to imagine that there were eyes, big overseeing omnipotent eyes that smiled and told her she'd been good.

Deus, she thought. Save me from my decisions. Tell me it was right.

It sort of helped.

Yes, she decided. It is real.

***

Lilian was also awake.

She was at her wits end. Was there any way of getting away? What would happen to her if she did? Surely it wasn't possible. There was no moment where Lucerna wasn't aware of what Lilian was doing. Lucerna had never taken any noticeable precaution to prevent Lilian escaping. Apart from the most recent time, but that was only because Lilian had been left entirely alone in the house. Perhaps she just thought Lilian wasn't brave or clever enough to even think of it. Or maybe she's got people watching, or something I don't know about, thought Lilian. It was quite probable that Lucerna knew enough people around here that she could call upon them instantly to track down Lilian, or anybody, should Lucerna discover an absence.

And then, Lucerna had also likely calculated that it would be very difficult for Lilian to escape without being noticed due to the design of the house. The doors were heavy and wouldn't open or shut quietly. The windows were those horrible stiff sash ones that squeaked like angry rats. The corridors were echoey; the stairs creaked; the front porch faced towards the prevailing wind most of the time, so that a sudden draft through the house would give away it's opening. The back door was always locked. Worse still, even if you did by some miracle get past all of this, you were faced with an endless gravel drive that crunched like glass popcorn.

Lilian could bring to mind a million other tiny snares and idiosyncrasies of the wretched house that she had never really thought about until they were imperative to her survival. She dealt with them everyday; and all at once she hated that she knew the spots where dust settled fastest; that she knew to wrench the third cupboard from the left in the kitchen because the door didn't really fit the frame; that she automatically knew the clothes pegs were in the top draw.

She felt angry tears sting as she thought of the idiot who built a house to be so damned unhelpful, of stupid rich people who had to live in gigantic houses in the first place, and of the thorough hopelessness of the situation.

And then she wondered what the time was.

Because Lucerna is used to me waking earlier than her anyway.

Lilian scrabbled under the bed for the rusty old watch she had been given as a perk of the job.

Five o'clock in the morning. In half an hour she would normally dress, go down to the parlour and start preparing Lucerna's breakfast. Lilian looked out the window. It was a bit light already. She pulled back the curtains as quietly as possible, slipped out of bed and rummaged in the depths of the old chest she kept her clothes in. Pushing aside the silly cream coloured tunics Lucerna expected her to wear, Lilian pulled out some old jodhpurs and her jacket. Scrambling into her clothes, she cast around for anything useful that would fit in a pocket.

The first choice was of course her most secret and prize possession, a penknife. It had come here with her all the way from Felixia and she had kept it hidden from Lucerna's eyes by keeping it in a pair of socks in the chest with her clothes. She stashed it away in her jacket and looked around for anything else useful. There wasn't much... she checked the old watch again. Twenty past five. It was good enough.

She eased the door open by minute degrees. Carefully – carefully... She picked up her boots from the corner, and held them in one hand, then tiptoed out in socks. The socks that had housed the penknife, actually. Down the stairs, as lightly as possible. Lucerna would expect Lilian to make some noise by now anyway, so this was her chance...at least that was what she was counting on. She could only pray that Lucerna wouldn't wake up early for some reason and want breakfast straightaway.

Lilian went into the kitchen. In spite of the situation, she couldn't help laughing silently at the idea of making a batch of toast as usual and eating like a queen before disappearing. Instead she snatched dried fruit, hazelnuts, some oatcakes and stuffed them in her pockets. She stole a couple of cloth napkins because they were handy and then stopped dead and listened acutely. No sound. Only me.

Then, without a moments hesitation, Lilian sped out of the kitchen into the hall and lifted the bolt on the door with the minimum amount of sound possible. She squeezed through, trying not to open the door too wide and let that telltale draft in. She stepped out into the chill air, drew the door shut and lashed her feet into her boots at high speed.

At last she turned away and sprinted across the gravel, hoping beyond hope that Lucerna wasn't watching out the window.

***

Quinn reasoned that he should give the whole finding the Unicorn thing a go, and it could only take a week to search the forest high and low. It wasn't that big, and he felt certain that a Unicorn would be quite difficult to miss if it was there at all. Then he could spend the last two weeks doing whatever he liked. The prospect was enough to motivate Quinn to set to work right away, so he took out his map of the county Stellaria and focused on the forest part. This map was no ordnance survey. A hand drawn, somewhat artistic impression of the landscape, showing the towns, roads, rivers and placement of important features relatively accurately but without much detail. Thus Quinn was finding his whereabouts a little dubious. He found a stick of charcoal in the slightly mouldy pits of the saddlebags and drew lines over the forest to divide it into sections. He wished he'd remembered to bring a biro.

"I knew there was something," he said absently. Then he added, "I must be kind of in this bit," pointing to one of the boxes he'd just drawn. "What d'you think, Daisy?" he asked his horse. Daisy thought grass was very interesting. A fine observation, but not hugely relevant to the issue at hand. Quinn looked around; various paths and trails presented themselves. He guessed a Unicorn wouldn't necessarily stick to a designated footpath, just hanging around waiting for anyone to take selfies with. He decided to take the route which by the map and dead reckoning might lead to the river. There would be streams before, where he could fill up the water bottle and maybe there would be some clues of further directions. He hauled on Daisy's bridle to drag her eagerly questing muzzle from the verge, then touched his heels to the horse's sides and they trotted away.

***

Lucerna heard a crunching noise. Sleepily she stared at the ceiling; light reflected down from it. It was day, then. Had she never pulled the curtains? Obviously not. She must have fallen asleep at last. She felt disoriented, too awake to sleep again but too tired to try and be awake. Crunching. Imagined? No...what on Earth made that noise? Lucerna thrashed out of bed and stared out of the window. Nothing. Where had the crunching come from? Inside the house?

Then she remembered breakfast. And then she remembered how she didn't really have an appetite recently, and then she remembered why.

Perhaps the guilt and fear would go away. Perhaps, perhaps –

She pushed it aside, yet again, and prepared herself for a normal day. Today was never destined to be normal however. When Lucerna got in to the kitchen, it was deserted. No lingering scent of toast, no signs of movement, and no Lilian.

Lilian.

After five minutes of searching the house, Lucerna concluded that Lilian was officially absent without leave. Her first and most disturbing thought was that she would have to wash her own socks. Then she had an idea that this might be Lilian's idea of a rebellion. Well, it would probably be short lived then. Lilian was no hardcore. And she would know about it when she inevitably returned.

Lucerna sighed irritably. Damn Lilian.

Then she thought that maybe she hadn't even been that intelligent. Maybe she was hiding somewhere nearby. She would go to the stables, where the people who looked after the garden were to be found as well, and ask them to search for the silly girl.

One way or another, this surely couldn't last long.

***

Quinn's journey seemed to be lasting very long, mostly due to backache from sitting on a horse for hours at a time. Having to duck under branches, pull brambles out of Daisy's mane every few minutes and coax the horse through horrible dense patches of shrubbery was wearing and irritating. He began to curse the Unicorn, as though this was all it's fault. It was only evil, he thought, because it was probably an illusion made up by neurotic creeps like the priestess Lucerna. He shuddered as he remembered her cold, calculating eyes, like a scanner that could see into his brain. Then she had given him a copy of her stupid book, which he had never taken any interest in despite grudgingly turning up to the meetings, as some reading material for the trail.

He thought of the book, then. It was sat safely on the floor at home, serenaded by dirty laundry.

"Where it belongs," he thought out loud.

The light was leaving the sky again. Quinn would have to stop soon. He pressed Daisy on, patting her and whistling reassuringly. They went through a dense slope of tall pines, across a muddy bank where a tree had fallen and past it's huge clawing branches. They reached up redundantly in a sprawl of gangly twigs, the vast smooth trunk like the sides of some huge dormant beast.

Quinn steered Daisy past, into the widely spaced beeches beyond. Then he spotted a glimmer of silver – water. So he had found a stream...no, this was far too big to be a stream. Daisy topped the small ridge above, and Quinn could clearly see that this must be the river. All well and good, a river was better than a stream; there was more of it.

Quinn was just about to dismount when a massive butterfly swooped toward Daisy. A butterfly about the size of two slices of bread. It was brilliantly coloured, and Daisy shied in alarm. She bolted, whipping back through the trees, and as Quinn snatched for the reins a branch whacked him in the face and he tumbled from Daisy's back.

Chapter 4

Leaves.

Yes – they were all over the place.

Quinn wasn't sure what exactly was hurting; he just knew that many, many things were. Something sticky was interfering with his ability to breathe; he cautiously raised a hand that seemed to be working, to his nose. Blood came away. Had he broken it? He could believe anything with the pain of it. Feeling obligated to take responsibility for his pathetic mishap – a butterfly, for all love – he distorted his face into a reflection of the agony and sat up. The world swam, popped, reeled out of focus, and finally settled on the purpley blue sky of dusk.

"Daisy?" he called out experimentally. He attempted to stand; how much time had passed? Had he been unconscious? He panicked slightly.

"DAISY!" he yelled.

Then someone answered. It wasn't Daisy.

"Sssshhh..."

Quinn froze.

A something, a light solid fluttering something, was on his bruised shoulder. He turned his head, very apprehensively, and there was the damned butterfly. Quinn knew he was losing it; butterflies did not talk.

"What the bleeding –"

"I said, shush. You will wake undesirable things. I am sorry. Please listen. Are you listening?"

Quinn laughed humourlessly.

"To my own insanity, indeed," he replied.

"Very well. If that is what you wish to call me...let me inform you. You have arrived in the deep of the forest, where the most wonderful and fearful things dwell. Do not worry: Daisy is safely conversing with the birds in the forest pasture. It is better that you stay alone for now...but you will sleep soundly tonight."

"Not without my horse I will not. Not without a pillow I will not. And I'm hungry. And thanks for these – these – damages; and why, why in the name of nothing in particular am I talking to a figment of my imagination? Or shouldn't that be a figment of my concussion?"

"I have said...your horse is detained, as are you. The rest will be taken care of, and I assure you that you are not concussed, and I am not a figment of your imagination."

"Detained, are we? Detained? And what about this?" Quinn pointed to his bloody nose. "And I don't know if I can walk. I've probably broken everything. IT HURTS!"

The butterfly sighed.

"I said, it will all be taken care of. Your injuries are just another reason you shouldn't be allowed near a horse for a while. You will undoubtedly hurry away as fast as you can and tear yourself to pieces as you do. You do have to respect the forest, you know. If you don't it will trip you up. Now please wait here patiently while I get help for you."

"Help? I don't need help. I just need to pull myself together and stop hallucinating things."

The butterfly tutted.

"I am real, thank you very much. Not imaginary. Not a hallucination."

Quinn suddenly smiled, nodded slowly.

"Ah! Well, you would say that," he chuckled. "I will entertain you, myself, and we will pretend if you like. Show me then, where are all these five star facilities you talk of?"

***

Lilian felt not so much that she had fear as she was fear. She had ran and ran and ran. She hadn't really looked where she was going even. Would someone be chasing her? Would Lucerna send someone after her? How long would it take for the priestess to notice? Had she seen Lilian leaving...? Questions circled around Lilian's mind as she hurried along roads and out into the fields...over the big gravel track leading into the forest...into the forest...her eyes and head ached and itched with lack of sleep, her feet stung with the constant impact of running and sweat slithered on her palms.

She dashed off the main forest trail in to a thicket of brambles and green saplings. The thorns tore at her skin and snagged her clothes but she powered on into the trees for as long as she could bear. She had no idea how much later that she dropped to the ground, her heart pleading at her with screeching thumps to stop.

"Stop," she actually said to herself. "Stop."

Her tongue was sore; speaking was challenging. She had got away – escaped – there was no going back. Gradually the sounds of the world came back into focus; Lilian began to see what was in front of her. Then, with a savage voracity she reached into her pockets and began stuffing the food she had brought with her. Her hunger was temporarily insatiable. Then she realized she'd eaten half of her rations and that she really ought to save the rest; when she might next get anything to eat she had no idea. She sat in a stupor, digesting and trying to remember her name.

Lilian. It wasn't really that she'd forgotten, just that she felt as though she was running from herself as well. She had been the serving girl Lilian, always Lilian in the house of Miss Lucerna, doing her every bidding, Lilian's whole identity as the housekeeper; not unmentionable - just not worth mentioning.

It was demoralizing.

But worse, it was dehumanizing. What was Lilian? Was Lilian her, or was Lilian this frightened tearaway, her purpose and definition lost in a race to an imaginary finish line? It had been easy while everything she was had been tied into a role that gave her no time to think. Now she had to think. Now she had to think about what on earth she was outside of all that. It was as though her identity had been defined by a reflection in a mirror, and now either the reflection or the original was gone and she wasn't sure which one had been real all along.

If she was honest, she felt like maybe both had disappeared.

So what was she, or wasn't she, now?

This is getting way too existential, she thought. There was one practical thing she could do, at least. Find Quinn and tell him he was going to die. It seemed only fair that he should know. Maybe he might have an idea about how to avoid getting killed, in which case she also wouldn't mind picking up some tips. She didn't have high hopes of that however. There was no point being optimistic at the moment.

He probably wouldn't even believe her. Probably thought – or knew! – that she was crazy. And what could either of them, anyone, do now anyway? She thought of Lucerna sending out people to find them, of a price on their heads, of horrible verses from the stupid book to prove that stray non-believers were evil. Maybe she expected them to disappear, and would use their vanishing as support for her claim that Unicorns lured away children. Did they count as children? Certainly Lilian had never felt more at the mercy of scary grown ups than she did now.

***

In the grey murk, Lucerna held the lamp, looking at it's intricate details. There were the words, carved so delicately into the gleaming brass. So turn water to silver and fire to gold, lies to truth and new to old.

The writing, the writing – she had just noticed, the writing was, in the grooves of each letter, shiny with red. Dark, fresh, salty red...blood. How could a lamp bleed? Lucerna recoiled as she realized that she was the lamp...

And at that moment, out of the mist a shrill whinny echoed eerily. Hoof beats clanged on the metal ground, and Lucerna's eyes darted around, fearful. Fearful. The light now shone from her, herself and she saw the words were written on her arm, tattooed with somebody else's blood. The light shone from her – a shadow shone from her, casting light for the creature to see. It sensed her out, and suddenly the Unicorn rushed for her, about to run her through, trample her. And she would be smashed, like glass, like brass, the flickering flame snuffed on cold silver...Lucerna screamed, and woke gasping for air in the dark, alone. The house was empty...it was only another dream.

***

Quinn was happily settled on a pillow of moss and leaves, beautifully woven by birds. In a hammock of bark cords and ferns. Full of toasted roots from the marshmallow flowers. A half moon was visible through the branches, large and surprisingly bright. The air must be clearer here in the forest. A number of big, colourful butterflies surrounded him, sleeping silently on leaves and flowers. The river chattered softly by. He was on the other side of it now: the butterflies had guided him to a ford and he had waded across. This side of the river was a rather different landscape to the other. Creepers snaked down from the trees; glowing blooms like neon trumpets curled from the vines. The forest floor was a dense carpet of turquoise moss and strangely glittering ferns. Quinn was fairly convinced that he had been concussed and this was all a hallucination, but he was quite happy with that; heaven knew what he was really seeing, lying on, or eating, if anything at all, but he was reluctant to interrupt such entertainment and in any case he had no idea how he would.

His only slight concern was the uneasy thought of how big the spiders must be around here if they were on the same scale as the butterflies.

They would have lots of good places to hide in those creepers, too.

Distraction was called for.

Quinn questioned one of the butterflies nearest him what some of the constellations were, and the butterfly explained in great detail – there was Canis Lotus, the faithful hound of healing; here was the caterpillar, and the chrysalis next to it, and above that the great butterfly. And then over there was the bear, and the bear cub, and Serpentinian, the dragon – snake – salamander – depending on your point of view.

Quinn marvelled at his own concussed mind; what miraculous things it supplied! Perhaps reality would be like this forever now. What fun...

***

Why didn't I bring some matches, for the love of hate? Thought Lilian. She was huddled around a heap of damp sticks, striking a piece of flinty rock repeatedly over the blade of her penknife. It was pitch dark, and she'd been doing this for hours. Finally she gave up, because her knees hurt so badly from kneeling she couldn't stand it. She lay back on the uneven ground and stared up at the sky. It was chilly. It was usually very warm in Stellaria most of the time, but it was all relative really, and there was something about traipsing through a forest all day that made duvets, pillows and running water seem incredibly underrated.

Lilian was quite shivery and shaky from hunger, having forced herself not to eat all she had left. She snatched another thoroughly unrewarding oatcake from her pocket and nibbled it disconsolately. She supposed she ought to forage for things, but there was no chance of doing that in this light, or lack of it. No: everything would have to wait until tomorrow, and that was hours and hours of slimy blackness away. With no fire, the mosquitoes turned out in full force as well. The dedicated whining teased her incessantly, then the tickly landing on bare skin and she would swipe at the blood sucker before it could add injury to insult and leave her scratching her own flesh off.

Lilian tried to sleep. It quickly became an infamous joke in her isolated biosphere of challenge. After what felt like a day, but was more like twenty minutes, she stood up and crashed off into the undergrowth. Better to just dang walk, than be eaten alive lying on the floor with insomnia to boot.

Twigs, puddles, briars, rabbit holes, roots, her own feet; every conceivable obstacle was only too willing to encourage disaster for Lilian as she fought through the inky shadows. In utter exasperation, she took out her penknife and slashed at all the hateful plant life in front of her, then realized it was pointless: none of it was really out to get her, and attacking stalks didn't achieve a lot when it came to it.

She collapsed in a hopeless, exhausted bundle and found herself wretching with grievous sobs. All the struggle and terror and herself and Lucerna and the cold sweat and hideous biting things and years of injustice and monotony. Lilian heaved and spat out a mouthful of stomach acid. Taking a deep breath, she brushed away the turmoil on her face with her sleeve and forged on through the trees. In the dark. On her own.

***

Having stayed awake all night, talking to the butterflies and watching the constellations moving, Quinn spent most of the following day asleep. In fact, confusingly, he woke at sunset, leading him to believe that the sun rose in the West in this part of the world. It took not too embarrassingly long for him to realize that the sun was sinking, not rising. A cacophony of birds twittering their evening songs and an owl hooting somewhere; this was dusk, not dawn.

Only now he wasn't tired.

Quinn rolled out of the hammock and found some leftover marshmallows. Breakfast – while watching the sunset. The orange and scarlet lit the sky with a sweeping dazzle of coppery watercolour; flares of intense yellow-gold scuffed at the edges, like the brush strokes of a mighty painter with a vision of wonder. And the landscape itself could have been the paint palette – the trees dancing in the crimson beams, mixed with blots of purple and pools of green. Quinn was quite mesmerized by the sight, and all at once he was incredibly glad to be here, here rather than anywhere else on the planet.

He felt worried still for Daisy though, and wanted her to be here. If he was under this remarkably complete and brilliant illusion as he suspected – that still wasn't fading – then he couldn't really trust the word of an illusory butterfly, could he? His mind went quiet, and he noticed the sound of the river again. And then another sound...Quinn looked around, but there was nothing there.

"Oy," he said to one of the butterflies. "Where am I supposed to find this Unicorn? Is it real? Well of course it is. If you lot have conned yourselves into believing you're real, you will think a Unicorn is as well, I'm sure."

The butterfly fluttered, made a noise like a butterfly laugh.

"We are as real as anything, which is to say, not very. As real as you, which is – not very. And Unicorns are, naturally, as real as us all – which is not very. The Unicorn will not be found, no. It will find you, if you are real enough to be found."

Quinn grimaced.

"Bah. You're just messing with my head now. And you are too big. Butterflies are not supposed to be that big."

He settled down to watch the last of the light go, the azure roll into indigo, the stars to appear and the moon to rise. Each stage was a miracle; he'd never before rejoiced so much in the turning of the sky's tide.

"I don't want to go back," he said suddenly. Then after a while,

"Will it be like this forever, now?" he asked the butterflies again.

One with bright green wings and purple speckles replied, "It depends on your definition of forever."

Quinn rolled his eyes. "Do you lot ever give a straight answer?"

The butterfly alighted on a new creeper. "Sometimes..." it said vaguely.

***

Lilian paid no particular attention to the sunset, other than experiencing a sense of foreboding at the thought of the troops of mosquitoes appearing again. How long before the poxy little vampires came carolling to her ears? It seemed only five minutes since the last round of them. Having walked through the night, she had managed to sleep for a few hours on a pile of leaves, or at least close her eyes and have a change of discomfort. On waking up she had found it to be late afternoon and now she was presented with a new set of difficulties. She kept walking despite being very disoriented, and realized that she was desperately thirsty and could think about nothing other than finding water. All at once it became overwhelming; her head swam with giddy nausea and she collapsed on the forest floor and leaned against a tree. The world began to spin, slowly, as though she was on the roof of a train going around in a circle.

This is a forest, she thought. There's got to be water around here somewhere. But she couldn't bring herself to move yet...she was shaking with fatigue and hunger. How many days had passed since she'd run away? Surely they would have found her by now, if they'd been sent to find her...

A pattern of silvery blots began to interfere with Lilian's vision. She felt very sick. Water, she thought vaguely. I really really need water...

But she couldn't move. Am I dying of thirst? She wondered, strangely detached.

Then she found herself pointlessly saying "help. Please, help, something help. HELP." There really was no use in it whatsoever, because there was nothing and nobody to hear her apart from a bunch of trees and horrible bugs that wanted to bite her.

She took deep breaths, and the nausea and her vision cleared slightly. It did nothing for the sense of fear and failure however. Reality had become a questionable numbness yet still wouldn't leave her alone; and she gasped as her heart thumped out of pace, stopped, and jumped back to normal again. Panicked, she sat very still for a moment. Then she said to herself,

"I hate it. I don't know what it is, but I hate it."

"You don't hate it. You don't hate anything, you are just afraid."

Then she noticed a strange glow of blue-golden light hanging in the air, so brilliant it was almost blinding.

***

Quinn spent several hours of darkness trying to get some sense out of the butterflies. He was more alert after sleeping all day, and had better capability of understanding the rather far out concepts they liked to discuss.

That didn't mean he was any more capable of continuing on his quest however. Oddly enough that had taken something of a backseat, and he was more interested in how to get out of this place. He also kept wondering if maybe he'd died or gone into a coma and was in some kind of strange limbo, in which case he wanted to know because then he would feel less anxious as everything would be completely beyond his control.

On the other hand, it might be a dream, just a very long one, and if so he wanted to wake up as quickly as possible because this was getting boring now.

Of course, none of this seemed at all important to the butterflies, as they were on another plane altogether where apparently things like the difference between life and death or reality and insanity were irrelevant. In the end Quinn gave up and tried to persuade them to talk about mad stuff like the "undesirable things" dwelling in the forest.

"So what defines a creature as "undesirable"?" asked Quinn.

The butterflies twitched subtly.

"A creature that is not of the light, that feeds off darkness," said one.

Quinn frowned.

"But, nothing can eat darkness. That doesn't work."

"To feed, is not necessarily to eat. It is to acquire energy from a substance or state...many creatures do that."

Quinn digested this for a moment, then tried again.

"So – these are bad creatures? What the hell are they? Or d'you mean mosquitoes, because they're already very much –" he swatted at the air, " – awake."

The green and purple butterfly cut across Quinn to answer him, so adamant of what it had to say.

"No, no, not bad, just different. Humans are deeply confused about these matters...they think that what they do not like, must be bad. As though their miniscule opinions count for anything at all. As though there is judgement, and as though that judgement was influenced by them."

Quinn's expression froze, as he tried to wrap his brain around these words.

"But, how can they not be bad, if they are undesirable? How can something that feeds off darkness not be bad?"

The butterfly huffed.

"You weren't listening, were you?"

"Oh, don't you start," said Quinn. "You're the second – person? – to have told me off for not paying attention to a speech made of garbage."

"Well, you obviously understood it, because as you see, garbage is not necessarily a bad thing. You have just recycled the garbage I spoke into a sentence that proved my point. Well done."

Quinn, now seriously bemused, could no longer stand this situation. He sprang from the forest floor, away from the fire's embers and the butterflies and everything else. He heard their fluttery voices for a moment, calling warnings, but he had already bounced off over the moss and into the darkness. The glowing creepers had faded and he realized why, because it was not altogether dark anymore. The first blue light of dawn was cast over the sky.

While he was looking up at it, he carried on hurrying away from the strangeness, delighted that he was actually at least slightly in control of the situation. And then he slipped straight into the river. Look where you're going! He reminded himself, but too late. The icy cold snatched the air from his lungs for a second and then he was dragged into the current.

***

Lilian woke up through a very bright cloud of delirium.

Then she heard a sound.

Water! She thought. Where there was the sound of water, there must be water, surely.

She struggled from what she presumed was the forest floor, but before she could stand up and run to the water, wherever it was, a voice said sharply,

"Don't move."

Lilian stopped. Then she realized she couldn't see anything, because there was so much bright light it was quite impossible to see. Only then it began to slowly dim back to normal, and the forest canopy popped into focus as though from underwater through a fisheye lens.

Lilian tried to make sense of it all. Only, nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

The light dimmed further and suddenly she realized it was still night. There was the moon. She shivered slightly and hauled herself up to sit against a tree.

And then there was a unicorn, right in front of her.

She blinked. It was still there. There was no denying it. It was unmistakeably, a unicorn. It was made of the same brilliant light Lilian had just woken from, and it was so dazzlingly alive that Lilian wondered if she'd ever seen anything truly living before.

"Why did it take you so long, to ask for help?"

Lilian gawped.

"Why are you talking?" she replied.

The unicorn laughed.

"Next, you will want to know where you are, and whether this is real."

"I wouldn't mind knowing those things actually," Lilian said.

"Humans always want to know about the minor, irrelevant things. Never understanding that – they don't really know, anything."

"I know that you're a unicorn." Lilian tried hesitantly.

The unicorn shuffled a hoof. "That is just a word. It is not what I am."

Lilian closed her eyes briefly.

"Ok –" she said. "Look, can we just – talk practically for a minute? I haven't eaten for about three days and last time I looked I was dying of thirst. I'm kind of struggling with these epic concepts right now?"

The unicorn stepped towards Lilian, lay down on the forest floor and put it's head on her knee. She couldn't help but marvel at it's glittering mane and strange colourful yet colourless brightness.

"You could have asked for help much sooner," said the Unicorn.

"But there wasn't any help," Lilian said.

"Oh, but there was," the unicorn corrected. "There is always help, you only have to ask."

Suddenly Lilian became aware of what was happening.

"Wait!" she exclaimed. "You're a unicorn. Quinn was sent to kill you! Lucerna said you were evil, which is crazy, and sent... sent...how come I found you then? What –"

The unicorn hushed Lilian.

"Calm down, child," it said kindly. "You require water. I have kept you alive for this time, but nothing can really substitute for water itself. I will guide you to the river. It is not far."

It's like...a horse made of light, Lilian thought, noticing the silver horn between its ears, glowing softly with iridescent gold; like a seashell worked into a wand of spirals.

The creature paced away through the trees and Lilian followed, the sound of the water becoming clearer; until she could see it: the moon reflected in the hurrying ripples, turning the river into a wave of fluid platinum.

***

Quinn had to simultaneously figure out what had just happened, swim, and cough up the water he'd already choked on. He had a momentary understanding of what multitasking was like.

Swimming took precedence then, and Quinn struggled to anchor to something while staying afloat. The riverbed shelved away so he could not tell how deep it was. The river also widened at this point; he snatched to get to the muddy bank but the swift current hauled him away every time. The cold burned inward, and embodied the fear that overwhelmed him as the ruthless roaring of the river numbed his senses.

How long passed as he was funnelled along the racing water he didn't know. He noticed when a clearing opened up overhead and the blank greyish light of dawn lit up the rushing blackness around him; he had time to worry about the very real possibility of meeting a dam, a log, a waterfall, rapids, rocks or some kind of hideous prehistoric animal that would devour him in small pieces. The clearing swept by and the river bulged downwards into the densest green forest he had ever seen.

He had never before appreciated how impossible clothes made swimming. They ballooned irritatingly, sponged up incredible amounts of water, and snagged as dead weights on every limb.

Then quite unexpectedly the river narrowed; a sharp bend threw Quinn into a calm patch and without a moment's hesitation he grabbed on to the first available object that didn't move and tried to pull himself out of the water.

Except the embankment was high and steep, and very very slippery. His boots were gone, he realized. He slithered back into the river several times and, exhausted, found himself being pulled inexorably back to the main stream...

Desperately he fought to cling to a tussock of mossy mud, held on for all he was worth, and summoned the energy to scramble on to the bank. If it didn't work this time, he was going to freeze to death, he was sure. Or drown in this murky side curve of the river –

"Hey! Here!" A voice called out above him.

He looked up and a hand reached out. He had no choice but to grab it, though he had no idea who it might be. A powerful strength eased him over the edge of the riverbank and he collapsed on the ground, coughing.

When he could see straight, he was sure he was dreaming.

A girl with an anxious but curiously radiant face was in front of him, and standing a few paces behind her was what could only be a unicorn.

Chapter 5

Lucerna was praying.

She was really praying. Because she was afraid.

"Great Deus, fear not...I have sent the boy to slay the evil unicorn. He will bring us it's horn and I shall offer it to you, with him, to show you how devoted I am...Please spare me great Deus, for I have done only what had to be done...forgive me for my actions, if they were wrongful..."

The eye stared at her, empty and painterly. But it seemed slightly mocking, or slightly...ominous. The Hall was occupied by Lucerna alone, and the stone walls crowded in with a suffocating watchfulness. The blood was still on the floor where the woman had been killed. The rusty smears seemed to draw Lucerna's gaze, and she couldn't face the decision of whether to have them cleaned off or not.

To be true she was frightened to order anything anymore, in case it was wrong.

The miraculous thing was she had kept up her appearance of powerful self-confidence in spite of her terror; the weekly gatherings in the Hall and the meetings with people for advice had continued as though she was entirely untroubled. The acting came effortlessly. She supposed she was pleased that her latest plan had worked: they all seemed to have got over the initial shock of seeing someone get killed for lack of devotion, right in front of them, and apparently considered it entirely reasonable in this particular context.

Now that she was by herself though – whenever she was by herself, in fact – the malevolence sank into her again, like a toxic chemical absorbed by her skin. She felt as though she was being sickened from the inside. And so earnest she was to reassure herself that everything was okay, she had turned to the only thing that could justify it – the system of belief that she had invented and which had decreed all of this in the first place.

Lucerna was now so deep in denial that she couldn't let herself betray the belief for a moment, in case she might suspect for a moment that she had made a huge, horrible, irreversible mistake. She got to her feet and left the Hall, the stony silence a massively loud whisper in her ears.

***

Lilian thought she knew who she had just pulled out of the river, but she couldn't be sure because he was covered in some rather reprehensible mud.

The unicorn didn't seem to have any trouble recognizing him though.

"Hello, Quinn," it said, as though they were old friends.

Quinn froze, or as much as you can freeze while shivering uncontrollably.

"E-excuse me?" he stuttered.

The unicorn stepped forward, and placed its horn on Quinn's shoulder. The mud and water melted away, slid off on to the ground. The unicorn stepped back, leaving Quinn warm, dry, and thoroughly perplexed.

"What the heck is going on?" he asked bluntly.

There was a pause, and Lilian figured it was her turn to say something awkward.

"Um, this is the unicorn, Quinn. How did you wind up in the river?"

Quinn felt extremely stupid. He wondered whether to make up some dramatic story to cover his idiocy, and decided that would make him seem even stupider. After all, for all he knew, this unicorn he was in denial about had known where he was and what he was doing all along.

"I – I accidentally fell in the river when it was dark, because there were all these – all these...butterflies. And they were driving me to distraction. By all means laugh. I'm sure I've got concussion and I'm seeing things, I can't help it okay?"

Lilian didn't laugh.

"Butterflies?" she said.

"Well – yes," Quinn replied defensively.

The unicorn apparently decided this pathetically human conversation was going nowhere and interrupted.

"Lilian tells me of a woman called Lucerna. Do you know this person?"

Quinn looked suspicious.

"Yes," he said hesitantly. "Why?"

The unicorn tossed its head.

"She is attempting to kill you."

"Me?" Quinn frowned. "No, no, you have got it all wrong mate. I'm supposed to kill you. That's what she told me. Obviously I'm not going to because she is a raving lunatic and I –"

"Quinn, Quinn," the unicorn snorted, like a horse-laugh. "Trying to kill a unicorn would be similar to trying to kill light itself. I would not rule it out – anything is possible – but I would consider it a highly unlikely possibility. If that is what you are here for, I wish you luck in your endeavour, but must warn you to prepare for utter dismal failure."

Quinn looked rather abashed.

"Don't blame me. Blame that crazy priestess woman. She sent me out here to find a unicorn, kill it, and bring back it's horn to give to her bank accou – I mean, to this deity thing she –"

"- made up," Lilian finished.

"Yes," Quinn concluded with mild exasperation. "It was all going swimmingly until I was robbed of my horse and taken prisoner by a bunch of wretched butterflies. Now what am I supposed to do? Where am I? Is this real, even?"

Lilian laughed then. Quinn scowled at her.

"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked.

"I ran away because Lucerna threatened to kill me, too. She offered up somebody as some kind of weird sacrifice before I left, just because they couldn't afford to pay anymore. She's gone mad, if she wasn't already. And I escaped and sort of thought if I saw you then I would warn you that she intends to kill you whatever the outcome of this quest thing she sent you on. I read the paper on her desk and that's what it said. She found out I'd read it and that's why she said she'd kill me."

"Oh," said Quinn. "Right. So what happens next?"

"Humans forget," said the unicorn, "that there is no one way. There are ten thousand ways to the one way, and none of them have anything to do with books or rewards or punishments. There is no wrong and right. There are only balances that must be maintained. I myself am simply a balance of real and imaginary. What happens next is decided by you, and whatever balance you wish to maintain."

Quinn looked uncertain.

"Why ten thousand? What do you mean?"

The unicorn looked at Quinn sideways for a few moments, then answered, "ten thousand is a big number. Like most things, it is a metaphor. You will understand the rest later."

"I hate it when people say that kind of thing," Quinn said to himself.

Lilian laughed again. "A unicorn said it, not a person," she corrected.

The unicorn cut in sharply.

"Humans are not the only people in the world, Lilian."

Lilian's smile faded. "Oh," she said thoughtfully. "You mean, animals can be called people as well? I suppose, if they can talk..." She thought of all the possible reasons why she had been given the impression that the word 'people' only applied to humans. Had anybody actually defined it? Perhaps they hadn't.

Quinn objected.

"People are people, humans are people. How can a bunch of, I dunno, rats – count as people? Is that what you're saying?"

The unicorn refrained from a sigh that might have been almost disparaging.

"You are both being somewhat close minded. The natural way of things is a sort of well-balanced mess, if you hadn't noticed. Neat, organized, categorized and unvaried things nearly always go against what is natural. Thankfully, such things rarely last long. It is worth stopping them before they turn into wildfire, however."

Lilian had always thought she was reasonably open minded, and felt a little disappointed in herself.

"Sorry," she said again. "Please unicorn, tell us what you think we should do. I'm not sure I understand this cryptic stuff at all."

The unicorn rested one foot and said, "There is no should. You have choices and they will have consequences. What is most important to you? Do you want to stop the wildfire in its tracks?"

"You mean, Lucerna and her regime?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if I can!"

Quinn rolled his eyes. "I just want to stop hallucinating. Can anybody help me with that?" he sat down on the forest floor and picked up a twig, snapping it repeatedly until it was in little pieces on the ground.

He glanced up at Lilian and the unicorn.

"Well?" he prompted.

The unicorn sighed. "There's no such thing as hallucinating, Quinn. You're just seeing the same things in a different way."

Lilian returned to the subject. "But how can I stop Lucerna? She wants to kill us. And everyone else in the town is happy following her stupid nonsense. They're like moths to a lamp. I'd have to stop them all believing in it too. I have no idea how to begin."

The unicorn snatched at a leaf and chewed it, thinking.

Then it said, "but you don't have to stop them all believing in it. You only have to pretend to believe in it yourself, temporarily."

Lilian frowned. "What?" she said.

"What?" said Quinn.

"That is all you need to know. You have plenty of time to think it through. Why so horrified Lilian? How many lies have you told in your life? Countless, I daresay. Don't acquire a burden of guilt; there is no absolute truth anyway. Lying is simply telling what you perceive as the truth from a different perspective. Guilt is a pointless parasite of choice."

Quinn shook his head. "Don't make it confusing or anything," he said.

***

The unicorn told them they had gone into the deep forest, where the strangest and most extraordinary things lived. Of course, it was almost completely inaccessible, and Quinn had only been very lucky to find it because of being rescued from the river.

Quinn told his tale of how he had come to be there, while the unicorn dozed in the sunshine with a slight smile as though it knew the story already. Lilian was still trying to get her mind to accept giant butterflies that could talk. For some reason it was more difficult than accepting that a unicorn had been living in the forest all along, next to the town she had lived in all that time.

Lilian told Quinn about what Lucerna had been doing. He looked disconcerted and didn't say much, but Lilian couldn't tell if that was because he was shocked by the news or whether he just didn't really believe her. Or both.

Quinn asked the unicorn how he could get the butterflies to give him back his horse. Lilian guessed he had been entirely preoccupied with this while she was talking and sighed. Was she the only one who wanted to stop Lucerna taking over the world? Not that she thought Lucerna would really be able to take over the whole world, this wasn't a fairytale. But the crazy woman was certainly trying.

In answer to Quinn's question, the unicorn tossed its head towards a tree, and with a great crack its glittery horn broke off and fell to the floor.

Lilian stared, appalled.

"Now you have half a moon to take that back to this troublemaker of yours. Hopefully that will keep her satisfied...until it melts away, which is what happens to unicorn horn once it is detached. To be true, it is worthless."

Lilian blinked. "But – but – don't you need it? You're not a unicorn anymore!"

The unicorn laughed.

"There is a lizard in this forest, and many other forests, that can lose it's tail any number of times and have it grow back. Every stag you will ever find loses and re-grows his antlers every year. Are they any less a lizard or a deer?"

Lilian looked less appalled.

"I suppose not," she said.

Quinn took a handkerchief from his pocket that had miraculously not been taken by the river, wrapped the unicorn horn in it and stowed it in his jacket.

"So, it melts?" he said, "within half a month?"

"Indeed," replied the unicorn. "So, now I will lead you back out of the deep forest. Then your lives are up to yourselves."

"Can't you stay with us and help us?" Lilian asked hopefully.

The unicorn shook its head.

"It is not for me to intervene in the workings of all things."

Lilian nodded reluctantly.

"So, which way?" asked Quinn.

"This way," said the unicorn, and they followed it through the trees.

***

Lucerna opened the safe.

Money. Money. Hadn't she wanted it, very much? Wanted more, wanted lots, wanted...only it didn't seem terribly important now. She had more than enough to keep her happy for the rest of her life. For several lives, probably.

But it just wasn't the right kind of enough. Her focus had shifted subtly from wealth to control, and the idea of losing even a fraction of it sent her into panic. She rarely allowed herself to be idle and alone – always planning, writing, theorizing and meeting with people. When she couldn't escape isolation any longer, she would drink. Generously; she could certainly afford to now. She always had at least a bottle of wine before sleep, because it was the only thing that would get her to sleep. Two bottles was safer, because then she wouldn't dream either. And the dreams...the dreams had become more disturbing by far. When they accidentally occurred.

Lucerna hadn't even missed Lilian that much. A helpful person in the town had taken on the role of washing her clothes; making toast wasn't that difficult. And nobody needed to know that the kitchen floor hadn't been cleaned for two weeks. Or that there was a mouse nest in the upstairs bathroom. Not a fan of mice, Lucerna had only used the ground floor bathroom ever since the discovery of them, despite the fact that it was always far away wherever you were in the building.

Lucerna closed the door of the safe pensively. Perhaps it was time to visit the wine cellar again.

***

First came the hill.

It reached up out of the forest, with a rocky outcrop at the top. The trees crept around the base of the hill, as though it was an island in an ocean of greenery.

"We will not go to the top, just over the side," said the unicorn. Quinn and Lilian followed in a dreamlike state, too tired for disbelief anymore. As they ascended the hill a little way, the sky seemed to grow incredibly close, and the sun became massive and red-golden. Lilian noticed that the stars were all there, even in daylight; it was just that you had to be closer to the sky to see them...

"The birds have to be careful here, not to fly too close to the sun," the unicorn remarked vaguely. Quinn just nodded, barely hearing. His mind was strangely blank. Almost like a bright blue-white light had got inside his thoughts and was making them invisible to his mind's eye. Like those horrible LED lights everyone puts up in winter, he thought. Winter – such as it is. Never mind.

They descended back into the trees again, and here were many spiralling streams winding and chuckling towards the river. Quinn kept thinking he could hear people talking, as though they were discussing things quietly, not wanting him to hear what they were saying.

Lilian was more disconcerted by the strange scrambling flowers, like a cross between a rose and a buttercup, which reached out and wrapped themselves around her ankles and once even her wrist. She focused on keeping up with the unicorn.

They had to jump across some of the streams, and then crossed what seemed to be a deserted orchard. Purple ivy climbed up the lichen-bedecked apple trees, and the apples upon them were extraordinary: green-gold polished with crimson. Lilian wondered whether they were edible.

Suddenly she stopped.

"Have I been here before?" she said.

Quinn looked at her sharply, as though surprised. Or something. Lilian wasn't quite sure.

Only then the unicorn was behind her, pushing her shoulder with its nose to hurry her along.

"It is a phenomenon known as déjà vu, and it happens when you are tired," the unicorn said. They left the orchard behind and went down an incline covered with larch trees. Only then did the unicorn finish smoothly, as though no time had passed, "We have all been there before, and one day will return again, but now is not the moment."

Lilian was silent. This was too much for her exhausted mind to take in. It had already become irrelevant now that the place had gone.

All at once they were by the river, but this time it was a different section of it. Here was a shallow ford; yellowy pebbles slowing the current to a gentle pace that hadn't a hope of washing them away.

The unicorn halted.

"Across the river the butterflies will take care of you," it stated. Quinn's expression withered.

"Oh no. Not them again. For the love of sanity, not a butterfly, never again."

The unicorn laughed. "They will show you on your way, and make sure you are well supplied."

Lilian noticed that the unicorn's horn had already grown back. She didn't know why she had thought it would ever look like a normal horse even without it. The whole creature glowed, so much that even when she blinked there was an impression left on her eyelids.

"Your boots, Lilian," the unicorn said.

Lilian looked at them. They were very tatty from all the wear and tear of the forest.

"Yeah, what about them?" she replied.

"You can't walk through the ford in those."

Lilian obediently took them off, and realized what a relief it was to be walking on the forest floor.

"Wait!" She said, and glanced at Quinn. "How did you...? I couldn't have walked through there without boots..." as she was speaking she realized that the skin on her own feet had changed. It looked just the same, but it was tough, like the sole of a shoe.

She stared at the unicorn. "So does that mean we don't need to wear shoes now?" she asked incredulously.

"It was always a choice. I don't wear shoes. Why should you?"

Quinn inspected his miraculous feet, shrugged, then said "Do we have to go now?"

The unicorn shifted a hoof. "If you are in a hurry, then I suppose you had," it offered.

Quinn faltered. "So, we're going back to Stellaria?" he said. He made an effort not to catch Lilian's eye. I'm so confused with who is real here, he thought.

"It looks like you are going in that direction," the unicorn observed.

Quinn took that to be a yes. "Okay," he said. "Well – see you later then." Or whatever, he thought. He splashed into the ford, hoping decisiveness would save him from the confusion of such an unregulated scenario.

Lilian didn't want to go back to Stellaria, but it seemed as though the unicorn wanted them to. She reached out and hugged the unicorn, and for a second it was like surrendering to an army of peacefulness.

Then she found that her feet were in the water and she stumbled away, the brilliant light dissolving into it's own shadow.

Chapter 6

Lilian's first sighting of a giant butterfly was very close up. It landed on her nose and quite clearly said, "stop."

"I have," she answered nervously.

The butterfly flickered away and sunned itself on a branch in a beam of the sinking daylight.

"You are leaving," it stated. Lilian nodded. The butterfly continued. "We will show you which way to go. And there will be food and water waiting for you there."

"Thank you," said Lilian, still marvelling at the sheer size of the creatures.

Quinn could barely face the things after the last time he'd seen them; they reminded him of his stupidity falling into the river, and he hoped they wouldn't mention it. He summoned the courage to say, "so which way then?"

Half a dozen butterflies flew in a line ahead of them.

"Follow us," one said. So they followed. Lilian was also in wonder about her feet. She trod on a bramble and nothing happened.

The butterflies led them through pines and beeches and silver birch, up to the second branch of the river. It was much narrower and shallower here, easy to cross.

"If you are ever lost in the forest again, you are always welcome here," the spokes-butterfly said. "Over the river you will find what we promised you. Good bye."

Quinn and Lilian stepped across the river. When they looked back, the dusk had somehow intervened with the visibility and there were no butterflies to be seen.

They walked a little way up the slope, wondering what they were supposed to be looking out for. There seemed to be nothing but muddy undergrowth and fir trees. The turquoise moss on the other side of the river had not reached this bank; if they'd had normal feet it would have been excruciatingly scratchy.

Suddenly Quinn threw himself down and sat against a tree. Lilian paused.

"Um, are you okay?" she asked. It occurred to her that they'd never really spoken in any situation that was not either dire, just plain weird, or interrupted by magical creatures.

Quinn glared at her. Lilian was not altogether surprised, because when people were upset about something, they always glared at you even if they didn't mean to. She made a mental note to refrain from glaring when she was upset thereafter, because she now realized how discouraging it could be.

"It's fine for you," Quinn said. "You and your unicorn friend, everything works fine for you. I guess it made me fall in the river, conspiring with those stupid butterflies. I was the one sent off into this stupid forest. I didn't ask to go here. They've stolen my horse, my knife, quite possibly my sanity and all the beast can do is smirk and ignore me and be nice to you because you're a girl."

"I'm sorry, what?!" Lilian said incredulously.

Quinn gave a hollow laugh.

"Yeah, I get it. This was probably all set up to make a fool of me, wasn't it? Or perhaps unicorns are evil. And maybe you're some kind of witch that helps it along. Perhaps Lucerna was right. That's why she got rid of you. Yeah, I get it now."

Lilian shook her head in bewilderment.

"I – Quinn, I – what can I say that will make you realize that's crazy? How on earth did you figure that one out? It doesn't make sen -"

"Oh, nothing makes sense, does it? Not in this place. And where's my horse? Gone. Probably been killed and eaten by some hideous – hideous..."

Lilian interrupted.

"But Quinn," she pointed. "Is that your horse?"

Quinn gave her a withering look, then turned to where she was pointing. At once he was scrambling to his feet, hurrying over.

"Daisy!" he yelled. The mare whickered in recognition and trotted to see him.

Instantly he was all concern: lifting her hooves to check the horseshoes, peering at her eyes, checking for injuries.

"What a clever girl, you found me, and didn't even get hurt! But where is your tack? How did you get it off without strangling yourself?"

Daisy snorted and shoved her head at Quinn. He spun round and saw the saddle, bridle, saddlebags and knife hanging on a low branch of a tree. Then he turned to Lilian.

"I'm sure this is some kind of trick. I was doing very well before you got here. What are you? Who are you really? I won't have this anymore."

Lilian was scared and angry. She refused to glare, though.

"I'm exactly what I said I was. I'm Lilian, I'm human, and if this is some kind of trick then it wasn't planned by me. Honestly. Really, truly honestly."

Quinn looked suspicious. He began to put the tack on Daisy. Lilian tried to appeal to his sense of reason.

"Look, I hate this stupid forest as well. I'm sorry if I've offended you somehow. I'm sorry it's all been a mess. But please don't blame it on me because I didn't start any of this. I just wanted to warn you so Lucerna wouldn't..." Quinn's expression hadn't changed. Apparently he wasn't even listening. Lilian found this so irritating that she couldn't help adding, "but, you know, maybe I shouldn't have bothered."

Quinn straightened from buckling Daisy's girth, strapped his knife on to his belt and glanced at Lilian.

"Yeah. Well, maybe don't next time, if you're going to do more harm than good. I can look after myself thanks." Then he stuck his foot in the stirrup, hopped deftly into the saddle and rode away; leaving Lilian standing, her mind pointlessly circling, her face stricken.

***

Quinn wondered if Lilian would run after him. He didn't know what had got into him. Who would just leave somebody as innocently pathetic as Lilian in the middle of a forest? Who would suspect Lilian - of all people \- to have some vindictive ulterior motive? It was ridiculous. Yet he couldn't shake off the idea that there was some conspiracy going on here and he was so confused after all the psychedelic weirdness that he didn't know what to think anymore.

He almost wondered if he'd just made it all up, if he'd just hit his head and the last few 'days' had really been about five minutes. Which would explain why Daisy had been just a few yards away, and maybe the saddle had got itself caught in the tree...maybe he hadn't done the girth up properly before...and Daisy could probably get her bridle off, she was a crafty horse.

It didn't explain his feet though.

Or the unicorn horn wrapped in his handkerchief.

Was Lilian even real? Had she ever been?

And what about Lucerna? Was she really that bad? Would she really kill him? Well, she had shown all the signs of a psychotic paranoid-delusional with an obsessive-compulsive money laundering habit when he'd seen her, so it oughtn't be ruled out. But then, after the time he'd spent in this forest, her setup seemed relatively reasonable. Rational, almost.

He just wanted to simplify things...

He slowed Daisy to a trot, then a walk. Where was he trying to go?

Perhaps Lucerna was just trying to make lots of money. Perhaps she thought it was all nonsense as well, and didn't even believe any of what she said. That was highly possible. In which case, if he arranged a meeting with her and said he wouldn't tell anybody that it wasn't real, she might let him off and he might even get some of the profits she made from the unicorn horn. Somebody would be stupid enough to buy it and then give all their money to the 'Deus', he was sure.

Then he would lie to his parents and say he'd managed to get an apprenticeship under some accountant somewhere, preferably a long way away from Stellaria, and leave. Perhaps he could go and work in a stable over in Clementia or something.

"Never mind, Daisy," he said. "None of it will affect you."

He glanced around to check they were going the right way. It wasn't very good light now, the sky had gone a muddy lilac colour and the silver birches were the only ghostly glimmers of brightness amongst the trees. Still, he recognized the place because he remembered going through here before, and some place around here was a path that led back, eventually, to the main forest trail.

"No, it won't affect you," he said again. "Just me. It always depends on me and my decisions. Whenever I do what I'm told to do, there's always somebody telling me not to. Then I do what I think is best and they all hate me... Marvellous. Just - marvellous."

Daisy plodded on.

"And worse," pondered Quinn, "is I never get the credit for any of it. Nobody gives a feck about Quinn. I could probably die and they'd just say, 'oh, bother. Well he never did make the right choices anyway'. Gah. They're all mad."

Lilian's stricken face cropped up in his thoughts. He felt like a hypocrite for a second. Then he brushed it aside. She had her freaking unicorn after all. She could cope.

The narrow track appeared and Quinn directed Daisy along it.

He peered into the trees either side, unable to help being slightly uneasy about the darkness, especially after all the strange strange things he had seen in the deep forest...

A flash of white burst in front of Daisy's nose.

For a second, Quinn saw the pigeon and a handful of criss-crossing white feathers; then Daisy bolted. This time he hung on with all his might and managed to stay sort of seated – if clinging to the mane with one foot in the stirrup and swinging off the reins like a deranged monkey counted as seated.

At some point Quinn's weight on the bridle squeezed so hard on the bit that Daisy took it as a signal to stop. She pulled up short and Quinn slid off – it was only another two feet – to the ground.

"Urgh," he said. The shock, the suddenness, and the aching were well matched to such an all-encompassing description. He stood up, wiped foamy green horse spit off his face and tried to calm Daisy down while attempting to figure out how far they had strayed from the path.

Before he could put any more thought to it however, he noticed Daisy was holding a foot up. He cupped the hoof in his hand to check it, to find the horseshoe missing and blood pouring.

"Oh no, Daisy..." Quinn was appalled. He rummaged in the saddlebags and brought out some cloth. He tore a piece off, wiped away the blood and held it fast to the injury. It wasn't too deep, he could see now, but the whole hock had taken a bending and he watched it swelling before his eyes.

There was no way a horse could be ridden like that, and even walking her in such a state would be unthinkably slow...

He looked around properly then; a thickly wooded slope heading down to a silver glistening curve of the river. Right back the way they'd just been.

Something tickled in the cuff of his sleeve. He pulled it out and held it up – a soft white feather, ruffled in the breeze.

***

Lilian just sat there for a while after Quinn had gone. Then she put her head in her hands. She was dizzy and headachey from lack of food. Quinn had run off with all the supplies, of course.

She'd almost expected it – in fact, it had been most surprising that Quinn had been civil to her at all in the first place. She was after all an entirely unknown quantity, appearing out of Lucerna's employ and turning up at apparently every inopportune moment under bizarre circumstances. Trust was an unlikely reaction.

All the same. It was at least a little hurtful, what Quinn had said.

For a while she didn't care. Then she did a little. Then she decided that if Quinn was so damn unreasonable, he could get himself killed for all she cared – it wasn't like she hadn't tried. Then she wondered if Quinn would tell Lucerna about her. Where she was. What she'd said. The unicorn...Lilian sat up in horror. She couldn't just leave it, it had to be sorted out. It had to. She felt hatefully responsible and hopelessly overwhelmed. Since when did the outcome of one of these epic events that never happen rely on her? Maybe it sounded cool in stories, but the truth was far from glamorous. There was nothing cool about it. It was hot, itchy, inescapable, exhausting, undermining and hideously stressful.

Not to mention, nobody cared about you or thought you were amazing or heroic; they thought you were a nuisance and sabotaged your every effort.

"They're all mad. I hope something really annoying happens to all of them," said Lilian.

Then a mouse crawled on to her knee.

"EEEK!" it yelled at her self-righteously.

Lilian started, then frowned at it and sighed.

"What?" she asked loudly and impatiently.

"You can always ask for help," the mouse said squeakily. "Petty complaints do nothing."

Lilian scowled. "They make me feel better. And it was not a petty complaint. It was a deeply genuine sentiment that I hope is manifested as soon as possible."

The mouse sniffed. "You will not listen while you are in that state. You will refuse to do anything I say and blame it on me later. Do as you wish; I was only giving advice."

Lilian close her eyes in irritation, then begrudgingly replied "I'm sorry. Thank you. Perhaps you're right."

The mouse smiled a satisfied rodent grin and trickled away into the bracken.

Lilian considered.

"Unicorn?" she said out loud, experimentally. "Unicorn, please help. Sorry to bother you but, please, help me now."

Nothing happened.

She said it again, louder. Still nothing happened.

"I knew it," she added. "It was all – another – lie. And mice talking is now normal? They're all mad."

She sprang to her feet and crunched away over the beech mast.

"I bet it's Monday," she muttered bitterly. "I detest Mondays."

Not really looking where she was going, she stumbled along the river a ways, until it took a bend around the edge of a gradual slope. She paused, not sure how long she'd been walking. She turned away from the river, which seemed to branch off back in the wrong direction, and headed up the slope. Then she paused again.

The forest was...huge. How would she ever do this in time?

She would have to...go back. To the town and somehow convince everyone that Lucerna was barking. She remembered the unicorn's words: "but you don't have to convince them all...you only have to pretend to believe in it yourself, temporarily..." She pushed it aside. How on earth would that ever work? Nobody would listen to her...

With real desperation, she thought "if only something would happen, to sort it all out. I just need some help..."

She stepped forward again, not wanting to waste time thinking and standing.

Above her, a pigeon sat on a branch took off and soared away, leaving a very tiny white feather at her feet. For some reason Lilian decided to pick it up. It was a remarkably beautiful pigeon feather, very soft and brilliant in the darkening forest.

She tucked it into her sleeve.

And here were the mosquitoes again. Hateful whingers.

It only got better; stinging nettles invaded her privacy, a particularly brutal bramble tore a gash in her shin that could have been mistaken for a knife attack, and finally she tripped over something disconcertingly metallic.

She figured there would have been a nice loud click noise if it were something that bad. Shifting cautiously, she looked down to find a – a horseshoe, wrapped around her ankle. Thank goodness for that. It was very shiny, surely reasonably new? It occurred to her that maybe it had come off of Quinn's horse. She loved horses but didn't know a whole lot about them, and wondered if they had to have their shoes. Had something happened, maybe they weren't far away? Then she looked at her own bare feet and thought of the unicorn, and realized how silly the idea was. Of course horses didn't need shoes. They had managed for thousands of years in the wild hadn't they?

Still...did she even want to see Quinn again. He obviously hated her, there was no point trying to reason with someone like that. Best to get back as quickly as she could and sort it all out by herself. She wanted to stop Lucerna. It seemed only right. How much misery would the woman inflict if she wasn't interrupted? And what else was Lilian going to do? Now the forest seemed to have turned hostile again and she had no help and nowhere to go. For a moment the sense of fear and impossibility overwhelmed her and she tried to take deep breaths to quell the panic.

The trouble with that was that taking deep breaths never actually changed anything. She decided that the only thing that would make her feel better would be taking action; she set off away from the setting sun and into the trees. She would walk all night, if she had to, just to stop being taken over by the illogical terror of being in a forest in the dark. To be sure the mosquitoes were a pain, but somehow it wasn't so much them as something completely nameless and vague that scared her so much. She tried to define it, but there was no way of having a rational conversation with something completely irrational.

It's fine, she told herself. It's fine, I walk, I get back. Focus. Worry about everything else later. The sun will reappear in a few hours. It's as simple as that.

And then she noticed the glowing.

At first it happened when she moved her hand. A streak of blue darted through the air. She blinked. It was just her eyes playing tricks on her. Great, my eyes now too! She thought sarcastically.

Only then she noticed it over her shoulder. And then it seemed to appear between the trees. Trying to contain her unease, she glanced around, stopped still, peered at the elusive lights in the hope of understanding their source.

Instead, they vanished.

Now thoroughly disconcerted, she stepped forward briskly thinking that maybe it had just been some strange...

Out of the corner of her eye, the light flickered along the branches of a tree. This time she really stared at it. She stared and she stared and as she did, she became aware that the glow was all around her, as though she was sweating light somehow. It wasn't there when you focused on it, she realized.

It was getting more difficult to see by the minute, and yet the mysterious glowing was becoming clearer and clearer. She began to walk quickly with the idea that everything would somehow be explained in the process of moving around.

Close your eyes.

Lilian told herself she couldn't hear it. I'm going crazy, she thought.

Close your eyes...

No, Lilian said inwardly. I won't.

If you don't, you will fall.

Lilian closed her eyes.

Then she opened them, two seconds later.

Close them and focus...on yourself.

It was getting to the point where it didn't make much odds whether your eyes were open or not, as it was now very much night time and there wasn't even a moon because it was cloudy. So she took the chance. I really honestly am insane, she told herself. What do you mean, focus on myself?

Focus! The indefinable thing said.

Somehow the urgency of it scared all the thoughts out of her mind, and she realized it was quiet. It was silent. And the glowing light all around her could now be seen. She didn't dare move, didn't dare think, because she wanted to look at it properly and anything she did might make it disappear...

Continually shifting and adjusting colour, green, red, turquoise, blue...

Then a patch of the light seemed to appear around a pile of twigs on the forest floor. Lilian stepped closer to see them, and the light flickered and moved to a shrub a few feet beyond. She walked toward it, fascinated by this strange phenomenon. The light leapt to some brambles, then crept over tree roots, gleamed over a puddle, hopped over a stone.

At this point Lilian faltered. It's a trap, she thought, or I'm seriously dehydrated again.

As if in response, the words echoed in her mind like an after image of sound.

Trust. Trust...

With a sudden surge of realization, Lilian wanted to laugh hopelessly at herself. Whatever game she was in right now was much bigger and scarier than she'd ever understand. The forest had a mind of it's own, and did she really think it wouldn't find some other way of pushing her over the edge if it couldn't convince her this way? You couldn't fight nature; whatever happened would happen anyway...

She gave up on everything and followed the light.

Chapter 7

"I'm just so damn stupid," Quinn said to himself again.

He felt like the most daft idiot ever in existence. He had allowed a pigeon, a pigeon, to let him lose control of his horse so much that she was now badly injured. He felt guilty. He felt scared. He felt responsible and anxious. But mostly he just felt stupid.

He also felt hungry.

Having taken the tack and baggage off Daisy, he carefully cleaned the blood from the scrape on her foot with water from his water bottle, then bound it up with bandages and cloth. He managed to get Daisy to lie down, and she munched morosely at some nettles.

Then he delved in to the discarded saddlebags and found a parcel that he hadn't brought with him before. Curiously he opened it out, noticing it was made of large leaves rather like banana leaves. Inside was a collection of beautiful fruits and strange crisp-like things that looked suspiciously like tree bark chippings. There was also a small bottle that appeared to be carved out of a seashell. It was corked with real cork and when Quinn opened it he saw a silvery purple liquid. It had a mysterious scent of cinnamon and liquorice and mint all together.

He didn't trust any of it, not after the butterflies.

Back to the pumpkin seed cakes.

***

Lilian stumbled into the fresh chill light of dawn, her legs aching, her eyes strained, and jittery from hypoglycaemia.

And here was the main forest trail.

Surely it wasn't far from here?

She couldn't go on any longer though. This had to stop. She looked around for a handy log to sit on, but there was inconveniently a dearth of logs in this part of the forest. She lurched to sit on the verge of the trail road, sank down on to a pile of weeds and curled up, sickened.

Evidently, the unicorn hadn't expected Quinn to be so dang unreasonable.

To hell with that, Lilian thought disinterestedly. She was fixated on one thing now, one thing alone: get rid of Lucerna. Somehow every little anger and injustice and manipulative action by her former employer, to Lilian herself or to anybody, had coagulated into a burning desire to see the woman taken down.

And she would stop at nothing. Because she couldn't stop now. This was war.

If only she had some way of knowing what was happening back in the town...

If only she had the unicorn horn...

If only there was somebody in Clementia with an ounce of sense...

Nope.

Now the logistics. Water, she would need water, she was parched. And some sleep wouldn't go amiss, but how to sleep here? And there wasn't water, wasn't water anywhere. Why must this be her perennial problem?

And then it began to rain. Lilian thought she was imagining it at first. Then large cold drops began to splot on to the dry earth of the trail road. She cast around frantically. What could she collect it in? In a moment of inspiration she took off her jacket, scraped a hollow in the grassy bank and placed the material flat in the indented ground. She watched in trepidation, then noticed the bare skin on her arms was catching water. She was so thirsty she licked it off without a thought.

After a minute, the rain began to gather in her jacket. She scooped it up to drink and realized she had not had any water since the unicorn showed her the stream near where they had found Quinn. That water had been much cleaner and better than this, but she couldn't think about that now. She was lucky to get this water at all.

The band of rain drifted away quickly, and Lilian retreated to the pine trees nearby and shuffled the bracken around until it resembled something softish. She put her damp jacket back on and rolled up like a hedgehog on the leaves. It was remarkably uncomfortable. She was so tired however that she fell asleep even like that; cold, scratched, bruised, nauseous with hunger and dizzy with focused rage.

***

"Why did I agree to something a mad woman who lost the plot decided? What kind of bat tells you to kill unicorns?"

Quinn took out his knife and stabbed the ground a few times, just to vent the anger. It didn't satisfy.

"Where's that pigeon. I think I might kill it," he thought out loud.

Then he went very still. His shoulder felt cold. Icy cold. Just the one. A whisper of cold air passed his ear, and it sounded unmistakeably like "no."

Quinn shivered. "I'm using my imagination without realizing," he told himself. "This is as daft as anything."

Only the whisper happened again, louder this time.

"NO..."

"What d'you mean, no?" Quinn asked threateningly. He could swear he heard a whispered laugh. The light was very dim at best now, and he was getting creeped out by this new batch of weirdness. It was far from anywhere, his horse was lame, and as well as possibly being mad, concussed, and trapped, he had lived off nothing but a few pumpkin seed cakes for two days now.

Then the coldness shifted, as though someone was breathing ice into his ear.

"Killing..." it said, then moved to the other ear, "...is killing."

"Well, duh," replied Quinn automatically.

"I am...a dryad," said the whisper.

"You what?" Quinn shook his head.

"To kill is to live in fear forever..."

"It's just a pigeon," said Quinn. "I was only joking."

"And you are just human...and when will you stop?"

"Stop being human you mean? Hopefully never."

"If you kill a bird today, you will kill a thousand birds tomorrow. It doesn't affect me...do as you will...I only warn you of the inevitable...if you kill, you will lose the game..."

"What game?" Quinn yelled to thin air. "Is that what the problem is here? I'm playing some stupid game and I don't even know it? Because that could explain a lot."

"It is only a game, Quinn...the rest is future."

Quinn flipped. "Just go away and leave me alone. I was fine before all of this. I've had enough, I'm going home. Every wacko thing in this place speaks in nonsense. Upside down bleeding nonsense."

He got to his feet and was allowed to haul Daisy to standing; she would not walk however. There was no way he could strap packs to her, and no way he could carry them himself, they were too clumsy. They'd have to be left behind.

He was even allowed to pull out the water bottle, the food and some extra cloth for Daisy's hoof, stow them in his pockets and prepare to pitch off through the dark forest. But at the point where he was about to do just that, the cold crept on the back of his neck, something snagged his jacket and he was yanked back to the ground. A twig snapped and he found it crunched up in his hood. He was sat under a rowan tree. The bright red-orange berries looked toxic.

"Why," he said. "Literally why."

"We are dryads...every tree has a spirit. You can't run away, Quinn...you are in a forest full of trees..."

"Fine then. I won't." He felt deeply insecure now. Was there anything around here that wasn't alive, that didn't think for itself, didn't have the temerity to interrupt even your thoughts?

"We are here to help you...we will guide you to where you wish to go. But if you are so hasty then your companion will die. We are here to help her, too."

"What, Daisy?" Quinn asked, horrified.

"Blood is sought after, in these places," the chill swept around his ankles and the rowan tree dropped a leaf into Quinn's hands.

"We will show you the cure. We will show you the way."

***

When Lilian reached the edge of the forest, she was doused with a metaphorical bucket of perspective. And there was really nothing she wanted perspective on less. It was evening; it was just about the time Lucerna would have a meeting in the Hall...only Lilian had no idea what day it was.

She trod the familiar path towards the town, every step a study in surrealism; the place looked so much as it always did, yet it was alien to her now. She went slowly, hesitantly; uncertain about everything all of a sudden. What would she do, if there was no meeting? What was she expecting as a result? Where would she go? She didn't have anywhere to live other than Lucerna's house. And that didn't really seem like an option anymore.

Her mind drifted, as it had a habit of doing when deprived of sleep, food, water and everything else civilized. She thought of dreams, how this had all happened in the first place...could you really understand anything useful from them at all? People placed such value on their meanings, yet her own eighteen year history of dull, nondescript nightmares didn't mean much to Lilian whatsoever. Apart from that she'd had a very dull, nondescript life. And now that it was getting all interesting, it was also getting very uncomfortable and scary.

You can't win, she thought. Not with anything – with life, with people. You might seem to win an argument, but were they really persuaded or was it just easier to agree? What if you made their life a misery? Was that winning?

She thought of Quinn then, and laughed. It had just occurred to her that he was a total hypocrite. "It's alright for you, with your unicorn friend," he had said. She could have equally said, "It's alright for you, with your horse friend." Besides, Quinn now had a horse, and Lilian didn't have a unicorn. She was absolutely alone. She really couldn't get herself to feel resentful though; there was no energy to spare for self-pity, and no time to worry about it. And no point either. It wasn't like she could help anything by being apathetic...

And so she was reminded of why she was here and what she was doing.

She tried to throw together some kind of plan in her mind, but although it occupied her very successfully until she reached the Hall, the whole thing was forgotten as soon as she had to step inside.

The flickering torch was outside, denoting that there was a meeting happening. They could have used LED lights, but that might not have the same dramatic effect, Lilian supposed. It was odd how stupid thoughts like that occurred to people in situations that called for clear-headedness.

She opened the door, saw it was full of people, and had to exercise enormous self-discipline to stop herself running away and hiding.

It was too late now.

Lucerna stopped whatever she was saying to see who had appeared. Her expression, though fleeting, was enough to make everyone else turn to see as well.

Help, Lilian thought in a panic. Something tickled around her wrist in her sleeve. She scratched at it, an itchy nerve brought on by stress.

And then the glowing began again.

Lilian blinked in astonishment. She tried not to stare at everyone, fascinated by the light shining off them. Fascinated particularly because it blatantly reflected the way they were sitting, thinking, living...even Lucerna. Lucerna's light was a sickly off-yellow colour, and it even had gaps in places.

Lilian wondered then if Quinn was here, if he'd got back before her. That might mess up everything. She discreetly glanced around and couldn't see him. Good, she thought. One down, lots to go. Obstacles. They were rife.

Lucerna peered at Lilian as though she was contagious. Lilian began speaking and didn't even know what she was going to say. Somehow all her frenzied planning must have gone over all the unviable options so that she was only left with the right things to say.

"Priestess Lucerna," she began solemnly. "I beg your forgiveness for leaving your service without notice. The Deus talked to me in a dream, a vision; I went into the forest as I was advised in my dream, and there found Quinn, the boy you sent, had killed the unicorn and took it's horn – but he is terribly injured and will take much longer to return. His horse was killed and he asked me to bring back the unicorn horn for you, in case he did not get back in time. However, the Deus was in triumph over the death of the unicorn, and gave me a sign, in accordance with my dream, that he is pleased and no more deaths need occur."

For a second, there was a shot of relief and a weight off her shoulders; then the doubt crawled into the silence.

She peeked at Lucerna's face – a look of confusion, dissatisfaction – fear? Lilian couldn't tell. The quiet of the congregation built into a wall of white noise, and just when Lilian thought she couldn't stand it anymore, Lucerna said, "I see."

Lilian analysed the words, the tone, the timing, trying to glean a clue as to what it could mean beyond –

"How lucky you are, to have had the Deus speak to you," Lucerna added with just the faintest smirk of curiosity. Only her eyes betrayed her – filled with anxiety, nervousness; dark circles – exhaustion. And of course that jaundiced glow all around her.

Lilian found she had the perfect answer. How to turn nonsense into common sense, she thought.

"Oh, the – ahem – Deus, speaks to us all, for we are all free to choose, what we believe, what we do, as long as we treat everyone as equal and respect everything in this beautiful world. We are all people, and we do not need to pay for our existence. We do not need to pay to live our lives."

This is not me talking, surely, Lilian remarked inwardly. I don't say clever things like that.

"Yes, indeed," Lucerna broke in. "No more money shall be paid. We will show our devotion in other ways. Now where is the unicorn horn?"

Lilian was for some reason shocked by how easily Lucerna had twisted her words. She hesitated, not sure what she could possibly say to justify not having brought the...

"It is wrapped in this cloth," Lilian lied. She brought out one of the napkins and hoped beyond hope that Lucerna would never recognize it as stolen from her own kitchen. "The – the thing is," Lilian improvised, "it's invisible. As soon as it was detached from the unicorn it - it began to fade. Now it is so depleted it has all but disappeared. I give it to you and hope that – that you will not be disappointed."

Lucerna looked at Lilian with deep suspicion, but took the carefully folded napkin with a triumphant delicacy and unwrapped it slightly, peering between the crumples of cloth.

"Invisible..." she said, apparently to herself. Lilian quailed inwardly. Surely this would never work...surely it would be – quite literally – seen through...

Lucerna held up the empty napkin and announced, "Centuries ago, the unicorn disobeyed the Deus and hid in the forest. Let this be a lesson to you all, of what should happen to you if you stray from the order."

Lilian felt a knot of unease untie and then retie itself in her stomach. Miraculously Lucerna had been convinced, or was pretending to be for the moment; but this was not going right at all. And Lilian was foggy headed and exhausted, not up to this task one bit. Why did the difficult things always happen when you were already dog-tired?

Lucerna placed the napkin beneath the painted eye. Lilian noticed the bloodstains were still on the floor.

"Now that brings this meeting to an end," decreed Lucerna. When all of them had left, Lucerna stopped Lilian at the door. "You will be very welcome to return to your duties as my housekeeper, Lilian," she said sharply, with a subtle, glitteringly sickening grin. It matched the sudden influx of dull, toxic pink that had infused the grubby yellow of the light around her.

Lilian wanted to say no, so badly, so much...yet somehow she found herself replying, "you are very kind, Priestess. You are very kind, Miss Lucerna. I should be...glad to."

She forced a smile which ended up more like baring her teeth and squeezing her eyes together.

***

The last thing Lilian wanted to do was go back into that hateful house. But she changed into the stupid cream tunic things, and carried on without a word. Lucerna couldn't clean a damn thing, she thought, sweeping the kitchen floor. How had she contrived to make it so filthy? And she had obviously taken a liking to Chardonnay. Did it go well with toast? Because that was all Lucerna seemed to have eaten for two weeks, according to what was left in the cupboards. She opened the annoying one that had to be hauled on with at least fourteen Newtons of pressure before it would open, and noticed for the first time that there was a box of matches tucked away on the middle shelf.

After the recent escapade, Lilian had decided that matches were a useful thing to have all the time. Not that she thought she'd get away with escaping again. She felt panicky as she thought of it. What am I going to do? She thought. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs.

She found a brush and began sweeping the crumbs off of the sideboard. She heard Lucerna pass by the doorway and looked down to prevent catching the priestess' attention. Then Lilian froze – the bristles of the brush had somehow left a pattern in the breadcrumbs. Or she was insane. Letters that unmistakeably spelt out just wait.

I'm going mad, thought Lilian, and brushed them aside before Lucerna could see.

***

Quinn coaxed Daisy down the last hundred yards of the main forest path that led to the road and then to the town and the posh bit on the edge where he had to live. As he went, he reflected on how delirious he had been for such a long time. He had been convinced that there were giant talking butterflies, unicorns, trees that had personalities, and places in the forest where the sky reached the ground.

He had even managed to convince himself that strapping leaves and spider webs on to Daisy's hoof had made it mend much faster, that a girl had rescued him from a river and that what he had in his pocket was a unicorn horn.

And now he was back, and had to return to the tyrannical tedium of day-to-day 'life'. In this place he was so fond of. Yes, it was a nice house, but he only had one room in it and the others might as well be occupied by rabid Chihuahuas that could talk (very loudly) for all the good it did.

It was an uptight, no-mud-on-the-carpet sort of neighbourhood, and the neighbours themselves were all determined to make sure you didn't forget about them, however much they hated you. Quinn hadn't forgotten them, unfortunately, but he was rapidly realizing how civilized the forest had been by comparison. He realized it as he went past tall hedges with watchful eyes peering through them; he realized it as a snooty dog walker pretended not to notice him.

When he had, after much necessary deliberation, got Daisy back to her stable and seen to all her needs, he went to the house with a sense of foreboding. As predicted, he was greeted with shocked contempt. Why had it taken him so long? What had he done to his horse? Why had he let himself get injured? Why wasn't he injured? What did he know of the housekeeper girl?

The onslaught of questions was enough to make him desperate to fall asleep and never wake up, never mind that he'd felt like that already. He tried to explain; he persevered; he was failing miserably. He wondered when he'd got it in his head that these people were worth listening to anyway. Or worth explaining to. I can't be bothered, he thought vaguely.

"Forget it," he said. "You never cared about me, I'm a failure remember? Why would you give a feck about this either? I want to sleep. Leave me alone." he'd never dared to be so dismissive before.

He pushed past his parents, snatched a few edible things from the kitchen and stomped up two flights of stairs to his room. On the way, the sound of a screaming baby, it's nanny saying calming things with determined futility, and Quinn's two younger brothers arguing with each other reminded him that he hadn't been exaggerating when he had thought of them as rabid Chihuahuas. Once inside, he elbowed the door shut and collapsed on the floor. He was exhausted. Then he noticed he was actually unbearably hungry. He grabbed whatever he'd picked up from the kitchen and ate it. It was bread, he thought, identifying it at last. And cheese. What a marvellous subconscious sense of culinary taste he had. Cheese. Cheese was incredible. So was bread. Pumpkin and sunflower seed cakes had become terrifically monochrome on the journey back. He would be almost tearful if he even had to look at one ever again. Bread. Cheese. It was beautiful. It was gone, and he was hungry still, but now he was too, too tired. He snatched a cushion from somewhere, threw it on the floor and fell asleep right where he was.

Chapter 8

It was, for a week, as though nothing had happened. As though they'd never been in the forest; as though Lilian had never left her post. Almost...if she hadn't been thinking, thinking, thinking. And finally the next meeting at the hall was due, and Lilian got sick just the day before.

She rubbed coal dust under her eyes to give herself dark circles. She splashed hot water in her eyes to make them look red. She ate spice to make her nose run. She was slow in her work and went to the bathroom a lot. The next morning, she didn't get out of bed. When Lucerna realized, she went to see Lilian. Lilian really did look rather awful. What she might have picked up in the forest, Lucerna didn't want to think about. Neither did she want it herself. So she grudgingly left the girl some water and oatcakes and ignored her.

Later, she had to bring her a bucket. Lilian managed some convincing throwing up sounds. Lucerna knew it would be time to go for the meeting soon; she didn't feel very worried about leaving Lilian here by herself. The girl couldn't escape the room, let alone the house. Not unless she took the bucket with her.

Lucerna left for the meeting on her own.

As soon as she heard the door shut, Lilian leapt up, attacked the oatcakes with the kind of voracity impossible if she really had been repeatedly being sick all day, downed all the water and changed into the clothes she'd worn into the forest. She'd washed and dried them straightaway and they were good as new.

Then she hurried down into the kitchen, and ferreted out the box of matches she had spied. She took a deep breath and told herself she wasn't about to do what she was about to do.

She went to Lucerna's study.

She struck a match.

Her heartbeat drubbed through her left shoulder as she watched the little blue flame flare. It grew into a yellow spiral and she placed it between the pages of Lucerna's horrible book. The painted eye squinted at Lilian as it took hold of the binding, and curled and distorted as Lilian threw a second match into a pile of papers.

The room was full of wood furniture.

Lilian stumbled away, choking on her own fright and disbelief at what she was doing, clumsily striking more matches and hurling them into rooms as she went past. She couldn't think of anything. Her mind was serenely blank. Pockets of fire gleamed around her and she could only observe with a detached thrill.

Lilian had her hand on the front door when she realized that it was locked.

Horror screeched through her. She moved into the kitchen, and over to the window. On to the sideboard. She slipped and smacked her shin hard against the edge. She was just a mechanical creature, empty, taking the next necessary action because it had to happen.

She grabbed a convenient bottle of Chardonnay and smashed it through the panes of glass, eyes shut tight. She grabbed anything, kicked with her feet, until there was a gap big enough that she wouldn't be torn to pieces escaping. Splinters of jewel-like glass stung her skin as she threw herself on to the flowerbed outside and for a split second the scent of living soil was heavenly.

Then she scrabbled to her feet and ran, down the drive, ran, ran. The heavy wood smoke filled the air; most of Lucerna's house was lined with some of the finest money could buy. It smelled like a huge cinnamony bonfire.

She raced, now actually wanting to be sick, down the road and across the pathways through the fields. At last she turned and looked back; watched, mesmerized. After a short time or a long time, Lilian had no judgement, mini golden suns flooded over the roof – the whole building...

Burn, she thought. "Burn, burn," she said fiercely, breathlessly.

The grey sky was darkening, sped up by the arrival of a turbulent looking storm cloud that would explain why the air had been so thick all day.

The fire crawled over the house like a fearsome creature devouring its prey. Suddenly Lilian saw that her power had taken over Lucerna's, for the first time ever. For a moment she felt a rush of relief and vindication and satisfaction. But then she questioned if that made her any better than Lucerna.

***

Quinn had sullenly attended the meeting, the day after his arrival, to ostensibly tell Lucerna about the quest. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do, but it certainly wasn't what he'd said he'd do.

The original plan seemed a safe bet. Organize a meeting with the priestess woman and get her to admit she didn't believe in it either – there was no way she could believe in it – and make a deal that if he could have some of the proceeds from the unicorn horn, he would keep quiet.

He brought his copy of the stupid book, as was the rule; he sat down as usual. Lucerna noticed he was there at once. So he had managed to return within three weeks. It would seem he had followed her orders, which meant he was actually as gullible as the rest of his family then. She called for him to go and stand at the front. She noticed at once, also, no sign of injury or difficulty of movement. A tiny alarm bell warned her all might not be as she'd – perhaps naively – hoped. But then reality was not so defined in a rosy world of Rosé...

Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same, however. Quinn noticed whispering and frowning, and caught the words "injured?" and "She said...serious..."

Then something under the painted eye caught his interest.

Blood.

So Lilian hadn't been lying, then. If that's what it was. He was pretty sure he recognized blood by now though, he'd seen plenty of it while working around the horses. It got a strange look about it after a while that paint would never replicate.

Squeamishly, Quinn turned to them all.

"Well," he began, with an expression of utter bemusement. They all went quiet, and everything he had thought of saying was sucked into a void. "I am here. With the unicorn horn. In this vile place, with blood on the floor –" he pointed with an air of disgust. "You can't even keep the floor clean. I am here, in this vile place, with no more than a paper cut, as opposed to the injury you all expected, or maybe hoped for. Because of course this stupid Deus is clever enough to fix me up in one go but not to fix my lame horse. Oh, yes. Yes, of course, none of this was done to make money, to satisfy this insane woman –" he motioned to Lucerna, "- who ought to be institutionalized, no. Not to keep her safely in the drunk state she is blatantly in now. Are you all blind? She had some person killed in front of you and you not only didn't mind, you actually agreed that it was a good thing? Will you go to any lengths for a pocket of fecking pennies?"

In stunned silence at the tirade, the entire room, including Lucerna, stared at Quinn as though he was an alien.

"You weren't even listening, were you?" he accused of them all. "I despair of this. It is hopeless. Your Deus help you, and all." Then he tore up the book. Tore it up, threw the shreds at Lucerna, at the eye on the wall, littered all over the audience. He chucked fistfuls of paper like confetti as he walked the aisle, opened the door and left.

The fresh air was cool, welcome, wonderful after the stuffy Hall; the malevolent clouds of the afternoon had broken and vague frizzles of thunder echoed above, like giant rats squabbling in a roof. A great purple spark squiggled across the sky and the crackles worried away into the distance a few moments later. Quinn's relief at leaving the Hall was marred by a sudden anxiety for the horses. Daisy was in the stable but she hated storms. She would be going crazy in there probably. And Vanilla and Ishan were still out in the paddock...He had better get them in he supposed. This looked like it was going to be a big storm, and he didn't want them to panic and hurt themselves on a fence.

Then he noticed something on the hill, the opposite way from his house. It was...it was a fire. A big fire. It was that posh house he'd seen many times but never thought about. Well, he thought about it now, now that it was burning down. There might be people in there, he thought. Nobody else would have seen it, they were all at home or in the Hall. Then he was torn between doing something about that and getting to the horses as quickly as possible. He figured he could do both instead of procrastinating here.

He turned back to the door of the Hall he'd just slammed, and opened it. Everyone turned to stare at him. They were all still just sat there? Then he realized it had literally been about ninety seconds since he'd left. Still, at least he had their attention now.

"Oy," he said, "there's kind of a big house burning down over there. Any ideas?"

Murmuring broke out. It seemed like nobody believed him. Then someone came out to have a look. They yelled as they saw it and this spurred a whole troop of Hall goers to rush out and witness the spectacle for themselves.

"It's the big house over the way," somebody declared.

"We'd better get the fire crew," another prompted.

"Who might be in there? Who does it belong to?" an urgent voice questioned.

Lucerna strode to the door, shoving people out of the way. Interrogation followed her and she batted it off angrily.

As soon as she saw it, she froze.

"The Deus damn you, Lilian," she whispered.

***

Lilian was running down the hill, away from the disaster she had just caused and hoping to find shelter from the rapidly brewing storm. It seemed like a timely metaphor for the current situation.

A streak of dull electric pink crossed the matrix of cloud layers and Lilian flinched. She scudded through a farmyard, vaulted over some straw bales, and hurried past a row of cows all bellowing softly over the rail by which they were contained in their barn. As she passed the farmhouse a dog hallooed into a barking frenzy and Lilian ran even faster, unsure whether the dog was as contained as the cows, or whether it was free range. Diving into a web of unrecognizable dwellings, she swerved to avoid an approaching figure and dashed away, anywhere... it was really getting difficult to see now.

All at once, the world seemed very dangerous.

A horse whinnied somewhere close by, and a burst of lightning lit the surroundings. A horse? Thought Lilian. Then a flickering light appeared, a warm, yellow light, a lamp. It mirrored the distant inferno. Lilian realized the cinnamon scent was all around her and that the smoke from the fire had flowed over the hill and descended on to the town.

Lilian heard voices, saw people running about in the glow of the lamp.

Then she realized who was holding it...

Lucerna stopped in her tracks and sniffed. She had gone back in to fetch a light in order to organize some of the fracas that would inevitably ensue, and now she was fully appreciating exactly what had happened. Because she knew exactly what had happened, in an instant: because Lilian, who had blatantly not been sick at all, was cowering in front of her. The round, innocent-looking face was suddenly evil to Lucerna. Who would have thought that this lowly housekeeper girl, so clumsy and unworldly, such a child, could have undermined the very foundations of her plans? Cause so much trouble? Seemingly effortlessly tear apart and interfere with things surely completely beyond her?

Well, not anymore.

It felt like a déjà vu. Where had this happened before? The dense grey fog smoke, the fire above, and Lucerna was holding out the lamp – holding it out while walking alone into the fog.

The dream.

Doubt swept in, like the tide. Had it been a prediction of this? How would it end? She had woken up before it had been concluded... And what about the other dream, where it had all gone wrong?

She determined that this time, it would go right.

The fire crew were rushing off to get the hoses and water tank, and everyone else was going back home to secure their houses against the storm, which was beginning to rage with real ferocity. But some of Lucerna's most dedicated fans remained by her, and she called to them then.

"My people, my believers," she implored. "You witness evil. Kill it. Kill them. Kill them, the girl, and the boy, who probably told her to do this. They are followers of the evil unicorn, apprentices...kill them, at once!"

She held up the lamp and pointed at Lilian, so that they could be sure who their target was. Lilian backed away, found herself cornered against a wall. Distract! Defend! Run, jump, something! Her mind screamed at her. Yet the rage of the storm and the fire seemed to stack up in her blood and she found herself speaking shakily with anger.

"I was not told to do this. I chose to myself."

How dare Lucerna suggest that Lilian was nothing but a slave...

Five hideous people approached to attack and Lilian threw herself to the floor, crawled under their snatching hands and gasped for air as she hurtled away again. She collided with some unknown person as she went, and heard a faint protest of, "that is my son..."

Footsteps careered after Lilian; she bolted into the blackness and then without warning was doused in cold rain. It pelted down and the sounds of the killers following her were drowned in the roll of thunder and gush of water. The ground was liquid glass. Lilian slid over it perilously, not sure where to move to escape... A crush of noise slammed in her ears...she tripped over and fell on to a cold stone floor.

Lilian writhed forwards with all her might and not a moment too soon, because what sounded like a bomb going off blasted around her into the Hall, which she had inadvertently just fallen into. Catastrophic-sounding crashes resounded, unthinkably bright light blinded her as she crouched under chairs, and after a while she became aware of a deep, unnatural silence. Her own breathing anchored her slowly to reality, and she opened her eyes into almost complete darkness. Water was pouring in from somewhere and a glimmer of reflected light showed her that the rain was filling up the small space left in the ruined building, engulfing the painted eye and the bloodstains and the reams of paper oppression. They melted and blurred in the water...the water –

Lilian began to panic. First fire, now water. Now what?

Lilian crawled from beneath pieces of wreckage and away from the water, trying to see around her. Everywhere seemed to be blocked, the best she could do was clamber as far up the piles of crumpled stone as possible and wait for the shock to pass.

***

Lucerna saw the lightning bolt and the collapse of the Hall as if in a trance. She fell to the floor with the shockwave, just preserving the lamp, and hoping that Lilian was underneath the pile. She had convinced herself that there really was an evil plan at work and that Lilian was directly allied to the unicorn or whatever had caused all this mess. Unless it was Quinn? She hauled herself to her feet, wringing out the water from her sleeves. Her eyes searched around and all she could see in the crashing rain was anonymous silhouettes hurrying away, leaving her alone in the downpour. She looked up to the hill where the fire crew had headed to put out the fireball her house had become. It seemed to be greatly diminished, just a murky yellow smudge. Lucerna thought dubiously that it had little to do with anybody's daring intervention and a lot to do with this torrential rain, which would take care of destroying anything that the fire hadn't.

But the Deus will...the Deus will have planned it all, will make sure it all works out, Lucerna told herself. She lurched unsteadily forward, with a vague notion of sheltering in somebody's accommodating household. They certainly owed it to her, after all this...

Then the lamp she was carrying sputtered and went out.

In the inches of water beneath her feet, she saw the reflection of a cloud sliding away from the moon. Next to it was a star or several, clearly winking away in the water as though the sky had become the ground. Gradually the rain eased, turned to a fine mist as Lucerna waded along the street. As the water became still it turned eerily silver, and Lucerna found the old dream playing back in her mind again and again...

Chapter 9

Quinn had scarpered a while ago and brought all the horses in. Then he'd sat in Daisy's stall, comforting her from her terror of the storm. After a while he'd heard his parents arrive back and so had ensued the argument.

They dragged him back to the house, and his mother began her sales pitch. "Really, Quinn, of course we care about you! We were very worried and we just wanted –"

Quinn cut her off. "Yeah, of course," he said coldly. "Now you care. Don't pretend I'm not just going to disappoint you again."

"I don't know what on earth the Priestess was talking about, she seemed to think you had something to do with that awful little arsonist servant of hers, and I wanted to make sure she wasn't under that impression, so I told her that you were my son, and that seemed to –"

"Seemed to what?" Quinn exclaimed. His father had behaved as though this situation was a mild irksomeness and vacated the room to finish writing a letter. His mother looked taken aback, at last.

"Well, never mind," she replied with a huff. Somewhere upstairs the baby started screaming again. The conversation had to be yelled for it to be heard at all.

"You really think that's enough?" Quinn pressed. "You're that deluded, that you think that's why? As though saying that would really change anything? And I suppose you'll be running back to her when she's got new premises and trying to convert me into an accountant again."

Quinn didn't wait for a retort. He walked out of the room, whistling merrily, and decided to go and check on Daisy again before going to sleep. Hopefully baby Henrietta would learn about being depressed and silent soon.

The next morning, Quinn woke up early and was about to go out to feed the horses when somebody knocked on the door. It was probably one of the wretched neighbours come to gossip or complain about something. He wondered how he could get rid of them.

Except, when he opened the door, he almost considered just shutting it again straightaway. Lucerna was standing on the doorstep in her cream coloured dress thing, which looked decidedly less impressive now that it was covered in mud, but something about her reptilian expression was disturbing enough not to laugh. That and the fact that she had ordered for Quinn to be killed by her band of maniacs.

Instead he resisted the compulsion to slam the door in her face and asked, "Um, can we help you?"

"I have some questions to ask you, now," said Lucerna through gritted teeth.

Quinn nodded, motioning as though to close the door. "We've already got double glazing, thank you," he assured, "and we don't need anybody to clean the guttering because that's what I do when I'm bored. But next door could probably do with both those things, why don't you try them?"

Lucerna was so angry that she grabbed Quinn's arm, hauled him over the steps and pulled the door shut from the outside. Then, white faced with rage, she spat "You got that silly girl to do this, didn't you? You told her everything. Where is the unicorn horn? What lies is this about you're being injured? You never found a unicorn, did you?"

Quinn reeled away. "Whoa," he said, "too many questions. Say that again, slowly."

Lucerna looked like she might attack him, but repeated, "Did you tell Lilian to cause all this trouble?"

Quinn shook his head. "What trouble?" he asked airily.

"You know what I'm talking about! Burning my property down, messing around with evil things that should never be disturbed, undermining the very fabric of civilized belief that I have helped to build! This is a shameful, shameful crime and if you are found to be remotely responsible then your future is bleak indeed."

Quinn couldn't help grinning.

"All the more reason not to admit anything," he said. Then he added, "but really, there is nothing to admit. Will I tell you, now? I went into the forest on my horse, as you advised me, with the map and all. It was a useless map, very instrumental in helping me to get lost. I was fine until something frightened my horse and she bolted; I fell off and bashed my head on something and must have been concussed because after that everything was a psychedelic disaster. I have no idea whether what I saw was real or imaginary. Luckily I did find water, in the most uninspiring way, so I didn't die of thirst, but the experience did involve being captured by giant butterflies and yes, talking to a unicorn...so I was injured, mentally, and maybe a little spiritually as well."

Lucerna digested this silently and motionlessly.

"You thought you were mad, eh?" Quinn finished with careful emphasis.

Lucerna was about to speak, then changed her mind and for a microsecond looked deeply disconcerted. In that moment, Quinn knew that he'd won. What a difference a few well-chosen words could make.

"So what does the Lilian girl have to do with it?" he asked. "I haven't seen or spoken to her at all."

Lucerna glanced at Quinn sharply. "Not at all?" she interrogated.

Quinn shook his head, keeping his eyes level and disinterested, determined not to give anything away.

"So she made it all up?" Lucerna questioned wonderingly.

Quinn shrugged. "I thought everything was made up," he offered casually. "I didn't think you actually believed any of this stuff, I thought I knew a money making system when I saw one, what with living in a family of accountants," he admitted honestly.

With a mutinous, disgusted, scandalized expression, Lucerna hissed, "How dare you. You dare insult the truth!"

Taken aback, Quinn said quietly, "No. I just explained what I thought was the truth."

Lucerna seemed close to angry tears, and Quinn almost felt sorry for her. "Look, I just did what you told me to do," he said reasonably. "Did you want to keep the unicorn horn? I brought it back." He took it out of his jacket pocket – he'd forgotten it was there – and gave the bundle of cloth to Lucerna. She took it with alarm and suspicion, but when she opened it her face transformed into something very strange, like stony triumph, or maybe emotionless victory.

Quinn decided not to tell her that it would disappear within weeks.

Lucerna broke out of her bubble of self-absorption and stared at Quinn with what might be respect. "You killed it?" she stated.

Quinn took a deep breath, buying time, not sure what to say, what to say...would she continue this insane hunt if he said no? Would she believe him if he said yes? Then he decided to tell the truth.

"I did not," he began. "Because – you can't."

Lucerna frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You can't kill a unicorn."

"Because?"

"Unless you think somebody can kill light itself, then you can't believe anyone can kill a unicorn."

Lucerna was very still, looking down at the ground.

"Enough," she said resentfully. "I will not be ridiculed by a little boy. It is true. Children should be seen but not heard." Or listened to, she thought.

And with that she swept angrily away; bitter, upset, and slightly mortified.

As she went, Quinn called, "Hey. Are you still going to kill me?"

Lucerna turned at the gateway and said scathingly, "I'll leave that to your parents."

Quinn felt a dose of paranoia take effect.

***

Lilian was so cold she didn't understand why she hadn't died of hypothermia. Every muscle and tendon ached and jangled with pain. She had attempted several times to pull away some of the debris that prevented her from escaping, but didn't dare move any more in case it pulled the whole thing down...

After a while she had simply sat in an alcove above the water, which had made it two feet high up the unstable walls of the building, and waited their for the sun to rise so she could get the tiny bit of light back and see something. It was so black since the moon had moved that Lilian couldn't even tell which way she was facing anymore. Claustrophobia sickened her and she was half asleep and too awake to rest. There was nothing very restful about being here. Vague things drifted through her mind; lightning...there had been lightning...that's why there were burnt things around the place...thank goodness she'd taken those little mice out of the bathroom in Lucerna's house before she'd burnt it down...she'd burnt it down...would there be anything left? Would anyone try to get her out of here? Did they even know she was in here? What had happened outside in the intervening time?...had the unicorn even been real?...everything seemed very surreal now...a rock rattled above somewhere and the dark seemed to become even denser. A stone must have lodged itself over the tiny gap that had allowed the last vestiges of light in. Lilian was scared to breathe.

Gradually the night passed, unbelievably slowly, and Lilian drifted through dreams and delirium and panicked minutes of extreme alertness, mixed up and layered into an experience of constant unknown fear.

"Why did this all have to happen?" she said into the emptiness. The smallness of her voice frightened her. And there was no reply.

"What if I never go home?" she thought out loud a while later. "What if I somehow lose myself in all this mess? What if I was nothing all along?"

She supposed it was miraculous that she hadn't simply been crushed or knocked out by the falling blocks of the Hall. That didn't really help her to get out, though. What if I can't get out? She didn't want to say that, even in a whisper, because that would somehow make it too real.

I have always lived in fantasyland, she considered regretfully. I thought there would always be something that would happen, that would change everything, that I could do this, that I could...and that's why I'm here now, because I was stupid enough to think I was clever. I trusted too much. Lucerna was right. I'm just too stupid.

She had closed her eyes while she was thinking about all of this; and when she opened them, she noticed something strange.

She could see.

It had got infinitesimally lighter. Which she didn't understand, because how could it get lighter if there was no space for light to get through? And there certainly wasn't anymore.

Oh, she thought, it's me.

The light was that weird glow that she could see before. Faintly blue. It slowly spread around, on to the stones, until she could see the cracks between each piece...and just how trapped she was.

"What is this?" she said to herself. Then she noticed an itch on her arm, the same thing she'd had last time the glowing had appeared when she'd first come back from the forest. She reached into her sleeve, expecting it to be one of those impossible-to-find seeds or twigs that had managed to lodge themselves deep into the fabric of your clothes. Instead, she pulled out a feather. Somewhat crumpled, now, but with a very slight blue tinge; a pigeon feather. As she grasped it the glowing light intensified. She laughed in wonder at the bizarre phenomenon. How could a feather make this happen? Then she realized – it must be from the unicorn. She remembered now; the bird that had flown in front of her, and she had picked up the single feather that it had dropped...

"Unicorn?" she spoke into the faint blueness. She felt as though her eyes were so accustomed to the darkness that if she ever did see daylight again, they might just dissolve or something.

"Unicorn, please help me, help me now...if you're real...please..."

Nothing happened.

Lilian barely dared to move, but she crawled around frantically in the small space left to her, now determined to find a way out. There had to be. There had to be.

And then she heard a sound.

Hoof beats.

Or was it her heartbeat?

No, it was hoof beats.

They were outside.

"Help! HELP!" she shouted. It echoed around her, her voice chased her cruelly. The sound was fading away, fading...they hadn't heard her...it wasn't a unicorn...just someone moving their pony between paddocks.

Could anybody even hear her from in this rubble?

Then the sound returned.

Paused. Stopped.

Lilian wondered who it was. Then she didn't care.

"I'm trapped, please help me out!" she shouted again.

Then she heard footsteps, and then pieces of stone moving. Heart in mouth, she froze. Why her heart couldn't stay where it was damn well supposed to be, she didn't know, but she felt that it was an unnecessary discomfort that it could have spared her, on top of everything else.

Out of nowhere, a smudge of light appeared. Lilian was terrified that all this shifting around of blocks would bring the whole lot crashing down, but she was silent as she waited. With a crunchy sort of wrenching sound, splintered pinewood broke away and what Lilian now recognized as the door of the Hall was heaved open by some unknown force.

Once Lilian realized that her eyes were not actually going to dissolve because of the relatively brilliant light after all, and had just about got accustomed to it, she could see that the unknown force was Quinn.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or whether she should be worried. What side had Quinn taken? Maybe he had Lucerna with him? Or even all the rest of them too? Perhaps this had all been planned, as a trap that they could pretend to rescue her and instead –

"What the feck are you doing in all that?" Quinn said.

It occurred to Lilian that the door was now...above her. In the ceiling, essentially. That seemed weird.

Lilian was now in such hysteria that there was no way she could reply seriously. She wriggled out into the space, stood up and said painfully, "seeing what it's like to be a bat, hanging upside down in the dark. What the feck are you doing out there?"

"Seeing what it's like to be a human, commuting to some boring place to earn money," Quinn informed. "But never mind that. Here," he held out a hand to pull her up. "Let me return your favour."

Lilian hesitated, not sure if she trusted this at all. She scrambled on to a pile of lumber to see if she could climb out herself, but there was no way. Defeated, she reached up and grabbed Quinn's hand.

"You'll have to jump," he said. Lilian jumped, and Quinn grabbed her other shoulder and hauled her clear of the collapsed building. She stumbled shakily on to the stony surface and blinked, and coughed, and blinked, and still couldn't get used to the dazzling sun and fresh air. She squinted and saw that she was sitting on the front wall of the Hall – the whole thing had fallen in, and by some twist of extreme luck or clever architecture there had been a reasonable gap left between the floor and the walls.

Having marvelled at the impossibility of surviving this at all, Lilian marvelled at the stunning beauty of everything around. The sun glittering bronze rays into the hazy air, and the sky full of sharply contrasting clouds, and trees, and the light bouncing off of a puddle, sparkly dots on the surface of it, and a brisk sweep of freshening breeze running through Daisy's mane.

In a moment, Lilian had a sense of great repulsion to the stagnant rocky pit she had been in for so long. She wanted to get away from it, from all of it, from this place, this town...away...

"Let's go," Lilian staggered to her feet and Quinn automatically followed her.

Then he enquired, "Where are you going?" taking Daisy's bridle again to lead the horse.

"Just...away from here," Lilian replied, feeling more unsteady and jittery by the second.

"Hold Daisy's shoulder," Quinn said. "You look like you're going to pass out."

Lilian obeyed, and they walked along a little way, to a patch of grass in front of a gate that led to a fallow field. Lilian sat down hurriedly in the grass, feeling sickly.

Quinn tied Daisy's bridle loosely to the gatepost and she grazed contentedly. He dug out a bottle of water and gave it to Lilian. "You'll feel better if you have some water," he said. The dark circles around Lilian's eyes were no longer fake, and they were spectacular. If she'd wanted to convince anyone that she was a panda, she would have had a good chance.

As she drank the water, she realized how dehydrated she was and wondered why she hadn't noticed before. Some of the sick feeling eased away and she began to appreciate the colours of her surroundings again.

Quinn leaned against the gate and observed Lilian.

"So," he began awkwardly, "I just wanted to – I mean, I never meant – I shouldn't have said...I suppose, the thing is...the thing is –" he sighed. "I was hungry," he finished. Then he thought it wasn't completely clear that it was an apology, so he added, "It won't happen again."

Lilian was quietly amused. "You'll never get hungry again? I doubt it."

Quinn laughed. "Well played," he replied. "No, really, I was horrible to you for pathetic reasons and I'm not making any excuses for it."

"Whatever, no worries. I can't exactly get mad at you after you've pulled me out of that pit."

"Well, I did after you pulled me out of the river. Like I say, no excuses."

"Are you ill or what?"

"What?"

"What's changed since you ran off in the forest?"

Quinn was stung by this remark, but realized that that was because it was true. "Well, my horse got lame, and...stuff happened and...I don't know. I learnt my lesson." he decided to move on to more interesting subjects. "Lucerna came around my house this morning," he said.

Lilian stared. "Why? What did she say?

"She thought I'd told you to mess everything up for her or something. I said I had nothing to do with you. But I meant to ask you...did you set her house on fire?"

Lilian looked away. "Yes," she admitted. "Is that bad?"

"No!" Quinn exclaimed. "It's brilliant!" he said it so genuinely that Lilian found herself laughing, and Quinn was laughing, and they laughed until they nearly cried because everything had been so insane and ridiculous.

At last Lilian asked, "So what are you doing now? Where were you really going? You didn't go this way to find me under a pile of rubble."

"Well, I got tired of being spied on and told to be an accountant. So I told them I had written to some person in Clementia who will take me on as an apprentice doing spreadsheets or something. I haven't written to anyone really, I made it up. I'll probably find someone who wants some help in their stables instead."

Lilian nodded vaguely, then questioned, "Sorry, who are spying on you and telling you to be an accountant?"

"Oh, the voices in my head," joked Quinn. "No, my parents."

Lilian nodded again. "Clementia?" she added.

"Yeah. It's next door."

"By a few thousand miles, I suppose."

"I don't think I'll need to go that far, there's bound to be some opportunity before then. What are you going to do? You don't have anywhere to work now, do you? Do you have anywhere to live, of your own?"

"No," Lilian sighed slowly. "To all of those."

There was a pause, and Daisy's chewing filled the silence.

Then Lilian said, "I'd like to go back to Felixia. I don't want to stay here."

"Where's Felixia?" Quinn wanted to know.

"It's...actually, I don't know where it is. I mean, it's an island in the middle of the ocean. I used to live there, until Lucerna found a career for me...when I was thirteen. There was a ship, and I was kept in the sail locker all the way, and then we were at this unrecognizable port, and then Lucerna hired this cart and I had to sit in the back with everything she'd collected on her trip while she rode back to the house on horseback with her friend, Tessinika...we went most of the way in the dark. I have no idea how I would get back. I didn't see anything on the way. And it's been...five years since then. Crap, five years of my life, wasted."

Quinn listened to this story with increasing fascination. He'd had no idea that anybody in the whole of Stellaria could have any history that wasn't just as shockingly boring as everyone else's.

Then an idea occurred to him.

"Wait," he said, delving into the saddle pack. He brought out the pathetic map that Lucerna had provided him with and spread it out. Lilian refrained from snatching it off him.

"A map?" she enthused.

"Yes," Quinn replied, examining it closely.

"Can I see?" Lilian added impatiently.

Quinn scanned the page. "It's not very good," he said absentmindedly. He sat down and put the map flat on the ground. Lilian scrambled to see it. She was slightly disappointed.

"Is this even to scale? Miles to an inch?"

Quinn laughed humourlessly. "You'll be lucky – more like guesswork at a pinch."

"Well I could always just –"

"Here," Quinn interrupted. "This is the forest. This is the town. That's the beginning of the forest path, which means that, if I can do geography at all, there is a port on the other side of the forest. Over that sea is Felixia. It's that island isn't it? The big island out of that group of small ones?"

"Yes, that's right!" Lilian said excitedly. "Only – it was really cold getting here on the ship, and then it warmed up again. It took about, oh, I don't know, five weeks. That sea isn't that big, is it?"

"Like, how cold?"

"Like, ice cold."

"Perhaps you went round a different way?"

"But you're sure that's right?"

"Fairly sure."

Lilian's eagerness left her. "But it's pointless anyway. I'll never get there. I literally have nothing. And I'd have to walk, all the way. It's just not going to happen...I have no idea where I'm going to go or what I'm going to do. What do people do with their lives? I guess I'll have to become a housekeeper for somebody else around here. Though to be honest I'd almost rather die."

"Don't do that. I went to all that trouble to pull you out remember?"

Lilian shook her head. "Why is someone being nice to me? This must be a trick or something. Or you have some other weird reason why you're helping me and I ought to be running away right now."

Quinn laughed. "Am I being nice? I thought I was just being normal. Does helping somebody out who helped me before count as weird? Does this even count as helping somebody?"

Lilian was very wary of everyone, but especially people who tried to help her. Help, she decided, usually was expected to be repaid and more later. Then she thought, well, it's my life. I'm not a victim. I can choose my destiny. How stupid and dramatic that sounds.

At that moment there was a clattering noise and Lilian glanced up in terror, because she recognized the sound of Lucerna's horse. And it turned out that it was Lucerna's horse. And it was all by itself, trotting along the street with a chewed rope hanging from its bridle.

Lilian realized instantly what must have happened – the horse had been tied up and left outside the barn near the Hall, like he always was when Lucerna held a meeting. Only this time she had forgotten about him in the mess of what had taken place afterwards. Lilian got to her feet without really planning to and walked over. The horse flinched away and Lilian stopped and made clicky noises in the hope of persuading him to go to her. She faintly remembered hearing a distressed whinnying the night before, as she'd ran...

"Hey," Quinn said to Lilian. "Give him this." He tossed an apple to her.

Lilian caught it and held it out to Lucerna's horse. Very few horses could resist an apple. He sniffed, and slowly nodded over to meet her. Lilian fed him the apple and grabbed the reins of the bridle, scooped them over his head and held them to lead the horse as she'd seen Quinn do with Daisy.

"Have you worked with horses before?" Quinn enquired.

"No," Lilian said. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I've always liked them, though. He's beautiful isn't he? He's called Capricorn. I've always thought he doesn't go with Lucerna at all."

"No, he doesn't," Quinn agreed. "He's a lovely horse. About fifteen hands, same size as Daisy, but she's a lighter build." It was just the sort of unintelligible thing Lilian had expected someone to say who knew about all things equestrian.

Capricorn was a glossy black, and now that he'd got over his confusion, he seemed to rather like Lilian. Perhaps he recognized her from the many times she'd turned up at the livery yard to order him to be sent over for Lucerna.

Quinn looked thoughtful. "Well, there you go. Now you won't have to walk."

Lilian frowned, then her eyes widened as she realized what he meant. "But I can't do that! I said, I haven't got a clue. I've never had anything to do with horses, much as I'd have liked to."

"Well you seemed to get on okay with that unicorn."

Lilian opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"I'll teach you about horses," said Quinn. "That's one thing I can guarantee."

"Really? Seriously?" Lilian began to wonder if she was still under all the debris and had slipped into some fleeting dream or hallucination. How could so many things go so well within an hour or so?

"Sure," Quinn replied. "Easy."

Lilian ran her hand through Capricorn's mane.

"You're literally the only reasonable person in the entirety of Stellaria," Lilian stated honestly.

"I don't know about reasonable," Quinn considered. "As mad as you, maybe. But who's mad really? I mean, all those bunch, believing all that stuff...don't they have brains? Any of them?"

Lilian smiled reflectively. "Oh, you can have a brain and believe all that stuff. It's just you can't have a soul."

Quinn realized then that he was talking to somebody who should never have been a housekeeper all that time. Not that anybody should have to be so underappreciated. He got to his feet and untied Daisy.

"Enough grass, you," he said to the horse. "You'll burst."

"Why don't you go to Felixia, too?" Lilian said suddenly.

Quinn thought of all the reasons why he shouldn't; of the money he should earn doing some respectable something, of the possibility of diving right into a really dumb situation; of the high likelihood of getting lost; how successful the last foray into the forest had been.

"They'll say all kinds of stupid gossipy things about us, that aren't even true," he said at last.

Lilian shrugged. "They're all mad."

Quinn laughed. "Really, I think I shouldn't," he added sensibly.

"Okay," said Lilian. "How about we both go back just to the river, before the butterflies, and in the meantime I can look at the map and you can tell me how to look after this horse. Then you can take the map and go wherever you're going, because you'll get lost without it and I won't, and I'll go on to Felixia. Deal?"

Quinn was about to agree and then looked slightly miffed. "Did you just say I'll get lost and you won't?"

Lilian nodded seriously. "Yes. It's true. I can read maps and I can remember them. I bet you can only do half of that."

Quinn wanted to refute this and then realized she might be right.

"You're lucky I'm such a reasonable person," he said. "But okay, deal. Back to the forest then?"

Lilian smiled with a smile that made Quinn feel slightly inadequate.

"Cool," she said. "And maybe we can find another unicorn..."

Epilogue

"How dare you have got it so wrong. I blame it on your incompetence, your spineless stupidity and small-minded thoughtless actions..."

Lucerna snarled vitriol at what remained of her followers. The four former dream counsellors and Crowther sat in Crowther's living room, the bronze shield gleaming tauntingly upon the wall. One of the dream counsellors tentatively spoke in a few moments where Lucerna paused her insults, or perhaps ran out of them.

"Priestess, we always had a disclaimer that not all our interpretations could possibly be completely accurate. Dreams are of course difficult to define and can have many meanings. It is in part the responsibility of the original dreamer to decide how much – faith – they put in such imagery, and whether they ought act on it at all."

Silently enraged, Lucerna took this in with delayed disquiet.

At last, covering her uncertainty with authoritative calm, she gave them all a strained almost-smile and replied "Very well. f that is how it is to be. We must rise from the ruins of this incident and move on to greater things. Enough of these petty discussions. I intend to leave Stellaria. Those who wish to join me will continue to be rewarded with plentiful gold. If you do not wish to, I do not expect to see you again after tomorrow. Stay out of my sight."

Crowther's house was large, though not spacious enough for Lucerna's liking. He had five spare rooms, the most generous of which Lucerna had been given until such time as she arranged somewhere new to live. Everything about this situation was irksome to Lucerna; apart from the indignity of being a guest rather than an owner of a house, Crowther's housekeeper reminded her slightly of Lilian and made Lucerna paranoid. The difference was that this one evidently really was stupid, thought Lucerna, because the girl was clearly trying very hard to appear intelligent. Somehow this was deeply depressing.

That night Lucerna went uneasily to sleep, having explained that further plans would be discussed on the morrow. She wondered if anybody would be left to discuss anything with or whether they would all abandon her. And she recalled the old dream in every detail...so vivid...how those apparently impossible symbolisms had manifested themselves in real life...the grey smoke fog and the water, the sky reflected in it, the tide flooding in, the flames above...the lamp...the blood...and what if it had been misinterpreted? Maybe none of that had needed to happen...or it had been a warning of what was to come, to be avoided...she was frightened and confused. But she was also dead tired, and before long, with a little help from a very small amount of vodka, Lucerna drifted into sleep.

Unfortunately vodka didn't seem to have the same effect as wine.

Through a glimmer of soft sunlight and blossom, Lucerna could hear laughing. She watched as though peering into a bubble, or a photograph that had come iridescently alive; from a distance, yet very closely.

A woman with a great long braid of unnaturally cherry-scarlet hair was smiling down at a little girl. The woman held both the girl's hands and picked her up, whirling her around in a circle and placing her gently back on to the flower-filled meadow ground. The girl giggled happily, refused to let go of the woman's hand. Then they ran away across the beautiful cliff-top meadow, danced and skipped from Lucerna's view toward the sea, the fresh breeze bringing a scent of gorse flowers and ocean salt...and something indefinable that reminded Lucerna of adventures to unknown lands, maybe jasmine...or lotus lilies...

Lucerna felt desperate as the scene was swept from her grasp, as though she'd been left behind or not given what she'd been promised.

Then something so bright appeared that she couldn't even look at it. Too brilliant, too...voices layered over each other and the dazzling light and sound maddened her as she tried to isolate phrases and colours...she was dragged back into indifferent night-time with one question in her mind. Who was that? Who was that? I know who the woman was, who was the girl? Then it became clear to her: the answer was obvious. Tessinika's daughter.

♯♯♯

Thanks for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to check out my blog so you can see lots of other fantasy extras and be the first to hear of the release of part two!

www.dragonsliketoast.blogspot.com

Skye Garcia

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