Page 68 of Thornlight

A witch who could not perform magic? Pah!

Lying on the cool slate roof, wearing her goggles, Thorn glared up at the brilliant stars.

As far as she was concerned, Quicksilver might as well have been a mere human—useless and small, just like Thorn was.

She flattened her left palm against her belly. Since arriving in the Star Lands, her stomach had been off-and-on upset, and it was getting worse by the hour. It was now upset more often than not. Perhaps all the magic in the air disagreed with her not-magic blood.

Or maybe...

She swallowed hard, scratched the inside of her left elbow, and tried to push the thought out of her mind. But in the middle of the night, while everyone she loved slept, it was much harder not to think terrible things.

Maybe, back when they’d been in that swamp—and she’dtouched that shadow-struck unicorn with her hurt left hand—something had gotten inside her, and was starting to changeheras well.

“You can’t sleep either?” came a voice.

Thorn peered over the roof’s edge.

Noro stood on the terrace between a set of wide doors thrown open to the night. The stars cast colored lights across the glowing canvas of his coat, making him look like one of the painted tin creatures Thorn used to decorate Flower House’s windowsills—although he was ever so much finer than anything her own stupid fingers could have crafted.

What was the point of spending time fashioning figurines when she could be occupying herself with some much more impressive activity?

Like harvesting lightning, perhaps?

Thorn’s heart twinged, which brought more thoughts she couldn’t push away:

Is Brier all right? Where is she, this very moment?

How will I tell her the truth about the stormwitches?

If, that is, I ever get home.

But did she evenwantto get home? Back home, she would wear her sweep’s cap and assemble her figurines out of trash andreturn to her small, unexceptional life in the shadow of her not-small, exceptional sister.

Noro was watching her curiously.

“No, I can sleep,” said Thorn. A thousand other answers sat on her tongue. “I’m just afraid to.”

Noro blinked. His lashes sparkled with moonslight. “What are you afraid of? The Gulgot?”

Anger sparked inside her, sudden and sharp. It was like she’d stepped off a stair she didn’t know was there, her whole body jolting hot-cold and startled.

Thorn clenched her fists and bit her tongue. Her chest felt sharp and prickly, and deep in her gut, something churned restlessly, something dark and hot. If she opened her mouth, she would say something nasty, though she didn’t quite know why.

Noro turned around and looked back over his shoulder.

“Would you like to go on a walk with me?” he asked gently.

Once, the thought of walking alone with Noro would have cowed Thorn. But now Thorn only grinned and shimmied down the copper drainpipe onto Noro’s back.

He was the only unicorn in Lord Vilmar’s castle, and he had soughtherout, and no one else.

The new angry fist in Thorn’s belly preened.

They found a winding pebbled path that ambled alongside the Bay of the Moons.

That was one comforting thing: in the Star Lands, Thorn could look up past the boundless wash of stars and see the same two moons that lived behind the clouds of the Vale—one near and violet tinged, the other distant and white.

“Are you sure you don’t want to walk next to me?” asked Noro.

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