Page 75 of The Knights of Gaia

“Right. It loses its potency within an hour of being plucked or cut from the unicorn,” I blurted out. Again, I had no idea where that knowledge had come from. Probably from one of the many books Mom had gotten me.

“Then you’d best not dawdle.” The shopkeeper held out his hand, palm up, the universal sign for ‘pay me’.

I looked at Bronte, who handed me the money pouch. I retrieved the two marbles from the pouch and handed them to the shopkeeper. He deposited them into two of the tubes in the very large, very ancient-looking pipe organ behind him. The organ tooted two happy notes.

The shopkeeper tucked our purchases into a cloth shopping bag, then bowed to me. “Thank you. Please come again.”

I moved toward the shop’s back door, giving the white-and-gold pipe organ a curious look as I passed by. So that’s what a magic cash register looked like. But I forgot all about the cash register the moment I stepped outside and saw the unicorns.

There were six of the beautiful creatures behind the shop. The area shouldn’t have been larger than a narrow back alleyway between buildings, but somehow it was. It was a full-scale farm. The farm included a large, fenced-off field with enough grassy space to keep the six unicorns happy. I wasn’t sure how someone had managed to fit a farm into an alley, but I had no doubt that magic had been involved.

Frustrated customers chased the unicorns across the field, each one trying to collect their strand of hair. Most of the people had dirty faces, scraped knees, and bruised arms. The unicorns, on the other hand, were sparkly clean. Their bodies shone like fresh snow lit up by a ray of sunshine.

I felt a forceful nudge from behind. I glanced back to watch my teammates retreating to a bench below the building’s back window.

“They’re just unicorns!” I said in exasperation as all four of them sat down. It seemed they’d volunteered me for this task.

“Then it should be no problem for you, Winters.” Asher winked at me.

The others nodded in agreement.

Fine. I’d show them how it was done. I wasn’t scared of a bunch of pretty, sparkly unicorns. Even if everyone else here was. Seriously, they were unicorns. How hard could this be?

I walked over to the only one of the six unicorns that didn’t already have a hopeful customer chasing it. One of the nameplates nailed to the fence told me she was a one-year-old filly named Sweet Escape. She looked smaller and friendlier than the other unicorns, but I reminded myself that there had to be a reason the other customers were giving her a wide berth, even though she was the only unicorn standing perfectly still.

“Hi, I’m Savannah.”

The unicorn whinnied at me.

“Nice to meet you, Sweet Escape.” I took a cautious step toward her.

She made a run for it. Moving lightning-fast, she nearly bowled me right over. I only barely managed to jump out of the way in time, and I nearly tripped over another customer in the process.

“Sorry,” I muttered to the woman, then turned toward my unicorn.

Sweet Escape wasn’t running anymore. No, she was standing there, calm and content, happily munching on a patch of clovers like she didn’t have a care in the world.

I sauntered toward her, trying to move as silently as I could. I didn’t make it two steps before she started running again. And this time she actually knocked me over.

I peeled myself off the muddy ground. The unicorn hadn’t run far. She was only steps away from me. I bet she was having too much fun. She looked at me, and I could have sworn her lips curled upward into a smirk.

Yep, she was having fun all right—at my expense. I totally needed to rethink my strategy.

An idea popped into my head.

“Sweet Escape.”

The unicorn perked up when I spoke her name.

“I wonder if your name is a clue.” I thrust my hand into my pocket. “Myescapefrom this problem is something verysweet.” I reached out to her, palm open and turned up.

She sniffed the air.

“Come on.” I showed her the tiny cookies in my hand. “You know you want them.”

She tossed her white mane in defiance, but she didn’t run away.

“I’ll make you a deal.” I made it another step closer. “You give me one of your hairs, and I’ll give youallof these delicious cookies.”

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