Unicorns are born to create miracles. This is their fate.

They make no miracle the same—unicorns never agree on anything, let alone on what is worthy. Some bless forests, mountains or heavy storms. Others, the wombs of creatures. All these miracles can become dragons.

Dragons are as varied as the unicorns that choose them, only alike in being alive. An extinct branch of Christianity used to think the virgin Maria was blessed by a unicorn, which would make baby Jesus a dragon. This is bogus, of course. Kiera told me it was true and watched me make a fool of myself for years.

You didn’t even question it.

“Now you want me to question you,” I mumble, climbing the fence protecting the construction site. They’re building a new mall, but right now it’s just a muddy site spilled with concrete. A zoo exhibit for excavators. Five of them stand huddled like a herd of elephants, right in the middle of their chain-link cage. I stay crouched until I’m sure I’m alone, and then push my heels down to sneak towards them.

You should always listen, but not always believe. I think someone said that once.

“Was it you?”

No.

I hide behind one of the excavator’s massive wheels. No sign of Sofia or Izaak yet, but that’s to be expected. With mom working her second job at night, I have no trouble sneaking out. Sofia’s parents have a nose for her bullshit, and Izaak’s Mom works in security.

In the background, Kiera continues her huffing. ... Okay, yes, but that doesn’t make it less true! You think I lived this long without gaining some wisdom. Are you listening to me?

“No.”

A chill sets in deep in my spine. Kiera tramples on my insides, pulling and pushing until my skin numbs. Chill, I want to say, but the thought only worsens the cold. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, can you knock it off?”

No, they taunt. Then they knock it off.

Sofia’s voice enters from above. “I see you’re still a pain.” She jumps down from her hidden perch on the excavator, promptly slipping in the mud. I could catch her, but the last time I did she was so mad she deleted my contact from her phone. So I watch her fall to the ground dramatically, a fountain of mud and water following in her wake. She’s wearing cargo pants and hiking boots, so at least her clothes still look the same after her spill.

Ouch, Kiera says, ever so poetic.

“Are you okay?” I ask, offering a hand for her to swat away.

“Fine,” she says. “Totally fine. Let’s forget that happened.” She wipes the dirt off her hands using her pants, pulling her—now soaked—black hair up in a bun. “All done. You weren’t being mean to Kiera, were you?”

Yes.

“No,” I say. “They won’t stop distracting me.”

Oh, I’m sorry, is the source of infinite wisdom and magic living in your head a menace now? What if next time you feel like flying, I’ll just take a nap? Right in the air? Since I’m such a menace—

“Did I use the word menace?”

Sofia knocks on my forehead. “Stop arguing in there. Face the facts—both of you are annoying. But since River’s the annoying one I have to deal with, I’m always going to pick Kiera.”

“You’re lucky,” I say, “if you could hear the things they say about you …”

Sofia scoffs. “I refuse to believe Kiera’s anything but a sweetheart.”

A sweetheart who made me draw dicks all over my preschool picture books, maybe. They said it was what the spots of their unicorn friend looked like, and then convinced me to change all of his images at school with permanent marker for ‘authenticity’. Mom had a stroke when the teacher called her.

Should’ve chosen her instead, Kiera mumbles. She has a sense of humor.

I spot Izaak across the site, sneaking toward us. I say sneaking, but he really couldn’t be more obvious. He’s wearing his orange jacket, coupled with ridiculously green jeans. This, together with his blue prosthetic leg and crimson backpack, makes him look like a beautiful disaster. A walking explosion of brightness. One of those triangle prisms that turns sunlight into a rainbow. It’s like he felt the need to compensate for how his deep brown skin blends in at night. I’m a ghoul, in comparison.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says. “I couldn’t find Leo.”

Leonardo’s the blue prosthetic leg he’s wearing, lovingly named after one of the ninja turtles.

“No problem,” I say, at the same time as Sofia says, “You’re such a princess.”

“I’m not,” Izaak says. “Leo’s the only brother Mum put her team’s new wall climb feature on.”

“And it’s blue,” I say.

A goofy smile splits his face. “And it’s blue.”

“So what are we doing?” Sofia asks, “I enjoy breaking and entering as much as anyone, but do we need to do this here?”

Headlights pass the fence, and I pull both of them further between the excavators. “Kiera says it needs to be here,” I whisper, “we’re meeting someone.”

“Who?” Izaak asks. He grimaces as one of his hands grazes an excavator, pulling away dirty. He struggles where to put it without dirtying his clothes, then decides to just leave it where it’s already dirty—using it to lean awkwardly against the excavator. Next to him, Sofia leans her back against the wheel and crosses her feet in the mud.

Zhran, Kiera says. The old fool wants to cash in the favor I owe him.

“We’re here to fix one of your mistakes?” I ask.

Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I can’t do a lot from within your worthless flesh prison.

“You can make promises just fine, apparently! What if he wants us to blow up a building? Or fight someone? Or fight someone and then blow them up?”

“Fight who?” Sofia asks, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “Stop being distracted by the apocalypse pony in your head and speak.”

I explain the situation. Kiera doesn’t know what Zhran wants, either. They spoke last about 150 years ago, when Zhran had to bail them out. The only descriptions they give for him are ‘big’ and ‘you’ll see’. Thanks, source of infinite wisdom.

“I’ll help if it’s the weekend,” Izaak says, “not that you’ll let us do much, anyway.”

It’s not that I don’t want them to help. It’s that I can transform into most animals—never fish, never again—and do magic when Izaak has a pocket knife leg, and Sofia uses some weird bone figures she bought at the local Coven’s yard sale. Bless them, but if we’re fighting, I’m fighting.

“I’m sure Kiera wanted you here for a reason,” I say. “I always feel better with you guys here.”

“Flattering,” Sofia says, showing her teeth. “Can’t wait to cheer you on. That an official position?”

“You guys know it isn’t like that. Just, I have no affinity for healing, so if anything happens—”

Izaak prods Leo into the mud. “Dude, stop digging,”

My mouth drops shut and we wait for Zhran in silence. It doesn’t take long for him to arrive, his body humming in the moonlight as he descends. He’s big, but not so big we couldn’t have met in the park. A little smaller than the excavators. His scales range from cloudy grey to pitch black, rippling over him like a thunderstorm. His horns encase his head like a bird’s nest, showing at least 500 years of weathering.

The excavator groans when he lands on top. The machine almost tips, then slams back in place when Zhran adjusts his grip. The silence is alien when it follows such violence. We get just a single second of peace before an alarm begins to blare and the whole neighborhood jumps. Sofia almost slips again and Izaak grabs hold of me. I would’ve been halfway through my transformation into a sparrow had Kiera not blocked the magic. Zhran claws at the excavator like a cat swats at a fly, before hissing and just jamming his massive fist through the cockpit, grabbing a handful of wires. He tears them apart and the noise ends.

That was… something.

Lights turn on one by one in the windows surrounding the building site.

“I’m so dead,” Izaak says. He’s not kidding. If his Mom finds out he snuck out, she’ll never let him outside again. So now we’re working against the clock.

Izaak finally notices his hand on my chest and pulls it away. The sensation lingers, but we don’t have time for hormones. I step up to Zhran, who’s stuffing the broken electronics back into the control panel. “Always the same thing with humans,” he mutters. “No regard, no regard for anything at all.”

“Hi,” I start, “not to be rude, but couldn’t you have called?”

Zhran huffs out a bolt of lightning. “Technology doesn’t like me and I don’t like it. No, this is preferred.”

“Okay.”

He jumps down from the excavator, his claws sinking in the mud until his ankles are barely visible above the sludge. His paws pull loose with disgusting pops as he stalks towards us. “I couldn’t believe my scales when I heard Kiera chose a human champion,” he says, “very convenient. Very easy.”

“Well, that’s me,” I say, “easy.”

Izaak coughs violently. He waves for us to continue, his face suddenly a few shades darker. Sofia snickers at him, earning an elbow in her side. I want to laugh too, but Zhran just blinks straight ahead, killing the mood.

A police siren blares somewhere nearby.

“Let’s continue,” Zhran says, “human cities act like anthills when they feel threatened.”

That siren must be for us. People stand and stare in the windows, phones in hand, but the three of us are hidden between the excavators and Zhran’s bulk. He seems undisturbed by the attention.

Can you tell this oaf to get on with it? Kiera asks. I owe him a favor, not a manhunt. Their irritation feels hot and prickly—it’s soothing to know our feelings match.

“Kiera says to hurry.”

Zhran leans in close, pushing his maw so close to my face the smell of sheep makes me nauseous. “Have you heard of Halley lately?”

Inside me, Kiera thinks. No, they say eventually, not since Comet kicked the bucket.

Zhran frowns when I translate for him. “I knew it. I’d bet on the stars and skies she never made it out when that fool got herself slain.”

From context I figure Halley’s a unicorn, one who disappeared when their dragon was slain. “That can happen?” From what I know of unicorns, they don’t die with their champions, instead taking physical form until they choose someone new.

“It shouldn’t,” Zhran answers, “But evidently it did.”

Halley’s a good egg, Kiera says. I wouldn’t call us friends, but I’d choose her over most of those stuck up assholes. Like Zhran’s unicorn, Urick, I won’t ever talk to him. Don’t even ask me why. Swine.

“Ok, jeez, I get it.”

“River,” Izaak says, “The police are like right here.”

Zhran spreads his wings to hide us from view completely. “What I need you whelps to do,” he says, his snout still level with our eyes, “is steal Comet’s skull from the museum exhibit. Once you retrieve it, I can use it to get Halley out.”

It’s not fighting. It’s not explosions. And if Halley—someone Kiera sort of likes—is stuck in there, getting her out is the right thing to do. “I’ll do it,” I say.

Izaak nods in agreement.

Sofia stares up at Zhran’s impressive wings. “No offence, but what’s stopping you from just taking it yourself?”

“You think all of us have convenient, tiny monkey bodies to blend in with the other tiny monkeys? I have no will to bring suspicion on myself.” Tires screech the pavement, red and blue flashing behind Zhran’s wings. Officers yell for bolt cutters, joined by the banshee cries of their familiars. “As such, let’s end this little get together.”

“Agreed, we have to go.” Izaak says, his eyes already trained on the dark alley on the other side of the fence.

What shall we do? Kiera asks. Invisible? Bird? Stray dog?

“Good luck, whelps,” Zhran says. He stretches his wings a bit, almost yawning as he looks at the familiars clawing at the fence. “Such backwards creatures.”

“Guys,” Sofia says, “let’s run on three.”

“No!” I say, already envisioning both of them in prison cells. “If you give me a minute, I’ll make us all invisible. Just let me—”

“We don’t have a minute,” Izaak interrupts.

“One,” Sofia starts, “Two…”

Just like that, we tense to run.

Zhran braces himself down until his chest pushes down into the mud, his muscles bulged and wings spread. “Contact me when you have Comet,” he says. “May the storm rage in your favor.” With one massive jump he’s soaring above the buildings, his wings beating rapidly to gain altitude.

“Three!” Sofia yells at the same time the police open fire. We run towards the alleyway, Izaak sprinting ahead with his military grade prosthetic. He leaps when he comes close to the fence, clearing it in a single jump. I hang back, keeping an eye on the screaming familiars. Thank the stars their hungry eyes follow Zhran, still circling above the building site.

Sofia trips halfway to the fence. She immediately struggles upright, but there’s no way she’s going to make it before the police notice us.

Carry her over, Kiera says, already primed for magic. What animal can clear the fence fast enough? I settle on a condor, one of the largest birds of prey. Sofia’s back is slick with mud and water as my claws dig into her hoodie. I struggle to find my stride, beating my wings once, twice, three times before I lift her off the ground. Condors are enormous birds, but even with magical help, they can’t carry a human for long. We barely clear the fence before I drop Sofia in Izaak’s arms. She curses and sputters, but her legs work in tandem with her mouth. We run into familiar alleyways until all we can see is Zhran, still tracing lazy circles above the city.

“Why hasn’t he taken off?” Izaak asks. I don’t speak, too winded from running. Sofia’s still gagging mud from her system.

Zhran answers Izaak’s question with a massive roar. A shock wave of grey lightning races over the city, cutting off the police sirens and blacking out the entire district. For a stunned second even the familiars stop screeching. Then all the car alarms in the city howl in symphony. Satisfied, Zhran disappears into the sky.

Showoff, Kiera says.