The Unicorn Thief

by R. R. Russell

  Instead of Daddy, the police had come. They had broken down the door because they hadn’t bothered to just try opening it, and Mom had been too out of it to answer and Twig had been too scared. But then they’d told her Daddy was coming for her. Twig had known then that everything was going to be all right, that she hadn’t been a stupid, stupid hoper after all.

  But one thing after another had gone wrong. Daddy had a new family—Keely and her kids, Corey and Emily. And Twig was not what they were expecting. She wasn’t like them. And then Daddy had left her. That was how it had seemed to Twig then. Even though deep down she knew he was doing something good, something honorable, keeping his word and protecting people.

  But who was there to protect her?

  She’d ended up with the Murleys, and she’d seen a miracle—Wonder’s birth. Twig had changed. Things had seemed right again—in some ways righter than they ever had been. She’d known it couldn’t last forever, that she couldn’t stay there forever.

  But now she was in a dungeon. A dungeon! And now there was more to bear than being alone in the darkness; there was the pain of knowing that a friend was stuck in here with her, that more of them could be in danger without her. People who had dared to love her. Beyond reason. Beyond deserving. Beyond even blood. They’d never know what happened to her. And Wonder, her beautiful Wonder Light—she’d be discovered sooner or later. She’d be forced into the queen’s army.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she finally said to Ben. He was sitting with his knees drawn up and his back against the wall opposite her.

  He raised his head. “I didn’t think you’d understand.”

  “I wouldn’t understand?” Twig stared at him hard. Ben knew about her mother. Twig turned her head sharply away from him. She tried not to cry.

  “Twig, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t say it.”

  She nodded. That she understood.

  “I didn’t want to be a prince of Westland to you. The queen’s son. I wanted to be…”

  “Indy’s rider. Ben of the Island.”

  “My father’s son.” Those words came out quiet as a breath.

  No one spoke for a moment. Twig tried to imagine Darian and Ben together, then Ben’s whole family together. No matter how she imagined, they didn’t seem to go together. “Your mom and your brother don’t talk like you,” she said.

  Ben shrugged. “I talk more like my father. Mother doesn’t like it.”

  “Because you sound more like a herder?”

  “She thinks it makes us sound foreign. That it reminds people our family hasn’t been here as long as the others.”

  “I don’t understand! I don’t understand anything about this place!” Twig’s words gave way to a sob. She silenced it, but her shoulders still shook.

  “I never should have brought you here.”

  “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have argued with you about the map. Then that guard wouldn’t have found us.” She should’ve trusted him. But then, he hadn’t trusted her.

  “The map belonged to my father. He would’ve wanted me to take it to find Indy.”

  “Why is your mother doing this?”

  Ben sniffed. He hugged his knees tighter. There was a long silence. Then he tipped his chin up, leaning his head against the wall.

  “She loved my father, but then again, could be she didn’t love the real him. Not all of him, anyway. He was a great herder, a great leader. The herdsmen elected him year after year. And he was so young when he first took charge. It was her idea to have him installed permanently, not just as a leader, but as a king. He never told me that. He never would.”

  “How do you know, then?”

  “I heard bits of things. Whispers around the castle. She didn’t like the danger. Didn’t want him hurt or killed. But that wasn’t all. She didn’t like the risk of another herdsman being chosen over him, of her losing the importance she had as his wife. And she didn’t see why he shouldn’t be able to rest after all he’d done and still benefit from his work. She pressured him. So did some of his best friends. And he agreed, for a few years.”

  “But why are the Eastlanders the enemies of Westland?”

  “Rival bands of herders, hundreds of years ago. The herders were divided into groups, responsible for certain areas. Each had their own leaders. At first there were just little skirmishes about territory, arguments about different theories on herd management. They’d be settled fairly quickly, but that could only last so long. Soon it became a matter of pride for a division leader to challenge or fight off a rival division. Next came true splits. Divisions chose sides. There was outright war. All sorts of smaller divisions all fighting each other. They started forming alliances.”

  “Strength in numbers,” Twig said.

  “Exactly. Eventually we ended up with Eastland and Westland, along with several smaller lands. Eastland has had a king for two hundred years. But Westland was different, or its allied herders tried to be. So there was no king until my father. Once he gave up the throne and rejoined the herders, some of his men used to shake their heads when he wasn’t around to hear and say what a pity it was. That he blamed himself, that Westland never would have consented to a kingship if he weren’t such a great leader.

  “He never forgave himself for convincing them. Not just being who he was as a herder, but standing by while certain friends of his spoke on his behalf and persuaded them. There had always been people who said we needed a king too, in order for our alliance to be strong enough to keep protecting ourselves against the Eastlanders. But people were afraid to have a king—rightly so, my father said. Too much power all in one place. But enough people admired my father, trusted him like no other man.”

  “Didn’t they think about what would happen when he was gone? Didn’t they worry who would take his place?”

  “They set it up so that a new king would be elected, while the king’s closest relative ruled temporarily in his place. When my father left, that person was my mother. He was certain the system would collapse once he left, that if he rejected the whole idea, people would follow his example. He was wrong. Enough people liked the castle life, were used to their roles there. They urged my mother to stay, and they supported her. She proposed a law making the kingship inherited, from my father to Griffin, once he’s of age, and they made sure it was passed.”

  “Why didn’t she go with your father?”

  Ben didn’t say anything.

  “She felt like he left her, maybe,” Twig said.

  He nodded. “At first he was sure she’d change her mind and come join him, and she was just as certain he’d change his mind and come back. But each of them only grew more determined about their own way. Publicly, my mother pretended that my father just wasn’t suited to castle life. She acted as though they agreed that he would leave, and she would stay. Some of the herders said that once she did that, once he realized she was going to stay as queen, he didn’t have the heart to fight her openly.”

  “She broke his heart. But…what about you? You ended up with your father. How?”

  “I followed him,” Ben said as though it were that simple, that obvious.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Five years ago, I think.”

  “You were so little.”

  “I was too young to have a unicorn of my own, but I knew how to ride. I took one of the castle unicorns, and I rode hard, trying to catch up with them. I was crying hard too. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see straight. I lost my way. I was nearly unconscious with thirst, half dangling from the unicorn’s back, when my father’s men found me. He tried to send one of them back with me, to take me to my mother once I was well, but I escaped every time. Finally my father decided it was less dangerous to keep me with him and raise me as a herder than it was to have to keep rescuing me from the wilderness and the desert.”

  Twig thought
of her own father, in the wilderness now. In the desert. Would she have followed Daddy if she could?

  Chapter 18

  A couple hours into their confinement, Twig opened her mini-backpack and took out her sketchbook and the new colored pencils Keely had sent her for her thirteenth birthday. She scooted to the front of the cell, closer to the feeble light in the hallway beyond the bars. She opened her sketchbook to the page where she’d tucked her birthday card from Mom. It was just a piece of regular paper, decorated with a hand-drawn heart. A heart, drawn in a jail cell.

  Twig flipped the pages to a pencil sketch she’d done of Casey. It was a struggle with only one good hand. Even more of a struggle to stay calm, to not give in to the darkness of the dungeon.

  Mrs. Murley said she was getting really good at drawing faces. It was scary, drawing the people she loved. She was always afraid she’d get something wrong. But it made her feel closer to them. Twig shut her eyes, picturing Casey’s, big and brown. She opened her eyes and selected several different browns. She would mix them to make just the right color.

  Twig jumped at the sound of footsteps. She dropped the pencil, and the fragile tip broke.

  A guard opened a little hatch at the bottom of the door and pushed a heavy tray of food through. Ben had his knees drawn up to his chest again. He opened one eye and peeked indifferently to see what was coming through the hatch.

  The food wasn’t served on a silver platter, but it certainly looked like it came from the royal table. She picked the tray up, winced in pain, then set it down in front of Ben. Twig reached for a pastry with her good hand—her right one—but had to pull back as Ben shoved the tray away. He glared at the food as though it were a bitter enemy and crossed his arms.

  “I know you’re mad,” Twig said, reaching for the pastry again, “and I know you’re worried about Indy—I’m worried about Wonder and Rain Cloud too—but we have to eat anyway.”

  She took a bite, and Ben leaned his head back against the wall. He stared at the seeping stone on the other side of the cell.

  Twig swallowed. “Don’t you think I’m mad too?”

  “I think—” He shifted his gaze toward her. Then, “Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re softer than I thought.”

  “Softer than you, you mean. Because I eat when I’m hungry and there’s food? Maybe I’m not softer than you. Maybe I’m smarter than you. Did you think of that?”

  “They’re trying to soften us up, and you’re encouraging them!”

  Twig snorted a laugh and accidentally blew a cloud of powdered sugar off the top of the pastry, dusting her face.

  Ben smiled. Twig ignored him and took another bite. That one got her right to the gooey middle of the pastry. It tasted like coconut pudding. Delicious.

  “Who cares whether they’re encouraged or not? I’m building up my strength so we can break out of here and get Indy.”

  Ben laughed out loud at that. “Your strength? You’ve got quite a bit of building up to do before you can outmatch the royal guards. Better go ahead and eat up then.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant—I meant my mental strength.”

  “Huh,” said Ben. “You’ve got a blob of custard right there.” He touched the corner of his mouth.

  Twig left the blob there just because he’d pointed it out, and she kept eating in silence and he kept sitting there not eating and pretending not to watch her eating. Still, she was careful to save half of everything for him. A little more than half; he was a little bigger, after all. It only seemed fair. When she was done she wiped off the sugar, licked around her mouth, then rubbed it all the way clean with her finger.

  That’s when she saw the note, tucked under one of the plates. Twig pulled at the exposed corner. She nudged Ben as she unfolded it. “Look! It’s from Pete!”

  Ben leaned over her arm and read aloud, “Your mounts have been moved off the palace grounds to a safer place. Both are well. Hope to get you back to them soon.”

  “They’ll let us out of here tomorrow,” Ben said in a hopeless tone that was entirely out of step with his words.

  “They will?”

  “Oh yes. We won’t get to see Wonder and Rain Cloud, but Mother will surely offer you more custard pastries once you agree to join her court.”

  Twig ignored the jab. “Maybe she’ll let us go get Indy! Maybe she’ll even send someone with us to help!”

  “She won’t help us get Indy. She doesn’t care about Indy. She’ll never care.”

  Ben’s eyes glistened with tears. His voice shook. But it was the unmistakable thread of despair that shook Twig. Was he really giving up? Not just on Westland and all its unicorns, but on Indy?

  “But couldn’t we escape then, Ben?”

  “It’s just as easy for the castle guards to keep an eye on us at court as it is in the dungeon. How did it feel when that boot broke your hand? How did it feel when you had another boot in your back? Have you forgotten already?”

  “Helpless,” Twig admitted.

  “That’s how it is in her court. You’re helpless, all the time. There’s a boot in your back, all the time, even when there isn’t. Don’t you understand? And if we come into court all clean and fat and fed…”

  He gestured at Twig with his head, and Twig glanced at herself, and finding her body as skinny as ever—well, not as skinny as ever, since she’d filled out a little bit since coming to the Murleys’, but anyway, just as skinny as she’d been when she came to Westland—she glared back at him.

  “It’s easier for her to pretend I’ve learned from my father’s death and come back to her, for her to use his death as proof she was right. To use it against everything he died for.”

  “So what’s your plan then?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m trying to think, but…” He gave Twig a resentful look.

  “Great. So your plan is to try to think of a plan. On an empty stomach.”

  He folded his arms tighter and closed his eyes. Twig scooted the tray back in front of him, got up, and began to examine the room again. She was calmer now, and her stomach was full, and her eyes had adjusted to the semidark. She would see something she hadn’t seen before, something that would help them escape. She had to.

  ***

  The cell door clattered open, and Ben jumped to his feet. Twig yelped.

  A hulking figure filled the doorway. “You’ve been summoned. Dinner, this evening.”

  Ben gave Neal his hardest stare. “No thanks.”

  The hands were on Ben’s collar as quick as a blink. They twisted his shirt tight around his throat and hefted him up. “No one asked for your opinion! When the queen summons you, you come!” The shout rang in Ben’s ears and bounced against the dank cell walls.

  Ben ripped at Neal’s hands with his. “Get your hands off me. I am a prince of Westland!”

  Twig ran at Neal, and he let go with one hand to swat her away. Her feet flew out from underneath her, and she hit the hard floor with an awful thump.

  Neal cocked his head at Ben, giving him a little shake with the fist that was still wrapped in his shirt. “A prince of Westland? Are you now?”

  Ben swung his fist right at that grin, but Neal caught it in one beefy hand. “You might be a prince of Westland, but she”—he glanced at Twig, scrambling to her feet—“is nothing.”

  Ben’s punch was thwarted, but his knee thrust into Neal’s gut. It wasn’t enough. He hated this. Hated everything that was happening. Hated being helpless to stop it. “Don’t you dare call her that! She’s my friend and a great rider!”

  Neal laughed humorlessly. “It doesn’t matter what she is to you. You’re nothing either. The queen’ll realize that soon enough.”

  What if Neal was right? She already didn’t care about him. She’d washed her hands of him once he’d run away to join his fat
her. No, she cared, in her own twisted way. She’d thrown him in the dungeon, but even that, she’d done to protect him. Or at least to protect herself from losing him. But those were two different things, weren’t they?

  A new wave of anger surged up in Ben. Why did he care? What kind of herder was he if he wanted someone like the Queen of Westland, enemy to all unicorns and everything he’d sworn to protect, to care for him?

  “You’re coming to dinner. The Boy King, the Prince of Eastland, has arrived. He’s inquired about you. The queen told him you’d be at dinner.”

  It wouldn’t look good for the queen if Ben didn’t show up. Reynald might have kept it secret that he’d seen him on his way here, but of course he would expect to see Ben once he got to the castle. Ben had told him he was on his way there, and Reynald had no idea how bad the rift between Ben and the rest of Westland’s court was.

  If Reynald knew about this weakness in the royal family, it would only make him bolder. Did Ben care about helping his mother maintain her image, her ability to keep the upper hand, her comfort, her power? Would his father want him to do that? Ben wasn’t sure.

  But if Neal was willing to hurt Twig, it didn’t matter. He had no choice. The feeling of helplessness sucked at his insides like swamp mud; it made his stomach churn like the swamp’s putrid gasses. He was stuck. Just like Indy.

  Ben’s hands hung limp at his sides, and Neal let him go.

  “You’re to come with me now and get dressed in something suitable.”

  Ben looked at Twig. How could he face his mother, his brother, and Reynald all alone? How could he pretend to be a prince? But how could he refuse to go, and risk Neal hauling Twig off in order to punish him?

  Twig lifted her quivering chin up, a determined look in her eye. “Let’s go, Ben.”

  Let’s? Ben’s heavy heart lightened just a little. Maybe with her beside him he could still be Ben of the Island. Maybe he wouldn’t have to pretend—but could Twig handle a royal banquet?

  “It’s just dinner, right?” Twig said.

  Ben struggled to return her wry smile. A banquet with the Prince of Eastland. “Right. Just dinner.”