Samantha
“I’M SORRY, BUT I CAN’T discount these prices,” says Joan, a dippy brunette hostess with bright red glamoured lips, from behind the desk at the Kingstown Transport Terminal. “It’s twenty thousand crowns to transport to Zambi this evening. We’re very busy. Haven’t you heard about the evacuation? Everyone is getting out in case these earthquakes get worse.”
“But we need to get there! It’s for the hunt! You don’t want to be responsible for the death of the princess, do you?” I don’t care about hiding my comings and goings anymore.
She narrows her eyes at me slightly, as if trying to remember my face. “Wait—you’re that Kemi girl, right? I saw you on TV last night. What are you up to now? Who knows what you’ll do to stop that poor boy, Zain.” She looks over at Arjun. “Are you some other poor sap she’s suckered into helping her?”
I let out a muffled cry of frustration.
“Do you honestly believe everything the casts tell you?” Anita snaps.
Joan purses her lips and taps her keyboard. “There’s nothing I can do. There’s a flight to Zambi leaving from the airport in four hours. You have to stop over in Ellara, but you’ll be there by tomorrow evening.”
“We don’t have until tomorrow evening!” I cry, and slam my hands down on the desk.
“Now, calm down, young lady, or I’ll have to call security.” Joan looks alarmed, her hand reaching for a phone.
“Now, now, now, what’s this fuss? Let an old man through.”
I recognize that voice. I spin around. “Granddad, what are you doing here?”
“Sam, I’ve come to take you home. Arjun, Anita, you should go too.”
“What? But Molly . . .”
“Thank you, sir,” says Joan, who drops any pretense of being nice to us. “Your granddaughter is out of control.”
Granddad stands so close to the counter, he’s practically leaning on it. He reaches over to pat her hand. “I’m so sorry they inconvenienced you,” he says, tutting. “Youth nowadays.” But then he grips her wrist tightly. She squirms, looking uncomfortable, but Granddad is the picture of frailty and he starts to cough. The cough builds into a hack, until his entire body is shaking.
“Granddad!” I try to comfort him, but he waves me away with his free hand. He delves into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief. He faces Joan, flips open the hankie and blows a cloud of dust into her face. It settles over her like a sprinkling of icing sugar, then disappears.
Granddad’s coughing stops immediately. “So, two tickets to Zambi?” he asks Joan with a sly smile.
“Right away, sir. Here you go, sir. Transport safely.”
Granddad needs to usher Arjun and me away from the desk, as we’re both slack-jawed with awe.
“Quick, the potion won’t last much longer.”
“What did you do to her?” Arjun asks.
Granddad winks at me.
“Charm powder!” I release a long breath. “And it worked so well!” Another banned potion, incredibly difficult to make. He hasn’t lost his touch one bit. “But what about when she recovers?”
“She won’t know a thing is wrong. I’m not a Kemi for nothing,” he says. “Now get moving.”
I give both him and Anita a quick hug, then dash through the portal zone to get to the security area and beyond to the launch screens.
I turn to Arjun, who has little beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. “You okay?”
“I haven’t done this yet . . .”
“Oh wow, I forgot.” I’m not sure how, my first experience was terrifying. “Honestly, it’s fine. Just remember the rules. Especially about maintaining eye contact.”
He nods. “I guess I better get used to it if I want to be a proper Finder. Let’s go. If I think about this for too long, it’s going to get the better of me.”
“You go first. I’ll follow right behind you. I just have to make one phone call first.”
* * *
When I land, the area is in chaos. Arjun is shivering violently, and guards suround him with reflective blankets.
“He’s going into transporting shock,” one of the medics says.
“Don’t you have a potion for that?” I say.
Crushed silver meteorite, mixed with essence of shepherd’s purse and threads of glow worm, to bring him out of the streams of magic and tie him to the earthly ground, where he belongs.
A mix that would help. Not that I have it. I wish I could turn my brain off.
The medic pulls out a blister pack of pills, the logo ZA imprinted on them. “Here, these will help. I’ll get some water.”
“I’m already feeling better,” says Arjun. “I . . . I’ll be fine.”
The medic shrugs. “These will make you feel way more normal. Otherwise”—he turns to me—“make sure he stays warm and rested, if you don’t want him to experience any long-term damage.”
“Fair enough,” I say. I take the pills from him anyway.
As soon as we step out of the terminal, the heat is extreme, but in a different way to Bharat—it’s so dry. I wonder briefly why we live in the land of drizzle and constant gray clouds when there are other places in the world with much better climates.
I open my phone—immediately accruing roaming charges, but what are you going to do—and see that Anita has sent us the details for our rental car into the Wilds. Despite the fact that Zambi isn’t particularly well-developed, they are much stricter about their Wilds laws than almost anywhere else in the world. It’s a dangerous, unpredictable place. They say that the source of all Talented magic is in Zambi. If the magic over Nova flows in streams, here it flows like a waterfall. Magic pounds at the earth, and even as an ordinary I feel like I can reach out and grab it with my hands.
We pick up the keys to the car and thankfully it starts without any trouble. Since we’ve come in via portal, this is probably the most affluent area of Zambi. Everything is well manicured, rhododendron trees lining the streets in neat, evenly spaced lines, and there’s even an arrangement of luscious fountains, which seems particularly ostentatious considering the fact that over 80 percent of the Zambi Wilds are in drought.
“Are you okay to drive?” I ask Arjun. He sways slightly, his eyes unfocused.
“I think I just need some rest.”
“Okay, you rest. I’ll drive. You can help navigate.” I help him into the side door, and he slumps against the window. He still doesn’t want to take the pills, and all I have to offer him instead is water. I press a bottle into his hand and force him to take a few sips.
“Seriously, I’m fine. I just feel a bit woozy, that’s all.”
Once we’re out of the portal station, the driving takes on an altogether different sort of challenge. It’s not nearly as bad as Bharat, but I’m trying to concentrate on navigating our route and the road ahead of me as well. I wish we’d borrowed Mr. Patel’s satnav.
The Wilds of Zambi. I can hardly believe that this is going to be my first time here—this rushed, crazed trip. On a hunt for unicorn tail. But this isn’t just about getting the ingredient. I need to rescue Molly.
The Wilds of Zambi intrude on almost all of their big cities, and so it doesn’t take us long until we reach a border. Once I saw on a nature documentary cast that a sabre-tooth lion stalked through the streets of Jambo, causing a city-wide panic. In the rich neighborhoods, they have to put barbed wire at ground level to stop the double-tailed crocs from taking a swim in their pools.
The border is just a small hut with a thatched roof and a sleepy-looking guard. I drive up and hand over our passes.
“Everything should be in order, sir,” I say in my politest tone possible, even though I feel like bursting and telling him to hurry up.
“Stay here; I can’t let you through.” He stands up, stretches, and starts to walk away from the car toward another small building marked WILDS GUARD. Without thinking, I get out of the car and walk after him. “Wait—sir, can we have our passes back?”
“No, I have to pass these to my manager to examine.”
“Please . . .”
Then I remember something. Something Kirsty once told me about Wilds guards, the crap job they have, forced to guard a border that not many people really want to cross. “I know you want to check with your manager, but maybe this will help speed things up?” I flash him a twenty-crown note. He pockets the bill and hands back the passes in exchange.
“You can go through.”
I walk back to the car, my hands shaking.
“Did you just bribe that guy?” Arjun asks, his head leaning against the window.
“I think I did.”
“Samantha Kemi, you’re a bit of a badass.”
I grin at him and rev the engine. The car jumps forward, and we’re into the Wilds.
Something akin to elation—maybe it’s the adrenaline—finally takes over me. We’re here. We’ve done it. And only a few hours have elapsed since we found out that Kirsty had taken Molly. Maybe there’s actually a chance of catching up with them out here, before anyone gets hurt.
I take out my phone, about to text my parents the good news.
“Crap.”
“What is it?” Arjun says weakly.
“No signal.”
“Seriously?” He pulls himself more upright and digs his phone out of his pocket. “Same here. That’s weird. I took a course on communication in the Wilds last semester. Zambi was one of the first Wilds areas to be completely overlaid with signal because the risks are so high. Rescue teams need to be able to get out here fast.”
“I say again—crap.”
“Something—someone—must be jamming the signal.”
I slap my hands against the wheel. Three guesses who that must be. “Emilia.” I don’t dare take my eyes off the road, which is becoming less like a road and more like arbitrary lanes, winding through the tall grass in the savannah. “What do you think we should do?”
“We keep going.”
“But, where?”
He places his thumb and forefinger on the inner corner of each eye, and squeezes. It’s what he does whenever he’s trying to remember something. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him do it in exams. Whatever it is, it works.
“Unicorns . . . Okay. We almost never have to cover this stuff, you know? First year Finder training consists of the basic stuff. And this is not basic.”
I swerve to avoid the branches of a huge baobab tree hanging over the road. “Come on, Arjun. I know you go above and beyond your training at every moment. You must have read something . . .”
“Yes, hang on. Okay. Okay.”
I pull to a stop in the huge open savannah. How are we ever going to find them out here? Grass, plains, and trees as far as the eye can see—but no sign of another car. No sign of any other life. What if they went into the Wilds and turned left instead of straight on? Turned right? We could be searching the savannah for days and not have any clue where they are.
I try not to wonder if we’re going to run into Zain and the ZA team. It’s over. I keep reminding myself of that.
Suddenly there’s a screech overhead, and hundreds of thick black silhouettes fill the sky, casting a shadow over the sun. I scream, despite the fact that we’re inside the jeep. Arjun takes out his phone, opens an app, and points it at the sky.
“What are those things?” I cry.
He shows me the screen. There’s a picture of the creatures on it, and a little whirling white circle indicating that the phone is working. “The Finders app helps us identify species out in the Wilds, like a Finding database which anyone can tap into.” The screen flashes up with a picture of a vicious-looking bat, the tips of its wings curved into cruel-looking claws. Under the picture are the words Zambiera desmodus.
“Vampire bats?” I ask.
“No, these are like vampire bats 2.0. Look at their wings! They’re vicious, and a huge pack like this . . .” He pauses. “We have to follow them. Follow the bats, Sam!”
“What, why?”
“Their favorite blood is human. If someone is injured, they’ll be drawn to the scent.”
I put my foot down flat on the pedal, swinging the wheel in the direction of the bats.
Arjun braces himself against the dashboard. “It could be the ZA team that’s in trouble . . .”
“Or it could be Molly.” I’m in a race now. A race to find Molly, against these evil beasts in the sky. I grit my teeth as the steering wheel judders in my hands, the tires bouncing over the rough terrain.
“Left! Angle left!”
The bats are still flying straight, but I give Arjun the benefit of the doubt.
“Okay, straighten up!”
I can see what he’s spotted now. A jeep, up ahead. It’s parked in front of a thick clump of trees, the thickest I’ve seen in the savannah so far.
“It’s a gallery forest!” Arjun says. “According to the database, that’s where unicorns like to hide out because it means there’s water nearby, but also cover. Maybe that’s where they are. The bats should circle for a bit, but when they descend on the forest, they’ll be everywhere, okay? You don’t have long.”
I jump out of our vehicle as we come level with the jeep. I peer inside, but I don’t recognize anything. It could belong to Molly and Kirsty. It could be ZA. It could be Emilia. I just have to pray that it’s Molly.
Arjun slumps in his seat. I can see the ashen determination on his face. When I find Molly, I will drive us all back to safety, and home. But this part, I’m going to have to do alone. No Finder to help me.
“I’ll be back,” I say to him. I grab his phone and punch in a number. “The moment there’s a signal, you dial this.”
“If you’re not here in half an hour, I’m coming in.”
“Okay. Or, you know, if you hear any screaming.”
He smiles. I run toward the forest.
It’s deathly quiet inside. The trees absorb all the sound, the wind, the birds and the bats that had seemed so loud outside now snuffed out, replaced by a claustrophobic silence. I make my way through the thick trunks, deeper into the forest.
Then, I spot it: a flash of unnaturally bright orange in the trees. I pick up my pace. I want to shout, but something about the silence of this place makes me keep my mouth shut.
I break through into a clearing. Kirsty is there, clear as day, a reflective orange jacket over her normal uniform. She does not look surprised to see me at all. In fact, she looks like she is expecting me. She holds up a hand, and I freeze on the spot.
“Sam!” cries Molly. My head snaps up toward the sound. She’s in one of the trees, suspended in a battered cage made from strips of lacquered wood. She looks so small in there, she could probably fit through the bars if she tried. But it’s too high off the ground for her to jump down safely.
Then a unicorn bursts into the clearing, into the space beneath the cage.
I almost fall to the ground. I’ve never seen a creature more beautiful in my entire life. I want to throw myself at its hooves and pray for forgiveness. I want to bury myself in the earth and tear my eyes from their sockets; they don’t deserve its majesty. It’s a creature that appears born of light itself, light and beauty and—at the moment—great and terrible rage.
Almost twice her height, it leaps past Kirsty, who in turn leaps to the side, rolling to a stop, barely moments after the creature’s horn slices through the space where her head was. It gallops in circles around the clearing, pawing at the tree, pounding its muscular body against the trunk and making the entire forest shake.
It’s like a horse, but it’s more than that. It appears to have more muscles, to be made of more than just blood and skin and sinew but also of steel and strength and sunlight and the universe itself. Its horn is its most incredible feature. It stretches out in a dagger-straight line, but it’s made up of curves and coils, somehow still menacing, dangerous. When it stops under the cage again, it rears up, but to no avail. Whoever placed that cage up there did so with the utmost precision. The tip of its horn is inches away from the bottom, but it cannot reach. Every time the unicorn rears, Molly draws herself further into the fetal position she’s adopted in a corner of the cage. But for some reason I don’t think the beast wants to hurt Molly. It wants to save her.
Tears stream down my face. I can’t help it. There’s something about seeing the unicorn so angry, raging at us for keeping from it the one thing that it wants. But I won’t let it get Molly. My eyes dart from side to side, looking for a way through to the tree.
“Stay back, Sam,” Kirsty says. “I’ve never seen a unicorn act this way!”
“You don’t understand,” I shout back. “We think Emilia’s jamming the phone signals. And there’s a swarm of crazy Zambian vampire bats heading this way! They’ll be here any minute.”
At that, Kirsty’s face turns gray.
The beat of wings confirms my statement, and Kirsty looks up at the sky, her eyes narrow.
She darts out into the clearing again, taunting the great beast. It stands beneath the cage, raking the ground with a diamond-hard hoof.
My mind races at a million miles a minute. If I can make it to the tree, if Kirsty somehow gets the unicorn to move, if Molly can break free, if, if, if, then what?
Kirsty is wide-eyed with panic, and fear grips my heart. She must have had a plan. Clearly she meant to lure the unicorn here with Molly’s youth and innocence. But she hadn’t taken into account Emilia, although she should have done. She should have known that Emilia wouldn’t stop until we were all dead, including the princess.
The unicorn lowers its horn.
Kirsty stands there, her arms spread wide, holding open her jacket, trying to make herself seem like a huge, imposing target.
Then it charges.
At that moment, I charge too, springing forward from my position behind a tree, and I run to the tree in the center of the clearing.
It’s not the easiest to climb, by any means. But I recognize exactly what kind of tree this is from one of my obscure potions books. I take out a knife from the bag at my side and slash at the trunk. Immediately, the cuts fill with sticky sap.
Amber laticifer tree. The thick resin from its bark can be used in the creation of funeral pendants, as it is ideal for binding and storing memories.
I dip my hands in it, coating them in the thick, shiny, light gold substance.
Kirsty turns and runs into the woods, the unicorn following swiftly behind. But the sound of beating wings is getting closer, louder, and I know I don’t have much time.
I rub my hands together, the heat of the reaction making the sap sticky. Then I slam my right hand hard against the trunk as I jump up as high as possible. It catches, and I throw my other hand up as well, my feet scrambling for purchase against the bark, struggling to find a good foothold.
The sap starts peeling away almost immediately, so I have to keep moving, throwing one hand higher than the other. My shoulders burn with the effort, but it’s only four more swings and I’ve reached the first branch. From here, now it will be easier.
I jump up onto the next branch.
“I’m coming, Molly!”
“Hurry!” She sounds so scared, her voice a high-pitched squeal.
There’s a branch just underneath the cage. If I can remove the thick stake of wood that’s holding the cage door closed, Molly will be able to swing over to me, and I’ll be able to grab her. That must have been how Kirsty got Molly in the cage in the first place. From here, I’d be able to lift Molly up into it.
The problem is, the first bat lands on the branch at the same time that I do.
“Shoo!” I say, feeling utterly ridiculous. As if a vampire bat is going to shoo? It bares its teeth at me—they’re incredibly sharp and long, more like needles than fangs, perfect for injecting venom and removing blood. It squawks, mocking me. Then it stretches out its wings and hisses like a snake.
I take the closest thing I have to hand—my torch—and throw it at the bat. It hits it square on, and the bat screeches at me, then flies off.
“Molly, I’m here!”
I stand on the branch and reach out. I yank the end of the stake several times, trying to pull it out of the lock.
But then the first bat lands on the cage. Its handlike little claws wrap around the bars, its wings beating ferociously against the bowing wood. The force of it sends the cage swinging, but only for a moment. Then it’s like a rainstorm of black as the bats swarm over the cage, covering it completely, layering two, three, four deep, attacking and biting each other in their desperation to get to the precious blood inside. The blood that belongs to my Molly.
I can’t even hear her screaming anymore. They’ve completely blocked my view of her, and even more are landing all the time on my branch. I don’t have time to make a decision. I stretch out on the branch, and I jump toward the cage.
I don’t even get close. A bat slams into my back, its claws wrenching into my skin, its wings beating against my arms and head. The force of it sends my jump off balance, more like a fall than anything. I throw my arms up, and the sticky sap on my hands helps me cling to the branch. I swing myself toward the trunk, the bat still raging in my hair. I swing my legs around the tree, then peel my hands away from the bark and focus on pulling at the bat. I wrench it away from me, but not before its fangs leave deep scratches along my neck. My hand snaps off a twig from the branch, and as soon as I feel the slightest bit of leeway, I slash at the bat’s wing. It falls away.
I’m scrambling now to try to get back up to the cage, and suddenly I see movement. The bottom drops from it; a compartment, a false floor. And Molly, she drops too. The creatures don’t notice. But she’s falling, and it’s way too high.
“Molly!” I scream, as if my words could create some kind of cushion that will protect her. There is no time for me to react. There’s nothing I can do. I can only watch her fall.
From the woods, the unicorn bursts out of the foliage. A vision of Molly skewered on the unicorn’s horn plagues my mind, but it dips its head at the last minute and instead she falls like a ragdoll onto its body. Her arms instinctively grip its neck, and it carries her off into the forest. A stream of bats follow them, descending from the cage and sky.
I scuttle down the tree, beating off the last remaining bats as they swoop down on me, but the majority of their attention has been diverted.
I stagger off in the direction of the unicorn, running as fast as my weak legs can carry me. Someone calls my name, and I turn my head to see Kirsty stumbling out of the other side of the woods, her face caked with blood, her hand gripping a wound at her shoulder.
“Kirsty, it took her, it took Molly.”
Kirsty purses her lips, sheer determination on her face. And as much as I hate her, and I hate her so much in this moment, she is the only one who’s going to be able to make this better.
She breaks into a run, and seeing her do that with her bleeding shoulder means I can run too.
There’s a loud whinny from deep within the forest.
I can barely breathe; I don’t want to know what’s going on.
We reach another clearing, where there’s a growth of rock, covered in moss. Molly is there, and she’s still sitting astride the unicorn’s back, her eyes closed, her hands outstretched. She’s got a scratch on her cheek that is dripping blood, and she’s wearing a pair of silk gloves.
“No, Molly, stop!” I scream. She’s using magic in the most dangerous part of the Wilds.
The bats swoop and swarm around her, but they’re unable to attack. They’re being repelled by some kind of force field that is being generated by my sister’s gloved hands. Her brown hair streams out behind her, even though there’s barely a breath of wind in the forest, and even when the unicorn rears up, Molly holds on with her thighs, moving with the creature as effortlessly as if she’d been riding her entire life.
Kirsty grabs my arm. “Get down!” she says.
“But the magic?”
“She’ll be fine, trust me.”
I drop to the mossy, muddy ground. And just in time, as Molly claps her hands together. Her force field spreads outwards, upward, and in an instant the bats are cast aside. Those closest to the blast fall like rain around us, while the others are sent swirling into the sky, far away from this girl and her powerful magic.
The power sweeps over Kirsty and me; I feel the residue of it crackle like electricity over my back, sending waves of goosebumps over my skin, every hair raised.
Molly collapses with a slump on the unicorn’s back. It dips its legs, letting her slide to the ground. Then it lies down next to her and they both appear to fall into a deep sleep, one of Molly’s arms draped around the unicorn’s neck.
Slowly, Kirsty and I stand up. She grips her shoulder. “Be careful. The unicorn will be protecting Molly. But there could still be excess magic that you aren’t protected from.”
I grimace. No magical danger will keep me from my sister in this moment. “Molly?” I whisper. I can see the gentle rise and fall of her chest, her brow smooth, and she looks so peaceful. But I know after expending all that energy that she must be close to drained, and she will need medical attention quickly.
We approach cautiously.
“I’ve never been so close to a unicorn before,” says Kirsty, tears in her eyes. “I mean, at least not for long enough to really examine it properly.”
I know what she means. When the unicorn was raging in the clearing, it had been moving too fast for us to truly appreciate its beauty. But lying here, so powerful yet gentle in sleep, it’s possible to really appreciate it. It appears white, but every individual strand of its fur seems translucent, like diamonds stretched out into strands. Its horn isn’t pearlescent, as I would have expected, but more like a spear—a twisted sheet of precious metal—like silver, but even stronger. It looks slightly damaged at the tip, and streaked with drying blood, which is quickly turning from crimson to dark brown.
I wonder briefly where that blood has come from, but now I can guess what happened to Kirsty’s shoulder.
“Careful,” says Kirsty as I move closer to the two sleeping figures. I reach out and touch Molly’s arm. She shifts, and the unicorn shifts beside her.
She groans in response, but at least it’s a response. I gradually lift her arm, moving ever closer to her, extricating her from the unicorn’s side. I lift her up in my arms, and she feels light as a feather; lighter than normal.
“Wait,” she says, through slightly damp lips. Her eyes flutter open.
“What is it, my love?”
“Did you get the ingredient?”
“Don’t worry about that, Mols,” I whisper into her hair, gripping her tighter.
“No, it’s okay. I asked.”
“You . . .” It is almost too unreal for me to ask for an explanation. I move her so she’s close enough to reach the unicorn’s tail, and she gently breaks off a single strand. Kirsty stands back at a respectful distance. Maybe putting my little sister in so much danger has had an effect on her too. There aren’t very many people who’ve met Molly, who then didn’t want to protect her.
But then, it’s obvious that Molly doesn’t need as much protection as I think. She escaped from those bats herself. She didn’t need me. She came out here to get the ingredient, she chose to be brave, despite the barriers that we put up around her ever since we found out she was Talented. She could have become insular; spoiled. But instead, she grew strong.
I’m so proud of her, even looking at her now as she falls asleep in my arms.
I turn back to look at the unicorn one last time, but it’s gone—melted back into the woods—the space where it had lain to rest empty.
Lights begin flashing through the trees, and I realize that it must be Arjun, waiting in the jeep. We can finally leave this nightmare . . . and get back home.