caught between two paths: the rigid discipline of the High Magick, the fluid inspiration of the Wild Magic.
There's still time to back out.
But there wasn't. Not really. There was going forward, or there was giving up and staying where he was out of fear. Those were his only real choices just now. The City would not take him back. When morning came, the Outlaw Hunt would kill him.
He bent down and picked up the three leaves that he'd set aside. There was one last thing he needed to cast the spell. Still holding the fresh green leaves between the fingers of his left hand, he opened his pencase and pulled out his little penknife. Holding it carefully in his right hand, he cut a shallow scratch along his left palm. They'd taken none of his possessions from him except his Talisman—he even still had the key to the back garden. He wondered if Lycaelon would miss it and change all the locks.
The blood welled up, pooling in the palm of his hand. He wiped the penknife dry on his pant leg and replaced it in the pencase, and took each leaf in turn, dabbing it in the blood until each had been marked. Probably there wasn't any need to make quite so much of a mess, but he wanted to be sure he was doing everything right.
Then he dropped the leaves—and his blood—carefully into the fire, willing his spell, his call, as they burned and sizzled, sending up a thin plume of peculiar-smelling smoke. Help to leave the City lands by daybreak. Nothing more. Help unspecified, for a price unspecified.
Kellen had expected—or at least hoped—for fireworks and drama, but there were no bright lights, no mystic bells. The fire was small, and a few minutes later it had burned away to embers and ash. Kellen rubbed it out with the sole of his boot. His left hand itched, and he licked it clean, then rubbed it gingerly against his velvet tunic, wary of starting it bleeding again.
Still nothing happened. Kellen stalked back and forth, stopping automatically at the edges of his circle. The moon was above the trees now, and he could see his shadow on the ground pacing him as he turned, but though he strained all his senses, he heard nothing more than the cry of a night-hunting bird, the faint rustle of its prey, and the rhythm of the wind through the trees, and he saw nothing at all.
How long do I wait?
Emotionally battered by the events of the day, Kellen couldn't stop himself from wondering: What if there had been truth in more of his father's words than he wanted to believe? What if the Wild Magic was… unreliable? What if it was going to betray him now, just as everything else in his life had?
No.
Kellen wasn't sure where that conviction came from, but it was deep and sure. The response to his attempts at spellcasting might not be exactly what he'd like—it might be downright scary in fact, confusing, unexpected, utterly puzzling, but the Wild Magic was not a cheat and a lie.
Finally he stopped fidgeting and looked up at the moon. It was still rising. Kellen wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd cast the spell—at least half a bell. No matter what, he knew he couldn't simply stand here all night, waiting for help that might never come. Maybe the spell hadn't worked—that wouldn't be the Wild Magic's fault, after all. He wasn't exactly a full-fledged Wildmage, was he? Maybe he already had all the 'help to get out of City lands by daybreak' he actually needed. Maybe he could reach the edge of City lands on his own two feet, unlikely though that seemed. Lycaelon might have lied about that, hoping to make him give up without trying.
He sighed. Might as well start walking, anyway. If help is coming, it can find me wherever I am. No harm in that.
He was about to step out of his circle when he saw a flicker of something white and glowing heading toward him from the west. It looked as bright as the moon itself, but it was clearly coming through the trees toward him. The hair on the back of his neck rose. Was this the answer to his call? Was it a ghost, or some other noncorporeal creature?
Kellen took a deep breath and resolved to stand his ground.
It approached cautiously, as if, whatever it was, it was as wary of him as he was of it. As it came closer he could see that it had four legs—a deer? No, a horse.
Then it stepped through the trees and out onto the road, and Kellen saw that it was neither.
It was a unicorn.
The unicorn was about the size of a small pony, but there the resemblance to anything equine ended. It had long slender legs and a long, lithe, slender—almost feline—body, covered with short plush silvery-white fur, fluffed out against the nocturnal chill. It had a lionlike tufted tail—which it carried, catlike, curled up and away from its body—and narrow pale cloven hooves, like a deer's or a goat's. It had a long slender neck, with a short roached mane that stopped just short of its horn. Its head wasn't really shaped like either a deer's, a goat's, or a horse's, though a little like each.
But its horn… !
The unicorn's horn was the most beautiful thing Kellen had ever seen—like polished diamond, or perhaps
