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Noro ducked, then kicked the other unicorn into a boulder. The stone shattered; shards went flying. Bartos pushed Thorn and Zaf to the ground just in time. Thorn heard rock whistling through the air overhead.

The other unicorn pushed itself back up, its foaming mouth snapping like a crocodile’s. Horn out, it charged at Noro—but Noro didn’t move.

Thorn watched through Zaf’s snarled hair as Noro faced his attacker, ears pinned flat.

“Noro!” Thorn cried out.

At the last moment, Noro dodged the unicorn’s charge and sliced his horn across its belly.

With a gulping cry, the unicorn staggered and fell.

It was then, as Noro approached the creature, that Thorn saw something curious.

The unicorn was looking not at Noro, but at Thorn, Zaf, and Bartos. Its liquid black eyes, which Thorn had thought so terrifying only moments before, flickered with something small and pained that reminded her of Mazby after he’d broken his wing as a young grifflet.

Thorn’s heart clenched tight.

Noro reared up.

Thorn shoved her way past Bartos, too fast for him to stop her. Sudden panic squeezed tears from her eyes. She flung out her arms.

“Noro, wait!”

Noro spun away just before his hooves struck her.

“What are you doing?” cried Bartos. He hurried over, Zaf beside him. “Get away from there, Thorn!”

“It’s hurt,” Thorn said, feeling stupid, because they were all looking at her as though she’d grown four new heads. But her heart wouldn’t budge. She knelt beside the trembling unicorn. “I think we should talk to it before we do anything else.”

Bartos reached for her. “It attacked us! Come on, move away from there.”

“No, it was walking toward us, and thenNoroattacked it.”

Noro stared at her like all five of her heads had committed the worst imaginable betrayal. Thorn ignored him, her throat tight. She hadn’t been able to look at him straight on since learning he knew about the trapped stormwitches, and she couldn’t look at him now.

“Thorn,” said Bartos, very reasonably, “this creature has been touched by the Gulgot’s evil. Killing it will be a mercy. Please, step back. Let Noro finish.”

But Thorn ignored him, watching Zaf instead. The stormwitch knelt beside her, and together they faced the fallen unicorn. Half submerged in the shallow swamp, it stared at them with eyes rimmed in pus. Its breathing was fast anduneven. It locked eyes with Thorn and let out a soft cry.

“What did you say?” Thorn leaned closer.

The unicorn strained to lift its head. Thorn couldn’t bear the sight. She scooted closer and reached out to touch the beast before she could think better of it.

Noro shouted a warning, but Thorn had already placed her wounded left hand on the unicorn’s neck. She’d forgotten—for just a moment—about her own injured palm. Her skin flared hot with pain. The feeling scorched up her arm, then burned her throat, like a too-hot bite of food, then slid down into the pit of her stomach and vanished.

Zaf hissed, “Don’t touch it!”

“It’s hurt,” Thorn insisted, a little shakily. “And I don’t think it wanted to hurt us.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Bartos asked.

“I don’t. But I can’t just leave it to die without a word.”

Before the others could stop her, Thorn scooted around and settled the unicorn’s head on her lap. She smoothed the wet clumps of hair from its eyes.

“Try again,” she murmured. “You wanted to tell us something?”

The unicorn squeezed its eyes shut and gnashed its sharp black teeth. Noro rumbled a warning.