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E lowen smoothed her skirt and joined Father at the door, glad she’d had time to clean up before facing the regal unicorns. Alder’s drawing on the table hadn’t done the delicate green one justice at all. Elowen would insist he do a better one for Cedar—she’d promised it would still be there when he returned from picking cherries.

“What could they want?” she whispered into Father’s ear.

The white unicorn stopped six paces away so his glittering spiraled horn, which was easily a yard long, ran no risk of hitting the eaves of the farmhouse. He bent a knee and dipped his head in an equine bow. “Good sir, please allow me to offer my deepest apologies for my son’s high spirits yesterday. We are traveling and cannot stay to help mend the damage. Please let me offer you this small gift to help cover the cost of repairs.”

The female unicorn nipped a small leather pouch from a saddlebag on her back and stepped forward, offering it to Father.

Father stood frozen, his jaw slack in awe.

Elowen felt the same at being addressed by such elegant creatures. She gripped Father’s elbow and spoke in his stead. “You’re too kind, but there’s no need—”

“We insist,” the white unicorn replied. “Please. It isn’t much, but it would ease our minds to know we did what we could.”

She nudged Father forward, determined for him to do something besides stare and hoped his legs were sturdier than hers at the moment. He held out his hand, and the delicate unicorn dropped the pouch into his palm.

The white unicorn bowed again, and then they both turned in unison and galloped off across the fields.

Elowen removed the pouch from Father’s still-open hand. It had a decent weight to it, but nothing clinked when she bounced it in her palm. Pixie gifts tended to be frivolous or short-lived, while fairy gifts could be downright dangerous. What kind of gifts did unicorns give?

“Will you open it?” Alder asked. He frowned at his drawing on the table as if confused by what he was looking at after seeing the real thing up close.

“Cedar should be here for this,” Father muttered as he pulled his gaze away from the unicorns’ retreating backs. He latched the door behind him, drew the curtains closed, and then sat beside his older son. “Hand me the pouch, Elle.”

He inspected the bag closely, weighing it in his hands as she had done.

Growing impatient, Elowen said, “You know what Cedar would say right now, don’t you?”

They all said in unison, “Open it already!”

Elowen smiled, and the frown lines around Father’s eyes lessened.

Father loosened the pouch strings and then upended the contents. A single golden coin fell out and landed in his palm.

She gasped, and Alder’s jaw dropped. Gold. A golden coin in their farmhouse.

The leather pouch fell to the floor as they all stared at the object that gleamed like a small sun against Father’s tanned skin.

Unicorns gave very good gifts.

Elowen had never seen such a coin. Bronze and brass coins, yes. Even the occasional silver. But she couldn’t recall ever seeing real gold at all. Some of the more well-to-do families in the village, perhaps a few of the merchants, would have golden coins and a golden item or two in their homes, no doubt. Having far more pressing needs, Elowen had never felt the desire for gold simply to put it on display, but after seeing the unicorns’ gift she could understand the draw of its beauty.

Alder ran his finger over the coin, the shine in his eyes rivaling that of the gold. “Can I hold it?” he whispered.

The moment Father handed it over, Alder leaped to his feet and took it closer to the fire for a better look.

“What will you spend it on?” Elowen asked.

“I hardly know,” Father said. “It’s a windfall, and that’s for sure.”

Proper lumber for fencing, a thatcher to repair the barn roof, more chickens—a million and one things tumbled through her mind, each more important than the last but none so important as Cedar’s return. If only a gold coin could buy such a wish. “Decisions like this shouldn’t be made quickly, nor so late in the evening. We should sleep on it,” Elowen said.

Father nodded and placed the leather pouch on Alder’s knee. “Put it under the floorboard after you’ve had a chance to study it.” He’d seen the look in Alder’s eyes. The look he got when he wanted nothing more than to capture something in a drawing.

Once Father had gone upstairs to bed, Elowen took up a bit of darning and sat silently with Alder while he turned the coin over and over in his fingers.

Finally, he set the coin on his knee. “I never imagined gold to look so rich.”

“We’ve certainly never been so rich in gold.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s the color. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She nodded, even though he hadn’t taken his eyes off the coin. Nature abounded in gold, or so she’d thought. From sunflowers and dandelions and autumn leaves to fields of wheat and barley and oats. Even her hair was often described as golden, but compared to the shiny metal, it dulled in comparison.

“How many other colors have I missed, surrounded by mud and straw all my life?” he said. “How could I ever capture this with nothing but crude paints and charcoal?”

It would be impossible.

“Do you know how many canvases and sheets of paper this could buy?” Bitterness crept into his voice. “How many pigments and brushes?”

It would be enough to last a lifetime, but he knew as well as she did that the only brushes they would be working with would be dipped in lime wash and applied to the privy walls.

She placed her hand over the coin on his knee. “Wishful thinking will only get us heartache.”

A coin for a wish. If only fairies worked that way. Elowen had wished out loud many times over the years, hoping a passing fairy would hear and grant her wish. That’s how it worked in the stories. But she’d never seen a fairy. Mother hadn’t recovered from her sickness, the farm had withered, and Elowen had learned to keep her wishful thinking to herself.

Alder sat back and crossed his arms. His lips puckered in irritation.

She curled her fist around the coin and found comfort in the gift. It was solid and real and would be far more useful than any wish she’d ever made. “I don’t know why the unicorns would give us such excessive payment for knocking down a few sticks, but Father will know what to do with it.” She pried open the loose floorboard near the window and deposited the treasure in the empty hole.

Alder stared as if he could still see the coin glinting on his knee. Her brother would get some sleep only after he’d freed some of the images swirling in his mind.

“There are fresh charcoal sticks on the mantle.” Elowen picked up a candle and made her way upstairs, the tiny flame casting its own flickering treasure-trove of color onto the walls. She lay awake for far too long, trying to banish a whirlwind of thoughts clouded in gold and cherry and lime green. She finally nodded off with one final random thought: I’ve never even tasted a lime.

UNWILLING TO SIT IDLY while their new dragon friend did his part, Father and Alder set off before sunrise the next morning in search of troll tracks once again, the coin all but forgotten in their concern for Cedar.

Elowen threw feed to the chickens and then did her part by riding the horse around to their nearest neighbors, securing much shocked sympathy, a sackful of travel biscuits wrapped in a waterproof cloak, and a handful of bronze coins.

How she wished Ash was by her side again.

She shook her head and carried her bundle into the house. She couldn’t depend too much on the dragon. Stay strong, Mother had said. So Elowen resisted the urge to crawl into Mother’s old armchair and cry and wait for help to come. Instead, she did what she could to help Alder. He would need a pack ready to go when he and Father returned. They would find tracks eventually. Alder would catch up to the trolls, ransom Cedar with the gold coin—because nothing else it could be used for was so important—and bring him home before Ash had time to return with the king’s soldier. They could get back to mending the fence and weeding the fields, picking cherries and baking pies. Ash could study his mushrooms, and Alder would have a real live dragon to model for him.

Elowen stopped and blinked, realizing she’d included Ash in her family’s future. What was she thinking? Alder was the one preoccupied with flying creatures. Ash would move on once Cedar was safely home. A dragon would have no desire to stay rooted in one place. Especially not a worn-out old farm with a troll problem.

Wiping moisture from her eyes, Elowen darted out the door. She grabbed the basket that had held chicken feed and ran to the cherry orchard. Although the ladder was destroyed and the meager harvest scattered and trampled into the mud, she knelt in the damp earth, gently scooping the bruised fruit from the ground, saving what she could. She would make a few small tarts for Cedar to have when he returned home, and then she would preserve the rest and take them to the winter market upriver where they would sell better. Cedar had never been there before, and perhaps Elowen might meet someone who wouldn’t be scared away by her humble life.

Long after the cherries had been washed and the tarts set to cool, long after the chickens had settled in for the night and a pack stuffed full for Alder’s journey, Elowen sat embroidering by the kitchen fire.

Alder. Elm. Cedar.

She embroidered a hasty branch from each of their namesake trees into a band of linen with a hidden pocket for Alder to carry under his shirt at his waist. The gold coin would travel safely with him, a ransom to buy back their brother from the gold-loving trolls. She listened for footsteps as she worked, the silence of her family’s absence enveloping the farm like a heavy fog.

“WE FOUND THEM!” THE door banged against the wall as Alder barged into the kitchen.

Elowen lifted her head from the table and blinked, eyes blurry from sleep. What had he said? Had they found Cedar?

Father closed the door and pulled a loaf of bread from the cupboard. He tore off a chunk and passed it to Alder. “We found tracks,” he said while chewing. “They’re still heading northeast.”

Elowen jumped up, banging her hip against the table in her haste. “I have a pack ready. And the coin. We should use it as ransom for Cedar, don’t you think?”

They nodded wearily.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” Alder said.

Father trudged upstairs to his room with no further words.

She stared after him, too many questions swirling in her mind to know which to ask first. She poured hot tea for Alder, sat back down, and waited.

As usual, time and tea loosened his tongue. “There’s not much to say, Elle.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “We didn’t find much. Only a few footprints right at dusk. Some of them were small and definitely belonged to Cedar.”

“If he’s walking, that means they’re going slower than we thought.”

“I don’t think so.” He sighed. “Cedar’s prints were all over the place, like he’d been set down and tried to run. His prints didn’t go far before the troll prints picked up again, and then they all eventually disappeared.”

She placed a hand over his. “At least we know he’s still with them, and we know which direction they’re going.”

He looked into her eyes, no longer trying to hide his worry from their father. “I don’t know if I can do it, Elle. What if I can’t catch up to them? What if I can’t find them? What if Cedar ...”

She squeezed his fingers, biting back her own fears lest she make him worry about her as well. Stay strong. “You can do this, Alder. Look how many things you do every day around this farm that you once thought you couldn’t.”

He traced a pattern in the wood with his free hand. “Maybe we should wait for the dragon to return. I’m no king’s soldier.”

Elowen smacked the table with the palm of her hand, startling Alder into looking at her again. “No. You’re no king’s soldier. You’re Cedar’s brother. And no one else is as fit to find him as you are.”

He wrapped both hands around the mug and sipped his tea, shifting his gaze away from her. He wouldn’t say it, and Father wouldn’t acknowledge it, but they all knew Elowen was more at home in the woods than any of them. However, Alder had been to all the nearby villages, three farther villages, and even one city. Plus, he was the eldest child ... and a son. Father had insisted he be the one to undertake the search.

If Father hadn’t made her promise to stay, Elowen would be gone after Cedar already.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Alder spoke abruptly, “I’ll bring him home, Elle.” He stood, still avoiding her gaze. “Don’t I always do what I have to?”

She bit a fingernail and glanced out the window. There was no bitterness in his voice, but she heard the unspoken words. Always what I have to do. Never what I want to do. Of course he would give his all to find Cedar, no matter how ill prepared he felt.

“Alder?” She turned around, ready to tell him that she would go in his place, that she couldn’t risk losing two brothers, but he’d already disappeared up the stairs.

THREE DAYS PASSED. Alder had set off with the golden coin tied securely around his waist, his step confident on the familiar ground surrounding the farm. Elowen tried to find comfort in the bright sunshine, the golden disk overhead warming her back as she and Father mended the hedge fence and tried to keep up with chores and maintenance that had already become a burden for the four of them. Somewhere, Alder strode under the same sun, and Cedar ... Cedar would stay strong until they could find him.

On the fourth day, the sun peeked out from behind skittish clouds as Greggin’s wife Cora came bearing distractions in the form of meat pies and fairy tales. That night, Elowen sat at her window watching the moon rise and repeated the stories silently to herself, imagining Cedar somewhere in the dark looking at the same sight.

On the sixth day, Elowen scowled at the rain. Could dragons fly in foul weather? She packed her own travel bag in between chores and then finished extra chores to wear herself out enough to sleep through the night. It didn’t work: she heard every creak of the house settling and every shuffle from Father’s own sleeplessness.

On the seventh day, the steady rhythm of beating wings woke her to a misty sunrise. She threw off her blankets, eager to replace dreams of leering trolls with the welcome sight of Ash’s bronze wings and eager smile. Dragons could fly in rain, after all.

A dragon waited for her in front of the house, but it wasn’t Ash. This dragon, as grey as the morning, crouched on the ground as his rider helped Alder dismount. Her brother’s knee and lower leg were bound in cloth, his hair windblown, the waterproof cloak askew on his shoulders.

There was no sign of Cedar.

“Where’s my son?” Father’s voice boomed through the open doorway moments before he appeared. “What’s happened?”

Alder, leaning heavily on the dragon rider, limped past them both silently, keeping his weight off the bandaged leg. Elowen followed, but Father stayed on the porch as if Cedar might be hiding just out of sight. The dragon rider helped Alder settle at the table, pulled over another chair, and helped him rest his injured leg on the seat. She barely heard her brother’s words of thanks or the man’s response before he departed. She wanted to follow him back outside, see with her own eyes that Cedar hadn’t returned with them, but her feet wouldn’t work.

The dragon rider exchanged a few words with Father too softly for Elowen to hear, and then he and his dragon rode off into the mist.

She forced herself to turn and look into her brother’s eyes, to see the grimace of pain and defeat, the anger at his own failure, and felt it all as if it were her own to bear. She needed to know what had happened, but couldn’t find the words to ask.

Father entered the room and leaned against the door frame. He left the door itself wide open, and the mist and fog threatened to follow him inside. Elowen stoked the fire and threw on one of Cedar’s logs. The smoke stung her eyes. She sniffed and wiped her face with the sleeve of her night dress.

She made a hasty cup of willow bark tea and set it in front of Alder. Time and tea never failed to loosen his tongue in the past, but this time she didn’t know how much of either Alder needed before he would be able to share his story. His hands, rough from farm labor but able to create beauty with a stick of charcoal, wrapped around the mug as if it might fall to the floor without his support. Elowen tried to read his story in the new scratches on those hands, but all she knew was the ending: one brother still missing, and another lost in his own thoughts.

Father cleared his throat, an unusual sign of impatience, and closed the door. He shuffled over and placed a hand on Alder’s head. “Best tell us, son.” He ruffled his hair and then leaned on the edge of the table.

Elowen pulled over a chair and joined them.

His story sounded like one of Cora’s fairytales, something that happened to others far away and long ago. He’d made his way northeast, picking up a footprint here and there until he lost them at the river. A fisherman ferried him upstream to a town with a flowery name and rumors of dragon patrols and sour-faced princesses and reckless trolls. Their trolls.

“You know where they’re going, don’t you?” Elowen said.

“Yes.” Alder winced. “No, not exactly. Everyone in town agreed, they’re likely headed back to their clan in Northling.”

Father frowned. Northling was a different kingdom entirely. If the trolls were taking Cedar to their home, Ash’s message and plea for help might be in vain. Their own king wouldn’t interfere with another king’s subjects, regardless of the fact that trolls didn’t consider themselves subject to any human monarchs.

“I got the best directions I could and followed them, but I stayed on the road this time, for all the good it did. I thought I’d make better time by traveling into the night.”

So, that’s where he’d made his mistake?

Alder sighed and put his head into his hands. “The road narrowed, and I didn’t see the cliff. Walked right over it.” He looked up at Elowen with a rueful smile. “I thought I was flying for a minute, Elle. When I hit the bottom, I lay there wondering if you’d had the same sensation flying on that dragon of yours.”

Elowen stood and wrapped her arms around him from behind. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her shoulder, unable to berate him for traveling in the dark because she might have done exactly the same thing. At least if she’d gone, Father would still have one strong worker on the farm.

“The dragon and his companion found me in the morning and took me back to town. Not recommended with a broken leg.” He sighed. “I hadn’t even made it to the border of Northling.”

“It was an impossible task from the beginning, chasing down trolls on foot.” Father made his way over to the counter, his feet dragging as if he felt his son’s injury as his own, and busied himself making breakfast. “What was I thinking? That dragon—”

Alder interrupted him. “They offered to bring me home after hearing my story. I’ve still got the gold coin. We can still—”

“Not that dragon,” Father said. “The other one. Elowen’s dragon.”

Elowen stood and straightened her night dress. “He’s not mine.”

Father kept talking as if he didn’t hear her, banging a pot onto the counter. “He’ll be back soon with one of the king’s soldiers. Cedar ... will have to stay tough until then. Trolls are ... disgusting, loathsome ... but ... well, he’ll be safe enough. They won’t eat him, anyway.”

Elowen didn’t stay to hear any more of their conversation. She squeezed Alder’s shoulder and retreated to her room. There was nothing Father could say to make her stay now. One brother kidnapped and one brother injured. Mother had told her to stay strong, but if that meant staying behind, she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t leave Cedar in the hands of those disgusting trolls. Her pack was ready. She would hunt them down, and she would bring home Cedar herself.