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“They’re simply the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen. Don’t you think there’s something extra special about them?”
Ben was no expert, and he had a feeling Annie couldn’t see what he saw—the glowing and sparkling. But he did know this:
“Yeah, they’respecial, all right.”
When they caught up outside with the prince and Brigid, Ben was struck dumb again. Enough that he froze on the last step of the townhouse.
The two white horses he’d seen from afar, through the foyer window when the prince arrived, were rather ghastly looking this close.
Their eyes were red-rimmed and red-centered. Their flanks almost skeletal, so that each rib could be seen beneath their thin, stretched hides. Their mane and tails were tangled and dirty, with what looked like seaweed or vines threaded through.
One of the creatures turned its head in Ben’s direction, its hot gaze glittering with something like starvation and malice.
He almost stumbled back a step at the grotesque sight.
And then, Brigid reached out to stroke the nearest horse’s neck, cooing something soothing that Ben couldn’t hear.
He flung out one hand and opened his mouth to warn her off, but she had already connected with the beast, her gloved fingers sifting through its mane.
Immediately, both horses transformed into white unicorns.
Unicorns, for fuck’s sake!
Equipped with shiny, sharp, spiraling horns protruding from their pristine, beautiful white foreheads.
Ben stumbled down the last step and stood next to Annie as the prince handed Brigid into the vehicle.
“Did you see that?” he hissed urgently.
“What?” She looked around again, blinking round eyes like an owl.
“The horses! They aren’t normal!”
“I don’t know what you mean, Benji,” she said.
“I agree that they are quite the most magnificent horses I’ve ever seen, but that’s not exactlyabnormal.”
She seemed to catch on and leaned closer to inquire, “Is your Gift showing you something different? Is this not their true form? What do you see?”
He felt like a dunce saying it, but he said it anyway.
“Unicorns.”
“Seriously?”
If Annie widened her eyes any more, her eyeballs would be in danger of falling out.
“Yup.”
“Wow. I wish I can see what you see,” she whispered.
“Sometimes it’s really not pretty,” he warned.
“You’re better off with the illusion.”
And then, Annie was being handed into the phaeton as well.
It was spacious enough to accommodate three people, though they couldn’t sit with the requisite distance apart between the sexes. The prince was squeezed in the middle between Annie and Brigid, for he was driving the vehicle himself.
