Clearly pleased with himself, Obis pounced off the dais, roaring. The sound ricocheted off the walls of the training room. One head looked at the other when he landed, and the two sets of jaws yawned open, letting out echoing roars.

  "Great, great. That's fantastic," Professor McNamara praised. "Now you can show..." but she trailed off.

  Obis wasn't acting right. He roared, stamped his massive feet, and his formerly gold-flecked eyes burned in vicious black holes.

  "Obis? Can you hear me? I need you to settle down," Miss McNamara cajoled tersely.

  But Obis did just the opposite. He began to butt his heads together, stamped his feet twice more, and then charged into the crowd of terrified students. Everyone scattered and headed for the safety of the door. Only Ava remained.

  Unable to make it through the throngs of students all the way out the doorway, Azar could only stand and watch the spectacle. Obis reminded her of someone she would rather forget: the hydra dragon. A memory brought to the fore even further because Ava was also there facing the creature again. This scene was all too familiar.

  Everybody pushed their way out of the doorway, and Azar was finally able to make her way out as well. Even Miss McNamara abandoned her high heels and fled, glasses askew. As the professor ran, she screamed over her shoulder, "Ava! Get out now!"

  Obis seemed distracted enough by Ava, ignoring everyone else now.

  "Someone go get Headmistress Levine," Miss McNamara instructed the quivering students. Several of them took off.

  Azar peeked through the slit between the doors like many of the others were doing.

  That's when the purple light filled the room. Azar had to look away, but when the light finally dimmed to a tolerable shade, she turned her attention back.

  It looked like Obis had careened forward and then screeched to a stop. Ava stood in front of him in her unicorn form and neighed softly. When she trotted toward Obis, he stepped back, growling.

  Obis appeared to regard the pure creature in her true form, breathlessly, and then, slowly, color filled the dark holes in his eyes once again.

  Ava's light, duller now, but still bright, encompassed him. Tiny hues of purple sparkles rested on the lion's back, as if whispering secrets to him. All four of his ears went back, and he lowered his heads.

  Finally, the enraged beast plopped down on his haunches, switching his snake-tail from side to side. Calm and subdued.

  After circling him twice, Ava morphed back to human and crossed to the door to call Professor McNamara and the others back in.

  With new respect for Ava boldly stamped on her pale face, the professor slinked in, occasionally sneaking quick peeks at Obis.

  Azar eyed him cautiously as well. She'd heard about this type of thing. Obis was one of the loaded guns. And this was the first time she’d had to witness it. Sure, Miss McNamara had been trained to teach them all how to harness their mythical powers, but it wasn't widely known that sometimes mythicals could go stark-raving mad.

  By the time Headmistress Levine arrived, everything was under control again, and Professor McNamara had collected what was left of her dignity and resumed teaching.

  Two days later, Ava received another letter from her father. In her dorm, surrounded by several fashion magazines JiSoo had littered around the room in preparation for the formal, Ava settled down on her bed to read it. Winta was there as well, poring over the magazines alongside JiSoo on the bed across from Ava.

  Tearing the letter open feverishly, Ava looked up at her friends. "I wasn't expecting so many letters from him. Honestly, I'm surprised he even keeps responding."

  JiSoo scoffed, her lips resting somewhere between a sneer and a smile. "Why wouldn't he? You're his daughter. He missed out on most of your life, didn't he?"

  "And you know he's probably feeling guilty. He probably wants to make it up to you in some way,” Winta added.

  "Well, come on. What did he say this time?" JiSoo prodded.

  Ava took about ten seconds to look over the letter. Then she turned it over, turned it back again, unfurled the envelope, and peered inside. "I don't get it." She flipped the letter again.

  "What? What is it?" Winta reached for the letter. Ava handed it to her.

  JiSoo crowded in next to Winta. "Talk about short and to the point."

  "Right?" Ava interlaced her fingers. Why would he even bother to send something like that? He obviously didn't even have the time."

  "Maybe you were right… About the unicorn effect." Winta looked bewildered. "Maybe he can't stand writing so many letters in such a short time. Is that a unicorn thing?"

  "Maybe that's a lot of maybes," JiSoo quipped, getting up and padding over to Ava's bed.

  Ava couldn't deny the sinking sensation in her stomach. "It's just… I don't understand. He actually repeated something he said in his last letter. That can't be good."

  "Maybe he's just distracted," JiSoo offered.

  "Do you think he's already tired of me? Here I was hoping to meet him soon, but if he's already withdrawing…"

  "No, Ava. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why," JiSoo said, grasping at straws. Fidgeting around, she unclipped her nose ring and placed it on the bedside table.

  "But seriously, why would he just copy a couple lines from his last letter? It doesn't make any sense." Ava retreated to the edge of her bed, curling into herself. "It just says to believe in myself, just like last time…"

  "Well, maybe if he's telling you to believe in yourself, and what you can do, it's because he needs you to learn to use your powers soon," Winta suggested.

  “Dude, I'm having zero luck in that department. Except for that weird thing I can do to other mythicals when they’re all out of sorts. I can apparently calm them down. But there's nothing else I can do. I'm pretty much still a little tabby cat." She knew she was just feeling sorry for herself at this point, but she didn't care. "There's no difference. I've made no progress. One day Levine will realize that, too, and retract my admission. Clearly, my father agrees with her."

  Out of the blue, JiSoo blurted, "I have ten packs of chocolate in my drawer. This drawer right here."

  Ava sniffed, wiped her bleary eyes, and glared at her. "You're lying."

  "Yeah, totally," JiSoo agreed, languidly stretching back across her bed. "I was just trying to distract you."

  "Oh, JiSoo, you little—"

  "Now she makes fun of my size. Geez," JiSoo bantered playfully. "See? You're being too hard on yourself. You’ve completely forgotten something you can do."

  Folding her arms, Ava asked, "And what is that, pray tell?"

  "You can tell if someone is telling the truth or not. You knew James was telling the truth about Elaine. And that's why Winta found it so easy to believe him. Because you backed him up. Remember that? And you knew I was lying about the chocolate just now."

  Ava brought her finger to her lips and chewed on her nail a little bit. "You're right. It's kind of funny. I'm like a human lie detector."

  "Uh huh, yeah." JiSoo bobbed her head up and down. "You told me Levine said that because you’re a pure creature, you can't lie. And you can obviously detect lies in others as well."

  Ava pondered that. "I definitely can't lie when I'm in my unicorn form. But I think I still can when I'm human. It's just a lot more difficult. It's like the words don't come to me."

  Winta chuckled. "It sucks because we won't ever be able to surprise you with anything. But other than that, it's pretty darn useful. The healing thing though? You'll get the hang of it."

  "What makes you so sure about that?"

  "Because it's in your nature. Maybe you're just thinking too much like a human. Be the unicorn. Allow it to be who you are first and foremost." Winta brought her palm to her forehead and said, "And now, I sound like Levine. So I will be shutting up now."

  JiSoo chortled, defusing the tense moment.

  Ava inhaled deeply, her long legs dangling off the bed as she unfurled the letter again. Glancing over it, she said, "I'll just write him another one." She reached up, twisted a lock of her purple hair around her finger, and nibbled on the end of it—a nervous habit she’d picked up when she was little. "I'll probably ramble on about clothes and boys for at least three pages. Just be a typical teenager—let him see what he's really gotten himself into."

  "Right, you do that, and I’ll be taking a loooong nap now," JiSoo concluded with a yawn.

  "Oh no you don't," Winta scolded JiSoo.

  JiSoo groaned.

  Winta and Ava caught each other's eyes and grinned cheekily. "Thought you were getting out of telling us more about Kaelan?" Ava accused as she faced her friend who squirmed under her scrutiny. "Out with it. How was your first training with him?"

  JiSoo had attended her first predator training and had spent the whole morning freaking out about it because Kaelan would be there.

  "Yeah, with Keeaalaaaan in the room," Winta sang in an annoyingly chirpy voice.

  JiSoo scrunched her face into an unattractive pout.

  "Did you sit together?" Ava asked.

  "Did you hold hands all the way through?" Winta teased.

  "Fine," JiSoo gave in. "I'll tell you everything, but only if Ava starts to write that letter… Right. Now."

  When all that could be heard in the room was JiSoo’s intermittent snores, when everyone was dead to the world, when the sky had darkened, lit up by billions of stars, Ava lay awake on her bed, unable to get a moment's rest. Under her sunflower-print pillow where she’d stuffed the latest letter, her fingers inched toward it and plucked it out.

  Beneath the starlit night, she read her father’s rushed note again and again, the cold winter breeze clearing her head and her thoughts.

  Over the past few weeks, her father had steadily written her. Each letter more detailed than the last. So this random, hastily penned note didn’t agree with what she had come to expect of him.

  The nagging thought she’d refused to acknowledge since receiving the letter pushed to the surface. In the quietness of her room, she couldn’t continue to deny it. Her friends were right; he was a good person who donated shavings of his horn (which he’d admitted to in one of his letters) to a school he graduated from years ago.

  Who, despite his unicorn wildness, took the time to get to know his daughter. He couldn’t be in trouble. No, it was simply not conceivable that just when she was beginning to have a relationship with him, someone, somewhere, endangered his life. So much that he had to rush to reply to her letter and run off.

  But that’s what her instincts kept telling her.

  Or maybe she wanted to be with him so bad that she’d made up dangerous stories in her own mind.

  JiSoo’s loud snort jolted her to reality. Ava glanced at her roomie sprawled on the bed and wondered when she’d get a goodnight’s sleep again. The recurring nightmare with Madame Waters just wouldn’t stop. She’d tell them all about it someday, but for now, there was a lot at stake. Sir Waters could be fired for putting them in danger, for dragging underage students to the dungeon and... Oh, right...locking them in with his monster wife.

  She scanned her own letter again, all three pages of it. If he didn’t respond to her liking, she was going to damn everything and go search for him. Which meant she needed to find out where he lived.

  Levine, Waters, and Bills were the only ones she knew who were at the school when her father was there. Perhaps Miss Peabody, too, based on a comment she’d made once about meeting a unicorn at the school years ago. Ava had already asked her mother about him, but that door was firmly shut. Her mother just fed her some crap about how they had to hide where they lived so there was no way they’d break the rule. Ava didn’t even know who “they” were. Other unicorns? Animage staff? No clue.

  After another hour of staring at the ceiling, Ava finally decided to give up on sleep and get up. Before the sun crept over the horizon, Ava tiptoed out the door to go mail her letter.

  After doing so, Ava made a beeline for breakfast. JiSoo, always an early riser, was on her way to the breakfast hall already, and slammed into her from behind.

  Together, they moved to the breakfast room where Winta was waiting with two empty chairs beside her. “You’re up early, Ava.”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Ava muttered. “Do you always come to breakfast this early, too?”

  “The sun always wakes me,” Winta shrugged. “And when I go inside to dress, Michaela is usually still sleeping, so I try to get in and out of her room asap.”

  “Ah.” The instant Ava settled, four gorgeous dolphins came over and arranged themselves next to her.

  “Hi,” Davina greeted Ava specifically, acting like JiSoo and Winta were invisible. JiSoo cleared her throat, glaring at her.

  “Everyone,” Davina added grudgingly.

  Tarun had warned Ava to stay away from the dolphin girls, telling her they all seemed shiny and rosy at first, but something dark, filthy, and rotten seeped beneath all the makeup and designer clothing—much like Elaine and her flock.

  Ava still couldn’t make up her mind about them.

  Because of everything she had going through her head that morning, she wanted them to leave, but she didn’t have the guts to say it out loud. How could she tell some of the prettiest, most popular water animals that she didn’t want them around?

  Tarun, approaching their table at that moment, noticed her apprehension and stepped in, “Babe, can you scooch down so I can join you?”

  “Oh! Sure.” Instead of moving over though, Ava got up and moved to the other side of the table so James—who had approached with Tarun—could sit next to Winta, and then Tarun could sit with Ava on the other side.

  “Pass the potatoes?” Tarun smiled brightly, looking way too chipper for 6:30 AM.

  “Sure, here you go,” Ava answered, looking more confused. Why was he talking like a cheap Chinese robot?

  He laid a heavy glop on his plate, moving on to a subject that had nothing to do with the dolphins whatsoever. “I got a letter from my mother yesterday; she’s doing better than the doctors thought she would be.”

  Ava dropped her fork, poised to eat, “Really? Tarun, that’s so great! She’s fought so hard.”

  “Yeah,” he answered with less enthusiasm than one would expect.

  The dolphins lost interest and continued to chat among themselves.

  “My aunt told me they’d be home soon,” Tarun went on. “Oh, and that her wigs are driving her crazy.”

  Ava giggled. “I can totally imagine. Wigs are so itchy.”

  “How’s your dad? You rarely talk about him anymore this year,” JiSoo interjected.

  “Uh, he’s doing okay. You know, considering the circumstances.”

  Ava’s brows creased as he answered. He was lying again. She gave Tarun a sharp and inquisitive look. Tarun nodded, avoiding her eyes and digging into his food. “Really? When was the last time he wrote to you?” she pressed.

  “It’s been a while, you—uh—know, with the um—the um, chemo and everything—my mother takes up most of his time,” he stuttered blatantly. At that point, Ava was sure everyone at the table—including the dolphins—could tell he was lying.

  “Oh, is that so?”

  Tarun definitely realized he’d dug himself into a hole when he looked up at her. She smiled sweetly and turned to JiSoo and Winta. She’d find out why he was lying later, during practice.

  After finding out just how much training would be involved, Ava’s interest in the winter games waned considerably in the following hours, especially when Levine announced in class those who’d made the team to represent the school for the games.

  She heard her name, but the former zest was gone. All she could do was stare at the old grandfather clock, counting seconds until the end of classes.

  “Those I called should report to my office as soon as classes end today.”

  That was exactly the kind of announcement Ava didn’t want to hear.

  “Guess we have to postpone your practice today,” Tarun commented quietly, leaning in to her.

  “Actually, can I talk to you outside after this class?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Sure.”

  They fell silent. He inched his fingers toward her. Deftly, she moved hers out of reach.

  What was he thinking, lying to a unicorn?

  But he had a good reason—he hoped she would understand that.

  At the end of class, the bell trilled in the distance. The sound had just barely landed when Ava shot to her feet, dragging him along. Tarun glanced at James.

  You’re on your own…James’s eyes said.

  They stopped just beside one of the double doors, and she glared at him. “I thought you trusted me.” Her turquoise eyes pierced holes in his head.

  This wasn’t the direction he was hoping to go. He took a deep breath and decided to tell her. “Ava, it’s definitely not that…”

  “Then what is it? Why are you lying to me?” Her eyes went wide. “Did something happen? Did your dad run away, too?”

  Pain, anger, and regret jolted through Tarun, fresh memories of that dark night hitting him all at once again. Precisely the reason why he chose not to talk about it.

  She must’ve noticed the pain behind his silence because she deflated and engulfed him in a hug. Tarun’s arms wrapped around her, and he buried his face in her hair as he spoke, his voice muffled. “I do trust you, Ava. It’s just hard to talk about.”

  “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here, even if I’m dying of curiosity.”

  Though she couldn’t see, he grinned. “Curious cat.”

  She punched him softly, “You and JiSoo got all the cat jokes, huh?”

  He grinned again, sobered, and stared at her smiling face. As was usual for her, one moment she was a raging furnace, the next she was consoling him. “I don’t deserve you, Ava. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he blurted.

  She blushed the deepest shades of pink, holding his gaze, and said quietly, “No, you are. I can’t imagine how I’d have survived this school without you.”