Secret of the Unicorn (Avalon: Web of Magic #4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

found herself healing the last of the injured. Her knees wobbling, she sank to the ground, the dry seed heads of the autumn grass tickling her hands as she leaned back and felt the slight breeze cooling the sweat from her brow. Still, she couldn’t quite seem to relax. A tiny nagging hint of something—a sound?—tickled the edges of her mind, like a teasing memory. But what was it? She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, but the vague sense of uneasiness remained.
    Ozzie scampered up to Emily. “You did an amazing job. Who would have thought when I first met you that you would be the perfect healer mage I was looking for!” The ferret beamed with pride.
    “Thanks, Ozzie,” she said distractedly. Something was buzzing in her ear. Climbing to her stiff, tired legs with a groan, Emily glanced around the meadow once more, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. But nothing she saw gave her an answer, so she just shrugged and followed Ozzie over to where her friends were standing among a kaleidoscope of creatures.
    “Does anyone hear that?” she asked.
    “Hear what?” Kara panted as she jogged over with Lyra.
    Another wave of frenzied, broken, tuneless noise swept through Emily, like needles of sound piercing her all over. “That!” she gasped. “Those sounds. Can’t you hear it?”
    Adriane shot her a concerned glance. “What does it sound like?”
    “Like—like an instrument badly out of tune.”
    “You’re probably just exhausted.” Kara smiled briefly at Emily, then turned and clapped her hands for attention. “Is that everyone?” she called. “Does anyone else need help? Speak up, guys.”
    “We’re all better,” the red wommel answered. “Thank you, healer!”
    “Yes, thank you, healer!” More creatures echoed the wommel’s gratitude as a cheer rose up over the meadow.
    “You were incredible,” Adriane said to Emily.
    “Yeah, really,” Kara agreed.
    Emily gave them a tired smile. A few worried mumbles from a handful of quiffles caught her attention. They were gathered around Ronif.
    “You heard it, too?” one quiffle asked another.
    “Where did it go . . . must be hurt really bad. . . too dangerous. . .”
    Emily stepped toward the quiffles. “What are they saying, Ronif?”
    “There might be another wounded creature, healer,” the quiffle answered.
    “Where?”
    Ronif edged a little quiffle forward. “Tell them what you know, Waldo.”
    The quiffle called Waldo shrugged. “I think there was another, healer,” he said, flapping his rubbery silver beak. “It was making horrible sounds.”
    “Sounds?” Emily echoed. She felt a chill trickle down her spine. “Ariel, did you see anyone else?”
    “Something runs, hidden.”
    “What kind of creature?” Emily asked Waldo as Adriane, Kara, Stormbringer, and Lyra walked over to join her.
    Before the quiffle could say anything more, a newly arrived pooxim—a sleek little creature that looked like a cross between a songbird and a rabbit—spoke up in a singsong voice. “I see -saw it,” the pooxim announced. “A glim -gleaming blue thing with flish -flashing angry eyes full of magic.”
    “Did anyone else see this magic creature?” Adriane asked.
    “There was something behind us, following us!” another wommel cried excitedly. “We barely got away from it. It tried to run us over.”
    “But it wasn’t blue,” Waldo said. “It was green. It nearly kicked my head off.”
    “You’re both wrong,” a pegasus piped up. “It was a big purple beastie.”
    “No, it was red,” a quiffle disagreed. “And it was howling so horribly I almost lost my mind—and my eardrums.”
    “Wait a second.” Emily held up a hand. “Waldo said the creature was green, and the pooxim said blue. But you guys saw red and purple.”
    The pegasus shrugged his sleek, spotted shoulders. “It was so hectic when we came through the portal. Maybe I can’t be sure of the color, but the sounds it made were unforgettable.”
    “Maybe