When the first wagon drew even with the place where the unicorn lay asleep, the old woman suddenly pulled her black horse to a stop. All the other wagons stopped too and waited silently as the old woman swung herself to the ground with an ugly grace. Gliding close to the unicorn, she peered down at her for a long time, and then said, “Well. Well, bless my old husk of a heart. And here I thought I’d seen the last of them.” Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air. “If he knew,” she said and she showed pebbly teeth as she smiled. “But I don’t think I’ll tell him.”

Honey, gunpowder, dried herbs and pleonectic, twopenny magics.