Luke gave him a look of loathing, and tugged at a handful of his own golden but admittedly short hair. “Thanks for the suggestion.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful, loser,” Elliot snapped.
“Try harder!” Luke snapped back.
“Perhaps some other article belonging to you?” Serene called out from the leaves. “Loath though I am to suggest you compromise your modesty in any way by disrobing . . .”
Elliot kept thinking that there must be a limit to how scandalized Luke could seem about this situation, on a scale from slight-social-faux-pas to nudist-at-the-vicar’s-tea-party. Currently he was at Victorian-aunt-time-traveled-to-a-strip-club.
Luke pulled off the blue jumper his dad had knitted for him at Christmas. It was immediately clear to everyone that it had been almost two years of continuous physical exercise since the time Luke used to go swimming in the lake and get swarmed by girls.
There was a thump and a flutter of falling leaves, like a small localized storm of greenery. Dale Wavechaser had fallen out of his tree.
Elliot began to laugh so hard he was afraid he was going to fall out of the tree himself. He stopped laughing when the unicorn gave an equine snarl and tried to turn in Dale’s direction.
“Nonono,” said Luke, hastily looping his jumper around the unicorn’s pale gleaming neck and tying the blue woolen sleeves tight. “Don’t do that. Take deep breaths. Uh, find your center. Nice horsie.”
“Wow, he’s trying to use my yoga routine on a unicorn,” Elliot remarked.
“Come on, please let this be over, nice horsie,” muttered Luke, and the unicorn began to trot obligingly to keep up with Luke’s fast pace, through the trees and away.
“Well, no harm done except the upholding of harmful moral values by a cranky equine,” said Elliot, and slid gratefully from his branch to the ground.
“Cadet Schafer, get back in the tr—” the commander began furiously, but her voice was obscured by the thunder of hooves and the sound of those hooves ripping turf as the unicorn charged back.
The creature was a blur of white and silver, the sound it made a scream: Luke’s scream back was almost birdlike. Elliot scrabbled for a branch, but there was none in reach.
Luke was a blur, faster than the unicorn. He had to vault over the animal: he jumped between them.
There was a horrible moment when Elliot slipped out from between Luke and the tree and Elliot saw blood on Luke’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asked in stark terror. Even the unicorn was still, as if in confusion.
Luke’s eyes had been shut, but they opened. “Yes,” he said in a small, tight voice. “Get back in the tree.”
The murderous beast danced back an uncertain step, and Elliot saw that what Luke had said was true. The unicorn had stopped its lunge just in time. It was only a graze.
Elliot got back in the tree. They all stayed up in the tree for a long time after Luke led the unicorn away by the rags of his jumper, probably longer than they needed to. The only person who spoke was Serene, who asked Elliot quietly if he was all right.
“He’s perfectly well, not that he deserves to be,” snapped the commander before Elliot could reply. “Now be quiet.”
Luke and his small squad came back, Luke wearing a spare war cadet’s uniform top and keeping his head down. Everyone descended from the trees.
“Walk with me, Cadet Schafer,” said the commander, and they walked at the front of the troop.
Elliot walked with his eyes on the horizon, watching for the Border camp. The commander spoke to him as they marched, and her words fell like blows. He concentrated on walking and not stumbling.
“You were not supposed to be on this expedition,” said the commander. “That is not because I blindly follow military protocol, but because it was necessary that everyone on this trip have military training and be able to defend themselves. Are you able to defend yourself?”
“No,” said Elliot, and when the commander gave him an inquiring look he spoke louder. “No.”
“That means that other people have to put their lives at risk to defend you,” the commander said. “That is why you are forbidden to come on these missions, no matter how clever you think you are or how much you believe the rules should not apply to you. For the sake of other people’s lives. Do you understand now, or does someone have to actually die?”
“I understand,” Elliot said through his teeth. He thought he might be sick.
“And you will never, ever come on another military foray without my express permission?”
“I won’t,” said Elliot. His mouth was dry. “I swear.”
As soon as they arrived back at the Border camp, the commander dismissed Elliot, and he could at last go find Luke and Serene.
They had not even gone to their cabins yet, but were standing sorting through the weapons from their packs and putting the dull ones aside. They looked up as he approached. Luke’s expression was not particularly pleasant. Elliot had been thinking of what he should say, how he could apologize or thank him, but a brainwave occurred to him: something good had happened today, and reminding Luke of that would surely cheer him up.
“So Dale Wavechaser fell out of a tree,” said Elliot, making significant gestures with his eyebrows alone.
Luke appeared unimpressed. “I suppose you think people falling out of trees and getting hurt is funny too.”
“No,” said Elliot. “Well, yes, in this specific instance, because of reasons. Him falling out of a tree is great for you.”
“Elliot, why would I want people to fall out of trees?”
Elliot abandoned this clearly unproductive line of reasoning.
“You saved him from a unicorn,” Elliot urged. “I mean, in that you saved us all. As lines go, that one’s bound to be a winner. It has novelty on its side! Go talk to him!”
Luke turned a baleful gaze upon him. “I have never been so embarrassed in my whole life,” he said. “And it’s your fault. I am going to bed.”
“Luke,” Serene said, “you have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. Rather, you should feel proud that despite the urgings of your manly nature you have kept your virtue intact!”
“It’s like seven-thirty, loser,” Elliot pointed out.
“And I may never get up!” Luke shouted over his shoulder.
“What I just said was disrespectful and I’m sorry,” Serene said after a moment’s pause.
Elliot took her hand, lacing her fingers with his own. “That’s okay, baby, I’m pretty comfortable with being a wanton.”
He looked over to Serene with a smile, but she was not looking at him. She was looking off into the distance, and the pin-scratch mark between her brows, Elliot knew, would have been frantic worry on a human face.