Ashley paced through the halls, face wrought with worry. What she had seen through Gabriel worried her. She hoped they would be back soon.

  “Your pacing won’t bring them back any faster, you know,” a voice cooed.

  She gasped with surprise and turned. “You cannot sneak up on me like that.”

  “Didn’t mean to,” Glacier said curtly.

  He looked better than he had when he came, mane combed neatly, cloak ironed and pinned up. His personality, on the other hand, remained the same as she remembered. Utilitarian, smug, a touch demeaning.

  “Finally decided to come out of your cage, I see. Is your purpose in this to trifle with me?” she said.

  “No. I didn’t come to you without reason.” He was serious now.

  She raised her head in interest. “What can I do?”

  He brought her into Rhapsody’s old room, purple curtains now dusted off and sporting their colors more vibrantly. The vanity table had been cleared, cracked powder and rancid hoof oil replaced with new. The rest was unchanged, her closet still stuffed with mare’s cloaks in a myriad of colors. Glacier’s own garments were draped over the curtain rod.

  “That’s not like you,” she said, running a hoof through the hem of one. “I know that you are quite neat.”

  “Exactly. I just-don’t want to irritate him,” Glacier said. “Apollo may have left me, but he’s not gone. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  She flickered her ears. “What made you think this? I thought his spirit went out the window in the night, when Greg visited you.”

  “That’s true, but I don’t think he went back to where he came from,” Glacier said, staring out the window. “He left with a sort of purpose-like he had thought about it for some time. I think he plans to start over with someone else.”

  “Who else could Apollo infiltrate? Marshall’s the only other horse with ice magic, and he’s not practiced,” Ashley said.

  Glacier rubbed the back of his head. “He’s not the only one. I have two fillies at home. I couldn’t leave them defenseless. Serenity, my eldest, she has ice magic. She’s not well practiced, but there’s no telling what she’s done now that I’ve gone missing.”

  “What about your younger daughter?” Ashley asked.

  “Tempest is safe. She has her mother’s magic. Fauna,” he explained.

  Ashley sat on the bed, hooves resting gently on her stifles. “I suppose you want me to check on Serenity, then.”

  “Can you do that from here? I was hoping so,” Glacier said.

  Ashley nodded. “It’s possible. I need something from you first.”

  He sat on the floor in front of her, and she placed her hoof on the crown of his head, brushing his mane out of the way.

  “Try to relax the best you can. It makes it easier,” Ashley said. “Deep breaths.”

  “Will it hurt this time?”

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  She laughed. “No. If you don’t fight me, that is.”

  Gently, she put her other hoof under his head to support it as he started to drift off. She could see Serenity on the surface, a pretty dove grey mare with Glacier’s Baroque features. But another memory lingered in the background, beckoning softly from the shadows. Calling out a name repeatedly.

  “Rosalynd!”

  There was a lot of blood, and ice, chestnut hair and dark brown eyes turning to glass. Insidious vines winding around every corner, like a virus, infesting the mind. She left the memory where it was. It was painful to him, she knew by the way it made his heart jump when she touched it.

  She turned back to Serenity. She was a beautiful dancer, face like a doll, neck in a graceful arch. Picture perfect in her frame. Glacier looked upon her with pride, but a tiny shred of fear. Beneath her golden smile, a burning desire. She was admired, yes, but she was lacking in something. To be seen and understood. Ashley knew this feeling.

  She took a sharp breath as she released Glacier’s mind. Her hoof still cradled his head, and he began to wake slowly.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He shook out his mane to wake himself up. “Did you see her?”

  She nodded. “I should be able to find her. Take my hoof. I need you to ground me. I doubt things will get messy, but I don’t want to end up stuck in her brain.”

  He sighed with relief and held her hoof tightly. “Thank Epona.”

  Ashley folded her legs beneath her and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply, and pushed Glacier’s memory to the forefront of her mind. She turned her ears slowly, listening for the sounds of Serenity’s world. A phone was ringing in the distance. She followed the noise. Her eyes rolled back to the whites, and Glacier stroked her hoof softly, comforting himself more than her.

  Serenity picked up the phone. “Hello, this is Sylvan Serenity. You’ve reached the house of Glacial Divinity,” she said.

  “Brilliant. You are precisely who I wanted to talk to,” the voice on the other end said. It was vaguely accented, of European origin, perhaps.

  “Can I ask who this is?” Serenity said, raising her brow in suspicion. Ashley was hit with her extensive memory of prank calls.

  “My name is Frieda. Forget Me Not,” she answered. “I speak for an organization by the name of Nighthawk Solutions.”

  Serenity wrapped the stray cord of the telephone around her hoof. “I have not heard of it.”

  “We are responsible for the lifelong containment of nearly one hundred fugitive horses. I have a proposition for you regarding your wild horse problem,” the mare went on.

  “Wild horse problem? It is being dealt with. Laci has already been contained by ERUJ. Our forces have planned a mission to recover my father,” Serenity affirmed.

  “ERUJ? I’m afraid I’ve heard that name recently, on the news,” the mare said. Her voice was odd, containing too much indulgent pleasure for this sort of conversation.

  Serenity began typing rapidly on her father’s computer. “What sort of proposition do you have for me, then?”

  “Nighthawk tires of cleaning up ERUJ’s mess,” she drawled.

  The computer screen was lit up with flames and headlines. Laci had been freed by some unknown rebel force, and the ERUJ building itself was crumbling to ash. Horses scattered the plains around it, fleeing from the destruction.

  “But of course, we would be glad to help you clean it up permanently. For the right price,” Frieda continued.

  “What do you bring to the table? I won’t just throw money at you. I don’t even know what you do,” Serenity demanded.

  The horse on the other end paused. “I was hoping you would ask. We have an...unconventional way of putting an end to these things. Not unlike your father.”

  A grey Baroque stallion strutted into the officer from behind Serenity. Apollo.

  “What do they want now?”

  Glacier pulled Ashley back into the bedroom, and she nearly fell to the ground. He steadied her quickly with a hoof to her shoulder. She was breathing unsteadily.

  “Your suspicion is true,” she told him. “Serenity has been visited by Apollo.”

  “What do we do?” Glacier exclaimed.

  She stood up and began to rush for the door. “I need Doctor Greg. There’s more to this than the two of them.”