Later, when at last everyone was safely accounted for, Evan insisted on leaving alone to locate the demon once more. Roland protested. You look like shit, my friend. Can't you stop playing the tragic hero for one damn minute?

            But one minute was time better spent tracking their enemy. Every moment they dallied could mean the life of another unicorn lost. How many are left, I wonder? I didn't even used to think they existed.

            He carried a hot cup of tea to the alcove, on orders from the Adept. The microwave was a much easier way to warm water, which defeated his argument against the stuff. He lay back with the mug balanced on his stomach, and stared across the room at the shelves that contained Rebecca's book collection. A few things he had replaced for convenience, but for the most part, he'd left the place as it was – and the rows of assorted brightly-colored books were one thing that he could never bring himself to get rid of. The Berenstein Bears, Paddington, Charlotte's Web, and The Saggy Baggy Elephant crowded shoulder-to-shoulder with his own Whitman, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Auel, and college texts on the theory of music that he rarely read.

Presiding over all was the series of Rebecca's picture books on the shelf above...glossy-paged beauties that photographed everything from carousel horses to Ireland and Singapore.

How Pasha managed to get up there, he'd never understand. He was peacefully perusing the spines of the books and nursing a raw throat again when a blur of white signaled the beginning of the feline's march across the tall hardbacked volumes. Roland sat upright and only just avoided splattering his thighs with piping hot liquid. "Pasha! Get down!"

Wince. Brilliant. Yell with a sore throat. Evan shouldn't leave you alone. You'll kill yourself just out of sheer stupidity.

The cat threw him a superior glance, and continued picking a delicate trail across the books. One caught her attention, and a tiny pink nubbin of a nose dropped to sniff it thoroughly. Then nudge. And nudge again. A paw hooked behind it as she stepped back, the better to force it free of its imprisonment.

She's...strong...

Inch by inch, the book came free, and fell with a solid thump to the floor, followed by a well-pleased cat. Pasha squatted on it, squeezing her yellow-orange eyes meaningfully at the Bard. He set his cup aside and rolled to the edge of the bed, resting his chin on one forearm as he assessed cat and her leather-bound prey.

A photo-documentary on New York City. Manhattan, actually—weren't most books on the Big Apple about Manhattan? "Watcha got, kitty?" He asked, in a falsetto intended to be irritating.

She rolled her eyes.

He reached for the book, and a pale velveted paw flashed out to cuff him in admonishment before Pasha shooed off of the cover to land beside him on the mattress. Roland dragged the picture book up onto the covers and flipped it open. "What...do you want me to read captions for you?"

A low, throaty growl issued from her throat.

"I was kidding."

Her tail merely whipped menacingly as she pawed the book once more, and blinked at him with eyes gone huge and vaguely urgent.

"All right, I get it. What page?"

Another growl, as her eyes narrowed dangerously. Get serious, she seemed to threaten. He snickered, but flipped through the pages slowly, allowing the cat a thorough perusal of each photo.

I can't believe this. I'm reading to the cat.

Tom would have a heyday with this one.

The Empire State Building, the stage of Carnegie Hall, the gilded statue at Rockefeller Plaza and its icy winter skating rink...they eased beneath his fingers and her squinting gaze. He wondered just how well she could see. Weren't cats farsighted?

And then, as the massive, vibrant green two-page spread of Central Park flipped open, she pounced, both forepaws smacking the shiny paper, nails out and pricking holes in the book.

"Hey!" He protested, and unhooked her from her prey as she spat in frustration. "Take it easy, little one!" He read the caption for the name, and nodded. "I get it...Central Park. What's with Central Park?"

She sat, paws primly tucked in and whipcord tail curled about her feet, staring at him from a pose so rigid that she might well have been an alabaster rendition of Bast. Roland returned her stare.

"Something I should tell Evan about?"

Slowly, deliberately, she nodded.

As though on cue, footsteps in the outer room alerted them both to the Adept's return. The warm smell of fresh bread and hot pastrami indicated that he'd brought lunch with him as well. Roland rose, collecting his tea to at least look the part of the obedient invalid. Evan met him at the bedroom door, mien sober. "Sit," he ordered, and shook the bag. "We'll eat here. You're not moving."

Roland's eyebrows drew down in irritation. "My throat hurts. I didn't break a leg, for Christ's sake!"

"What makes you think," Evan purred, "that I don't have my own motives?"

"Oh..." The temperature of the room rose uncomfortably, and despite himself, he grinned. "Some reason to celebrate."

"Sort of. The demon's heading southeast, along the lake and the Hudson."

"They can't teleport?"

"They're not powerful enough," Evan replied, tugging two paper-wrapped deli sandwiches out of a sack dropped on the mattress. He shoved the first of the pair towards Roland. "Eat."

The Bard picked up his sandwich obediently. His brow furrowed in thought. "Then what did he do this morning?"

"He became intangible." A crust was torn from the upper slice of Evan's sourdough and neatly popped into his mouth. His eyes closed in ecstatic delight, and he peeled the top slice off to run a fingertip through the mustard.

"You make it sound like a parlor trick." Roland snickered between bites, and tried to ignore him when an index fingertip coated with the stone-ground yellow slurry disappeared into Evan's mouth. He'd forgotten just how fascinating it was to watch the Adept with food – he made eating into an incredibly sensual experience. Evan nodded as though the Bard had said something profound.

"It is, essentially." He agreed, "Apparating requires a lot of power. But every creature, Dark or Light, has the ability to become intangible...disappear. How do you think the unicorns have evaded your people so well, so long?"

"Good point," Roland grunted. Evan reached out and patted his shoulder. Roland tried to ignore the fact that it was the same hand, the same fingertip that the Adept had just removed from his mouth. His face flushed. Upon noting it, Evan goaded him to finish his meal, eyes sparkling with mischief. A fortunate thing...chewing gave him several more minutes to dig an unsteady foundation of self-control.

Nobody told me that being a Bard would make me think about sex every time one of these damn Adepts is within eyeshot, Roland accused the Crone, safe and chaste and untempted beneath her lilac bushes. "So, the demon's heading southeast?"

"Yes," Evan answered, distracted by a thick, ridged and crunchy pickle. "I don't know where it's headed. We'll have to—"

He yelped and cut off abruptly, and blinked down in surprise at the disruption attached to his thigh.

Pasha blinked back, yellow-orange eyes wide and urgent, just as they had been earlier. She flattened her ears and sank the claws of both forepaws into his knee.

"You have my attention, furred one..." Nimble fingers popped the last of his sandwich into his mouth, and deftly unhooked the cat's vicious curved daggers from his jeans.

"Pasha thinks she knows where it's headed." Roland explained, and dug behind him for a moment to fish out the book where it lay open. "New York City. Manhattan...Central Park, to be exact."

There was a full-page glossy of Belvedere Castle, and a pair of triangular feline ears pricked over the image as Evan held it up. "That's it! That's where it's going...it makes perfect sense!" He riffled a few more pages in excitement, and Roland ignored Pasha's smugly satisfied expression only with severe restraint.

"Of course it makes perfect sense," a familiar tinny voice said from nowhere.

A sudden chime of fingerbells rang out across the room, and with an audible pop, a familiar, fuzzy red ball of fur slid into existence. It landed with a thin, indignant squawk on the floor after a two-foot fall from midair. A nasal whimper, and it uncoiled, revealing a cherry red opossum face with pebble green eyes, and pink tissue-paper ears.

"Sam?" Roland chanced, on the slim possibility that there was another lion-foot rodent wandering Toronto. Sam glared up at him from his place on the floor, three-foot-long tail curled primly around his feet. Pasha threw the Greebo a look of gentle amusement and trilled.

"Who else?" Sam asked impatiently. "The pair of you should be on your way South by now! The hunters are too many, and have killed too much! The Central Park unicorns are the only ones left!"

"We don't know that for sure," Evan replied calmly, stroking the worried expression out of Pasha's eyes. He buried his hands in her ruff, and she calmed, yellow-orange eyes half-lidding.

"The demon and its hunters are converging on New York. It has many, many followers! If you don't kill that thing soon, you'll never get close enough to it again!"

"How many hunters are with it?" Evan asked, still deadly cool. His palm whispered along Pasha's spine. Roland couldn't fathom his reaction. Only hours earlier, the Adept had been practically frantic over his inability to find their opponent. He reached for the book and cradled it in his lap, as Patience was across the room and his hands twitched to have something filling them.

"Only one," Sam stated, "We have followed it, and there is only one. A woman. It is she who has killed the most. We believe she is its favorite." He reared up on his hind paws, stamping his forepaws against the side of the bed and glaring with wild, angry eyes at the two men and the cat. "But there are others we have sensed, all coming this way! They are too many! We must hurry!"

"We'll be on our way tomorrow, Sam," Evan affirmed. "But Roland's voice is still recovering, and what good is he to us if he cannot sing?"

Hey… Roland protested indignantly, but kept his mouth shut and reminded himself sternly not to be so sensitive. Sam hadn't been quite this agitated the first time the Bard had made his acquaintance. The Greebo turned critical green eyes on Roland, and shifted his gaze back to Evan. "He looks fine to me."

Evan gave a long-suffering sigh. "He'll be ready by Saturday, two days from now. I promise you." The Adept favored Roland with a bracing smile, which Roland returned. "We both will."

"Overconfidence never won anyone anything but sorrow," Sam reminded, tone ominous despite his grating voice. "See that you don't suffer from it. We're counting on the two of you." And with another pop, he was gone.

Roland and Evan stared at the spot where he had been quietly. Finally, as his eyes dropped to the book's glossy pages again, Roland spoke.

"What makes so much sense about Central Park? I don't suppose the demon's interested in a paddle on the lake and a hot dog, is it…?"

Evan shook his head as Roland's voice trailed off. "There are only three unicorns left in existence on this continent. And under such strained times, they cannot take the time to reproduce. Two of them are located in the innermost sanctum of this park." A long, blunt fingertip tapped the glossy photo.

"How do you know there's three? How do you know Sam's wrong? Where's the third one?" Roland asked. "How can we be sure that what Lassie over there's trying to tell us is right?" Pasha flattened her ears and spat at him indignantly. "For all we know, the demon may go after him first!"

"Her." Evan corrected, licking his fingers of the last crumbs from his sandwich and stroking Pasha's ears to mollify her, a bit of pastrami offered on the tips of his fingers to her as well. She eased, hackles lowering, though her amber-yellow eyes still lay on Roland with an eerily human expression of dislike.

"What?"

"Her. All of the unicorns in the world are female. Well…in a manner of speaking."

The last of Roland's meal disappeared with a swallow and a sputter. "What the hell does that have to do with anything? And you didn't answer my question. And they're all female? Then what does it matter if we save them? They can't…y'know…"

            Evan shrugged. "It has nothing to do with our cause…and everything. As for where the third unicorn hides," he thumbed Pasha's forehead meditatively, "even the Light cannot be sure where all of its bits and pieces are at all times. It is not like the Dark. It does not jealously horde all of its children."

            There was just enough hurt in Evan's voice at what Roland had unknowingly implied with his question that it broke the Bard's concentration. Then again, any show of negative emotion from the Adept would be likely to break his concentration. Roland hastened to comfort him. "Hey…" He reached across the book and the wrappers of their dinners to pull the other man into his arms. Blonde hair settled against his shoulder in perfect harmony as Evan relaxed, forehead just gently pressing against the pulse of his throat.

            "I didn't mean it like that…I just don't want to go in the wrong direction, Evan. Central Park…that's a long trip…that's…"

            "A day and a half," Evan nodded, "by car."

            "But I don't have…"

            "We'll get one. All you need to do is be ready to go tomorrow, with her…" Evan gestured to Patience, leaning quietly with Ease, just inside the bedroom alcove, "and her."

            Pasha mewed, right on cue.

Roland stared at her. "Look, I know she's not just a cat…but what good…I mean, we're fighting demons, here."

            "We may need her after all, Roland. If you remember, a cat saved your life once before." Evan leaned back and pushed the pale hair out of his eyes with an impatient sigh, his bracelets chiming softly together. I thought you'd be a little more open-minded about all of this; the sigh seemed to say, I thought you'd learned something while I was here, and while I was gone.

            "Yeah, but Tom was different," Roland protested, squirming a little under the implications of that sigh.

            "Of course Tom was different. All cats are different. Just as all people and all pieces of the Light…"

            "Damnit!"

            Evan frowned, and Roland sighed, wincing as the exclamation brought out the slow ache in his throat. He slipped his arms beneath Evan's, and stole just for a moment under the soft, thin fabric of his pullover to stroke the other's too-warm golden navel. "I'm sorry, Evan," He murmured huskily. "That just means you win."

            Evan and Pasha purred in tandem, and that made it all right. He maneuvered them down into the warmth of the mattress, smiling to himself as Evan nestled into the curve of his body and the cat, eventually; found her place coiled against the Adept's stomach. For a few more precious minutes, they simply lay quietly together and enjoyed the relative safety of one another's company.

            "To understand unicorns, you have to understand that they're not animals," Evan said quietly after a spell, shifting the soft overlay of silence aside without shattering it completely. Roland simply stroked his stomach again, breathing into the silken flutter of his companion's hair and leaving the silence to encourage Evan to continue. He'd had seven years denied this pleasure. Be damned if he was going to do anything to break the contact now unless he had to. Evan didn't seem hurried at all, and Pasha dozed quietly against his middle, fur tickling the backs of Roland's hands. Odd. They should be hurrying, and yet…they weren't.

            "Unicorns don't need males and females to reproduce, the way mortals do. They don't mate."

            "Then how do they…?" Roland asked, trailing off as he felt his cheeks heat. Lovemaking unicorns really weren't on the agenda today, but for some reason – most likely the reason being one particular Adept of the Light – he couldn't help but think about it. Evan smiled as though he'd felt the rising flush of Roland's skin.

            "They capture a small snatch of the Light – a lovely thought, a kiss, a smile – and incubate it like an egg within their wombs. Within them, it is molded, taking on their aspect as a foal. Unicorns carry their young to term the same way horses do – though the period is far, far shorter – and give birth in the normal way. They cannot inbreed. If there were only one unicorn left in the world, it would be able to re-populate the world, given the time."

            Roland took in all of this quietly, wondering if his love for Evan was making unicorn babies right now. Then…he remembered what the Adept mentioned about how the impending danger had forced the unicorns to stop reproducing. "You never told me how you know those two unicorns are in Central Park," He reminded Evan, simply for the sake of changing the subject. The reply he received was a troubled frown, though by the looks of it, it was a long-lived frown.

            Evan patted his hands and dislodged Pasha, rolling away to collect their wrappers and get to his feet. "I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Right now, you're going to rest. I'm going to take care of the car, and then I'll be back."

            "Will you?" Roland asked, suddenly, reached out and caught the Adept's jingling left wrist just above the bracelets. Evan stared down at him, uncomprehending.

            "Of course I will, Roland."

            "No, not that. I mean…when this is all over…will you…?" He faltered, as the desperation in his own raw voice rang out with embarrassing clarity. His cheeks reddened a brighter shade than they already were. Begging the Light to stay with him when he knew very well that the Adept could not possibly do such a thing! Honestly! How pathetic am I? "…No, never mind."

            Evan touched his wrist with a look that Roland, in his moment of weakness, translated as pity. It irritated him more than any words the Adept could have spoken.

            "Roland…"

            "I said, never mind," Roland growled.

Evan blinked, and his expression blanked as cleanly as though someone had pressed his 'off' button. Suddenly, Roland was alone in the room. It only took a split second of confusion to understand what had happened, and the Bard covered the warm handprint on his wrist with his other hand. He wanted to say a hundred things. Threaten Evan. Curse him. Damn him for what he'd caused, and awakened, and how he'd turned Roland's relatively ordinary, uneventful world on its head.

            In the end, he sighed. "I wish you'd stop doing that," Roland said to the space where the Adept had just stood, and fell back onto the pillows, glaring at the ceiling as the front of his shirt, warmed from the press of Evan's body, slowly cooled.

* * *

            Evan must have returned later that evening, as the next time Roland awoke, the too-warm golden body lay sprawled over his own, peacefully asleep. Surprise mingled with a little irritation, but moreover…relief. Evan's palm was gently spread over Roland's throat, and as the Bard swallowed, he found the pain had abated again. Soft starlight poured in and mingled with the warm, contented silence of the alcove. Outside the window was dark, but he'd slept enough for two healthy people in the past twelve hours, and with his battery at full charge, Roland found it impossible to sleep anymore. He also had a rather pressing need to pee, but with Evan lodged on top of him, the only way to get the business done without waking his friend was to wait until the Adept chose to move.

            That left him a free hour, at least, with nothing to do but think. Roland stroked the relaxed curve of Evan's softly glowing shoulder, and smiled at the other's faint murmur of pleasure in his sleep. He was going to miss this…miss it more than he'd ever thought he could miss anything.

            Daru, Uncle Tony, Mrs. Ruth…they had all been right, damn them. He'd grown up since his run-in with the Dark Adept, and knew what real pain was, and real fear, and real love. Everything else before, he knew with certainty, had been nothing compared to this. Nothing ever could be like it. Or hope to match it. How could a common, everyday marriage and a pretty house in the suburbs compare to making fierce, hungry love with an Adept of the Light then galloping off to save unicorns from a Dark demon?

What kind of girl could he save the world with?

            "Love hard, love 'til it hurts. It'll make it all worth it in the end." Roland said to himself in the soft still of the bedroom alcove, stirring a murmuring, incoherent reply from Evan. Did every Bard have an Adept of the Light to lust after? It certainly made the music come easier…after all, he really did have an angel waiting at home.

            But for how much longer?

            His hands lowered slowly to the sheets.

Evantarin of the Light. He was in love with Evantarin of the fucking Light.

And it was all Evan's fault.

He'd encouraged him…always pushing him just short of violating twenty-some…okay…thirty-some years of social conditioning. Oh, no, maybe Evan hadn't actually pushed the envelope; always standing just on the other side of the barrier separating him from Roland, waiting to be invited, but he'd damn well done some pretty posturing from that side of the fence. With those questions…those smiles…the heat in them was undeniable! If he'd been a little less freaked out, maybe the Adept would have made good on those inviting glances. And instead of sleeping with Rebecca…Evan would have been sleeping with him.

For what purpose?

Roland twisted uncomfortably under Evan's weight.

It wasn't like Evan got to stick around the first time. And maybe…maybe not sleeping with him through all that had made it easier to deal with all the 'bits and pieces' that came from caring about him, as Rebecca called it.

We should never have slept together, Roland sighed, once this is over, you'll go back home to elfland, or heaven, or whatever it is you people call it, and I'll be stuck here. Without you. And Goddamnit, I don't want anyone else! And until the next time some Dark Adept comes sniffing around, looking for a shift in the balance, I'll never even fucking see you! If I hadn't said…if we hadn't done anything…I could always have just thought about what it might've been like. You'd still be out of my reach, and I could have dealt with that.

Suddenly he couldn't bear not touching, and his hands hungrily claimed the other's skin in slow, wide circles along Evan's radiant spine. Now I have you, Evan, and God…Goddess…whatever help me…I do not want to give you back.

Evan whimpered distantly in sleep under his fingertips, and curled closer. Roland's heart broke all over again. But you hate it here. Even though you love us…you hate the thought of living here all the time. That's for the poor mortal slobs of the fucking gray. Living in this hellhole is for everyone else but you and your Light. Even if you could stay with me…you wouldn't. And according to Mrs. Ruth…apparently I'm stuck here. You couldn't even bring me through the barrier. Since I'm a fucking Bard.

"Bards can See, but they can't ever go through…"

ISAIDSHUTUP!

Roland switched poles, unexpectedly, and with a rude disregard for whether he woke up the man on top of him or not, he shoved Evan to the wall's side of the bed and got up to stumble to the bathroom. The blonde Adept mumbled a curse that didn't belong anywhere near his almost-pretty mouth, and rolled over away from Roland's shove.

One shoulder and most of his left side was numb. Great. He took care of his most pressing problem, and watched his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he shook feeling into his muscles. How could he be angry at Evan? After all…whether he'd be going back or not wasn't really his choice. He was a piece of the Light. His staying beyond the barriers would upset the balance between Light and Dark, and make a big gaping hole for another Adept of the Dark or worse to come through (if indeed there was something worse than an Adept of the Dark!). Roland knew with certainty that if it came down to that, he'd never be able to look at his own reflection again if he coerced Evan somehow into staying with him. Not, Roland silently reminded his crestfallen image in the mirror, as though I could twist Evan's arm into doing anything he doesn't want to do.

As he leaned over to turn on the taps and splash cold water to his cheeks and the back of his neck, a question niggled at the back of his mind. It pressed forward when he noticed it at last and called it out. Unicorns.

They went against everything Evan had ever said about the Light. The Light didn't always know where they were. They could reproduce out of hand. There was no limit to their existence, no specification that they had to return past the barrier to set the balance aright again. And yet…the Adept continually referred to them as the Light. How could pure creatures of the Light exist outside of...wherever it was Evan lived…without letting in boggles and wraiths from the other side?

If they could do it…

…Did that mean maybe Evan could, too…?

Roland shook his head fiercely, waves of hair bouncing around his shoulders, and stalked out of the bathroom. I'm grasping at straws. I should just accept things, the way Rebecca did. The way Daru did. Things don't always change because you want them to, they'd say. Some things just are. And there's nothing you can do about them.

"Defeatist attitude," Roland smirked into the darkness. Smirked at the Darkness. Sure. Evan's position in the Light made perfect sense. So did his duty, and the reason why he'd have to go back when his duty was over.

And in the face of all that, Roland smirked. "Fuck it," He said pleasantly; told tradition and defeatist attitudes right where they could get the hell off. He'd broken enough tradition just to end up where he was right now. What was the punishment of screwing with a few more? And in the end, if it didn't work and Evan still had to leave, well…

At least he'd tried, which would be more comforting at night – though not much – than knowing he hadn't lifted a finger.

And until that day came, he was going to let Evan know exactly how much he meant. He had another day and a half before they reached Central Park. A lot could happen in a day and a half, and Roland knew exactly what he'd be asking for if the unicorns rewarded them.

If they managed to save them.

Yellow-orange and stormy blue eyes were watching him curiously as Roland walked back into the bedroom alcove. Pasha's purr filled the room with lulling sound, and Evan smiled a heart-stopping smile.

They'd save them, of course, said that smile.

"Are you all right?" Evan asked, hopefully.

Hoping I'm not still pissed over nothing, Roland thought. And as he probed at himself, he realized that he wasn't. Not anymore. Not right now. "I'm fine," the Bard replied, and shrugged out of his clothes before acquiescing into Evan's arms. The Adept's body left an imprint on his skin with its heat, and he wanted to feel that heat again.

"What was wrong?" Evan traced Roland's lips with a gentle index finger, as though he could sense the angry, twisted snarl that had only just left them.

"It's fine." Which it was. "I was just thinking." Which he had been. "Maybe I'll tell you about it tomorrow." And…maybe he would, given the right circumstances. Evan eyed him closely, studying the blue-gray depths of Roland's gaze for some sign of untruth. He should have known better. After all, wasn't a Bard the best of the best at spinning harmless half-truths?