Chan screamed his throat raw, familiar terror gripping him instantly. “Mihn!” He surged forward to catch her, just as she had caught him last night. Just as he’d caught her not ten minutes ago.

But he was too late, and his heart leapt to his throat as he looked over the edge. 

A trio of griffins flew below. One carried Mihn on its back.

Chan watched them fly away, his heart once again resting. It wasn’t a peaceful rest, though: It writhed and whimpered like a child in a nightmare. 

“You’re bleeding, Chan,” came Injae’s voice from behind him.

Absently, Chan wiped his lip, eyes tracking the rapidly shrinking dots in the sky. 

“Your neck, too.”

“It’s fine,” Chan croaked. The dots disappeared completely, taking his hope with them. How could Mihn just leave like that? They were partners, a team. Didn’t she know how dangerous it was to go solo?

You pushed her too hard. You dug up something you had no business searching for. And now she can’t stand to be near you.

Gutted. He was absolutely and completely gutted, nothing but a sucking black hole where his heart used to be. And to think, ten minutes ago she’d lain atop him, trusting and lovely, accepting the comfort he had to give.

He would never forgive himself.

Chan whipped around, taking in Hanji and Injae sitting on opposite sides of the double-wide carpet, blackened powder between them. 

His wild eyes fixed on Hanji. “Tell me what you–” Mihn wasn’t even here, but her fingers might as well be clenching around Chan’s throat, silencing him. No, he couldn’t ask the witch, not when she had forbidden him. Chan wouldn’t trade her trust for answers. 

Chan cleared his throat and switched tacks. “So, it’s gone, then?”

Hanji’s bangs flew up from the force of his exhale. “Yeah. Fastest nullification I’ve ever done.” He gestured to the soot by his knees. “If we’d waited even a minute more, we’d have all been toast.” 

He jabbed his finger at Injae, who raised an eyebrow. Hanji hastily lowered the offending digit. “I expect to be compensated for nearly dying here, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Injae said, dry as the desert.

Chan nodded along, but his attention had already drifted down to the injured unicorns. Everything in him wanted to chase after Mihn, but…it stung. His soul hurt from their shouting match; Mihn abandoning him like that. His mind reeled, thoughts and hints doubling back and overlapping, confusing him. 

So he urged his carpet down, where dozens of unicorns needed his help. Would accept his help.

“Where are you going, Chan?” Injae called, flying down beside him. Why did she sound like a kindergarten teacher calling to a crying student?

“We need to take care of the unicorns. They’re dehydrated, fatigued, injured–what’s that?”

Smoke was curling up about a quarter mile from the herd. Chan grit his teeth. They didn’t need a grassland flash-fire on top of everything else. He zoomed faster.

“It’s just Hwa and Briggs,” called Injae over the wind, keeping pace with Chan. She sat ramrod straight as Hanji hunched like a turtle behind her. “I contacted them shortly after you left to get Han.”

Chan squinted at his boss. “Why? Their shift doesn’t start for another two days.”

Injae gave him a flat stare. “Are you really so distraught you can’t tell that we need help?”

Chan bit his tongue and turned back to face the ground. Now that he hovered mere feet above the smoking patch, he saw the tell-tale symbols of Briggs’ magic. His people were fire-born, and had invented this portal technique. Anyone could learn it, but few outsiders mastered it.

The grasses continued smoking until the symbols inscribed within the large circle were solid black. Then they flared into blinding white light and the land within the circle disappeared. Through it, Chan saw sapphire sky.

Traveling by demon portal was always trippy.

A boot appeared on the edge of the portal, sole to the rim, grass and dirt brushing the toe. The rest of Briggs swung into the portal, rocking forward. For a single moment, his bulky silhouette was framed against the sky on the ground, standing on the inner rim of the portal as if it were an archway, body parallel to the ground. A ferret clung to one black, curved horn atop his head. He seemed utterly unaffected by the massive backpack on his massive shoulders.

Then he took another step, tipping up and out of the portal, boots landing firmly on the grasses below Chan. 

Briggs knelt, wrapped a calloused hand around the edge of the portal, and chanted the incantation, harsh consonants shooting rapid-fire from his lips. The sky through the portal disappeared beneath a sheen of black for a moment before the natural ground re-appeared, charred symbols smudged and indecipherable.

Briggs wasn’t from an afterlife for the wicked. He was from a place far away from here, and Chan’s people had simply given Briggs’ people the moniker of ‘demon.’ The horns, red skin, and fire-magic made it an easy choice. Briggs, of course, called himself by his people’s proper name, which was Ti’naa.

The ferret flowed off Briggs's twin horns, over his inky black hair and bulky shoulder, leaping to the ground in a white blur. Briggs cast it a fond smile as it transformed into a tall, lanky Hwa clad in khaki.

"Ugh, I hate that," Hwa said, a full-body shudder making his shoulder length blonde hair tremble. "I always feel like I'm about to barf."

"Aw, is riding on my head not easy enough for you?" Briggs pouted.

Hwa sniffed. "You make it bearable."

Briggs’s laugh was as rapid-fire as his incantation. “Oh, if your grandmother could see you now!”

Hwa grinned. “Spending so much time in human form. Having a human job? Integrating into society? Bless her rodent heart; she must be rolling over in her tiny grave.”

Chan slid from his flying carpet, landing in between his two chuckling co-workers. Their happiness burrowed painfully under his skin like Tasmanian drill-worms. "You brought supplies for the unicorns?" he barked.

Hwa’s bony fingers splayed against his chest, and squinted. "Hi, Chan. Nice to see you, too."

Chan blinked. Shook his head. "Sorry, Hwa. I just… hi. How are you?"

Hwa looked Chan up and down, clicking his tongue. "Better than you, that's for sure. Where's Mihn? She's usually better at keeping you in one piece."

Chan couldn’t help it: he stumbled back from Hwa. Pressure threatened to cave in his lungs, drive him to his knees. The shallow wounds Mihn left on his neck and lip throbbed once. 

"Don't worry about Mihn," said Injae, eyeing Chan’s slumped form. "Let's just take care of the animals."

"Who's that?" shouted Briggs, jerking his chin at the witch perched next to Injae. 

"I'm the witch who just saved everyone," Hanji said hotly, glaring down at the denim-clad demon. Briggs crossed his arms. His biceps bulged impressively. It helped that his shirt was sleeveless. 

Injae sighed, as long-suffering as a saint. "His name is Hanji. Don't fight."

They all traveled to the unicorns. Some were slumped on the ground, sides heaving. Others wandered on unsteady legs. There was more red and brown than white on their coats.

The Rangers set out salt licks and tiny troughs of water that expanded with an incantation, and led the animals to them. They worked on cleaning and bandaging, moving slowly and speaking softly.

One fidgety stallion refused to be soothed into stillness so Chan could bandage a cut along his flank. I wish Mihn was here. The razor-like thought lanced through his heart, ripping as it went. Chan almost keeled over. He clung to the stallion, hot, sweaty fur pressing into his face as he clenched his eyelids shut.

What had Mihn meant? Something was wrong, but not wrong. And yet it was something so terrible she wanted to forget about it. Something she thought was unfixable. 

Something she couldn’t bear to share with Chan.

I could help, Mihn. If nothing else, I could mourn with you. You wouldn’t have to bear it alone.

He hoped those griffins were keeping his partner safe.

"What do you think you're doing?!” Briggs’s angry shout filled the air, kicking up a flurry of stamping from the unicorns. Chan heaved himself off the fidgety stallion and turned towards Briggs with a frown. He followed Briggs’ gaze to see Hanji crouched next to a unicorn laying on its side, holding a funneled vial to its bleeding wound. 

Hanji jumped, looking furtively over his hunched shoulders as Briggs stomped toward him. 

The cute little witch started babbling in a panic. “I’m not hurting them! The blood is coming out anyway, and I can use it! What’s so wrong with that?”

Hanji scrambled to his feet so he could face Briggs eye-to-eye when the buff demon reached him. The witch’s throat bobbed, and his shaking hands held the half-filled vial behind his back.

“We are here to help heal these creatures,” growled Briggs. “If you’re going to poach from them, I’ll shove you through a portal myself.” A sinister grin stretched his lips. “And you won’t like where I send you.”

Chan craned his neck, searching for Injae. Coming up empty, he jogged over to his co-worker and the witch, laying a gentle hand on Briggs’ hot shoulder. “Take it easy. He’s right. He wasn’t hurting this one.”

Briggs put his hands on his hips. “I don’t like it.”

Chan turned to Hanji, grief-slow brain catching on something important. “You said you could use it. Unicorn blood? For what?”

With Chan there, Hanji lost some of his nervous defensiveness. He took a step back from Briggs and half shrugged. “Lots of things. Every part of a unicorn is useful in witchery. Not–” he cast panicked eyes toward Briggs, who had shifted forward menacingly. “--not that I’m going to take any other body parts from them! Just what falls off naturally.”

Chan pushed Briggs back one more time before drawing his palm away. It was a few seconds away from blistering from the demon’s natural heat. “Okay. Explain more.”

Hanji licked his lips, gaze darting between the two Rangers. “It does a lot of things. Unicorn blood is a powerful catalyst, meaning you can cut your potion brewing time in half. When mixed with basilisk venom, it lowers the freezing point of a potion. When mixed with ground mint, you can use it to draw runes and diagrams, and they will last longer than anything else.”

Chan’s mind was reeling, and Hanji was speaking faster and faster, eyes gaining a manic gleam that matched his growing grin. “That’s just the blood. Fur helps with invisibility potions. The horn or bones make the best anti-magic amulets. I’ve heard of a fool-proof love potion involving a unicorn tongue. The eyes–”

“Okay, okay!” Chan shouted, squeezing his eyes shut and all but shoving his hand in the witch’s face to get him to shut up. “That’s enough. I don’t need to know more.”

“Ksusk,” Briggs swore. “If they are that valuable, do you think whoever made this lure will try again?”

Hanji shrugged. “I’m sure they know by now that their lure got nullified. I guess it depends on what they need these unicorns for, and how badly they want to do that thing.” He chewed his lip. "Actually, what are you going to do with all of them now?"

Briggs scratched his chin. "The plan is to move them through one of my portals to their typical habitat. Why?"

Hanji blew his round cheeks out. "I'd like to go ahead of you and set up a nullification perimeter. If the witch behind this is determined to get these unicorns, the perimeter will stop them from locating or bringing in any artifacts or potions." He tapped the vial of blood. "And this will help me make the perimeter resistant to the unicorns' magic making it go haywire."

Chan perked up. "You'd do that for us?"

Hanji nodded shyly. "Yeah. As long as this guy doesn't bite my head off," he added with a weak glare at Briggs.

The demon chuckled. "I haven't bitten off anyone's head in years."

Hanji paled, and Chan clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. He's never done that."

"That you know of!"

Chan ignored Briggs. "Take as much blood as you need for that perimeter. Anything to help keep our animals safe."

Hanji bowed slightly before scampering off to find a unicorn that had yet to be tended to. Chan watched him, heart heavy.