PUCK

I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to pretend that this will be just another sprint. I’m trying not to look at how far we have to go. I’m trying to remember that I not only have to survive but do well. I need to win. For a moment, I feel a pang of guilt, that if I get what I need, Sean doesn’t, but maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. If I win, surely there will be enough to both save the house and buy Corr?

“Puck. Climb off for a moment.” I’m surprised to hear Peg Gratton’s voice. She stands at Dove’s shoulder, looking up at me. Her hair is frazzled in the wind and her face serious. I obediently slide off. She’s holding her Scorpio bird costume in her arms, a fact that I can’t understand. “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” I say.

“So, terrible,” she says. “Gabe told me they wouldn’t give you any colors.”

I shake my head. I won’t let my face show anything.

Peg says, “Right, then. Off with the saddle.”

Mystified but trusting, I pull off the saddle and watch Peg carefully unfold the costume in her arms. I see now that the great, terrifying bird head is no longer attached; it’s just the back of the feather-covered cape. Peg lays it down on Dove’s back where the colors would have gone, and then she takes the saddle and looks to make certain that it won’t chafe.

“Now you wear Thisby’s colors,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Peg’s already walking away. “Show them who you are.”

I swallow. Who I am is crouched down inside this girl named Puck Connolly, praying that I’ll make it through the next few minutes.

“Riders, line up!”

How can it be time to line up? We’ve only just gotten down here and I haven’t seen Sean before the race. I swing onto Dove and stare over the capaill uisce, looking for him. If I can just see —

On the other side of the line, I see him lifting his chin and looking at me as well. Corr, wearing dark blue colors, is slicked with sweat already. Sean’s still looking at my face so I lift up my wrist for him to see his ribbon on it.

“Riders, line up!”

I wish I were next to Sean and Corr, but there’s no time. Three race officials are pressing us back into lines behind great wooden poles. The lines ring and shrill with hundreds of bells on dozens of hooves. The capaill uisce snap and snort, paw and shudder. I keep Dove as far from her neighbors as I can. Her ears are flattened back to her head. She’s surrounded by predators.

Beside me, the capall uisce shakes its head and foam cascades down its neck and chest.

They’re counting down.

The ocean says shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh.

They lift the poles.