Read Song of the Unicorns (Avalon: Web of Magic #7) for Free Online

glistening blue-white ice!
    The whirlwind then wobbled—and headed right for the startled ferret.
    “Gah!” Ozzie dove for cover behind a rock outcropping.
    The twister coiled overhead in a flurry of color. Inches from his head, a rock morphed into a strange, marshmallowy mass.
    An instant later, the whirlwind disappeared, specks of colored magic dissipating like mist.
    Ozzie’s paws flew to his ferret stone. “Emily! Come in, Emily!”
    “I’m here, Ozzie,” the mage answered. “Did you find something?”
    “Did I?! You’re lucky I’m still a ferret! A weird magic whirlwind just melted a cactus and a rock and the wagon. It nearly got yours truly in the process!”
    “Slow down, what are you talking about? A wind?”
    “Actually, it was an elemental shift in paramagical forces, to be precise,” a new voice broke in.
    “GAAAHH! Aliens!” Ozzie screamed. “Emily, warn the others, I’ll—”
    E MILY HAD ALMOST reached the sloping trail to Echo Ridge when Ozzie’s frazzled voice vanished.
    “Ozzie? Ozzie?” Emily called frantically.
    There was no answer. Heart thudding, she looked toward the canyon. “Sierra,
    Ozzie’s gotten loose. I need to go look for him.”
    The brown-haired girl brought Apache up sharp. “Okay, but hurry. I’ll round up the others and meet you back here on the trail.”
    Sierra started Apache forward and called over her shoulder, “And whatever you do, don’t go into the caves!”
    “Okay, I’ll be careful,” Emily promised.
    Domino sensed the mage’s urgency and broke into a gallop, racing back into the canyon. Fear pulsed through Emily’s veins. If anything happened to Ozzie, she didn’t know what she’d do.
    She was halfway across the canyon floor when she realized the wagon was gone. In its place was a large pool of water. Leading Domino to the canyon wall, she searched for Ozzie.
    “Give me back my stone or you’ll never see your spaceship again!”
    Emily turned toward the sound of the ferret’s voice. She saw Ozzie hopping up and down on what looked like a pile of twigs.
    “Ozzie,” Emily called, sliding off Domino and running to her friend. “What are you doing?”
    “Interrogating him.” Ozzie waved a paw at the twigs. “This alien attacked me!”
    Emily looked closer at the mass of twigs, desert grass, and shrubbery. “Ozzie, wait a minute.”
    The pile suddenly spun and formed into a little wobbly whirlwind.
    Crackling and rustling, the tiny whirlwind took another shape before it came to a halt. Slightly shorter than Ozzie, it looked like a little stick figure, made of twigs and brush magically held together. A gray-green clump of sagebrush served as its torso and another as its head. Sparkling eyes of quartz looked at her curiously. Hanging around its neck was a small turquoise gemstone on a chain woven of desert weeds.
    “This thief took my jewel!” Ozzie yelled.
    “You’re a Fairimental!” Emily gasped.
    “Why I oughta—huh?”
    Fairimentals were very powerful and mysterious magical creatures who protected the magic of Alendmor. Made entirely of elemental magic, they took their physical forms from water, fire, earth, and wind. This one was an Earth Fairimental.
    The little twig figure stared at Emily’s rainbow gem. “You are the healer?”
    Emily nodded. “Yes.”
    “Oh, thank goodness. I found this mookrat impersonating a mage—does this belong to you?” A spindly branch held out a golden stone.
    “That’s Ozzie’s ferret stone,” Emily said.
    “Gimme that!” the ferret grabbed his stone and attached it back to his collar. “I’ve met Fairimentals and they never robbed me. How do we know you’re one?”
    “I’m an E.F., and my name is Tweek,” the creature said.
    “What’s an E.F?” Emily asked.
    “Experimental Fairimental. I’m the first ever of my kind. The Fairimentals made me at their lab.”
    “The what from the where?” Ozzie demanded.
    “It used to be a place called the Shadowlands, but now it’s a magic