“How did you meet Laci anyway?” Marmalade asked.

  Oliver grimaced as he worked the nail out of his shoe. “She broke a window and got my eye enucleated.”

  She picked up a guard that had broken through their barricade and threw her back over. “Sounds like her.”

  A chunk of their earthen wall crumbled down near Knight, and officers started pouring in. Knight beat his wings to try to fend them off, but one forced his way through the wind and grabbed the base of his wing. He howled with pain and tried to back away, but another grabbed his other wing and jabbed it with a copper brand. It jerked back and flapped agonizingly. Knight bit the officer’s head and slammed her into the ground, but two more grabbed his other wing and yanked him away.

  “Let go of him!” Marmalade thundered, punching an officer over the wall and out of sight.

  “Look out!” Oliver shouted.

  Marmalade turned around, but it was too late. A pony officer had climbed up, grabbed her mane and stuck her neck with a tranquilizer. She tossed the stallion off, but she knew she didn’t have much more time. Knight could not lose the guards, and they were starting to take him down.

  “Oliver, your magic had better be worth this,” she said.

  Using the last of her strength, she ripped the shoe pullers from his grasp, held him down by his shoulder, and tore the copper from his feet. He yelped and kicked out, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes from the burning sensation. She finally pulled the last shoe, and collapsed onto the pavement. Oliver wrestled his way out from underneath her, and let his magic take root.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s worth it.”

  Thorny vines sprouted from the ground, wrapping around the officers that were attacking Knight and pinning them down. Oliver laughed with the excitement of finally using his magic again after all these years. It was payback time. Sturdy roots entangled one of the officers, a dapple grey mare with a furious expression.

  “How does that feel, Georgia? I told you I’d make you regret ponying me around,” he teased.

  Knight slowly started to get up, switching his tail and flexing his wings. The whites of his eyes were popping out, and he trembled violently with fear. He seemed stuck by Marmalade’s side, and she laid sedated on the pavement. Oliver wove his way around him to protect Marmalade from more guards. ERUJ was quickly running out of more to send, which worried Oliver slightly. How many of them were still stuck inside the burning building?

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  “C’mon, you big lug. Work with me here,” Oliver complained to Knight, dragging back a few officers with grappling vines.

  Knight’s wings hurt worse than ever, and everything in him wanted to hide them away again. He stared down at Marmalade’s empty eye, her chopped mane yet to grow out and cover it again. Flashes of the memory of his capture were returning to him, but this time, he did not try to bury them.

  They were driving on a mountain country road, and he had one hoof on the wheel, carefree as ever. They had the top down on their cute red car, their manes flying backward in the wind. He was whipping around hairpin turns at top speed just for the thrill, and they were singing along to the car radio, her arm around his shoulder. It was exactly what Ashley had told them not to do, but so what? They were two unafraid young horses with naked ambition.

  When the guns started firing on them from behind, his hoof slammed on the brakes uncontrollably. Marmalade grabbed her neck and squealed when the devilish bullet hit her. The little red coupe skidded sideways, tires screaming against the hot pavement, and they rolled over the side of the cliff. Marmalade was pressed into his side as the car flew through the air like a toy, crying out with sheer terror.

  When they finally landed, somehow upright, he could hardly see through all the dust. Dark horses were running down the hill toward them, and he tried to get up, but the front of the car had been crushed into his legs. Desperately, he tried to rip his right hoof out from under the machinery, but it was pinned down tightly. Marmalade’s grip on him softened as she fell unconscious, helpless to stop the officer from grabbing her by the ear and blindfolding her.

  He roared with pain as his wings pierced through his skin, spraying blood everywhere. They shook powerfully, slapping officers to the ground with their muscular edge. The chief rabbit, who was sitting on a pinto stallion, kicked his horse into a gallop and rode right over to Knight’s side. He leaped from his horse’s back onto Knight’s, gripping his mane in one paw and two shining copper rings in the other. Knight slammed around in the car, trying to crush the rabbit with his wings, but the chief would not let go. He clamped the rings to the base of Knight’s wings, sealing off his power and forcing them to retract. It was the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life. Little did he know it would not be the last.

  He started feeling the asphalt beneath his feet again, flickering his ears to the sounds around him. Oliver shouldered him roughly, snapping him out of his dream.

  “Can you actually use those wings, or are they just for decoration?” Oliver said.

  Knight picked up a strong gallop, and flapped his wings until they lifted him off. The wind coming off of them was so powerful that it knocked Oliver and the officers over. Knight grabbed one of them in his forehooves like a hawk and swooped over the crowd. The prisoners were rapidly escaping out the front gate, some collapsed on the ground from being hit by the sentry’s tranquilizers.

  “Put me down!” the stallion he’d picked up begged.

  “Sure thing,” he said.

  He flew straight into a gun tower and threw his catch at the horse inside, sending them collapsing to the floor. He grabbed the tranquilizer gun and took it to the roof of the tower. Perched atop, he aimed down at the crowd and started firing at the officers. From the ground, Oliver watched as the guards around him began to drop, and the busy throng of horses began to thin.

  “I stand corrected,” he commented.

  With a giant crash, the walls of the East wing of ERUJ began to collapse. Dust poured out from the scene, and smoldering beams buckled and fell. The roof caved in on itself, and sheets of glass windows were crushed under the rubble. Flames were jumping from the East side into the tower quicker than barrel horses without tie downs. From the heart of the fire, over all the noise, they could still hear Sultan’s song.