An idea seized Tanvi by the shoulders, so good she couldn’t resist. She palmed the bracelet and, before she could think better of it, ran out the front door.

Barely waving back when the neighbor mowing his lawn called out a greeting, Tanvi made for the woods at the end of their cul-de-sac. She disappeared through the little gap for hikers. Everything was in that last bloom of summer, bright green and dark green and pale green and smelling like freedom. Like magic. Like a yaksha might appear at any moment.

Tanvi had planned to dump Nitya’s bracelet out here, where her sister would never find it. It was only fair that Nitya feel as bad as she’d made Tanvi feel on their birthday.

How was Tanvi supposed to face anyone after that?

But as she ran, twigs jabbing her bare feet, doubts started to sneak in. They felt as slick as shadows, attaching themselves to her until she couldn’t shake them loose.

Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Nitya really did love her bracelet. Tanvi was the one who’d surprised her with the charm of two hearts intertwined last year. She’d had to save weeks of her allowance for it. “It’s us,” Nitya had said, beaming.

Tanvi’s real heart twisted. Why couldn’t things always be like that, where they were each other’s number one? Where they didn’t need words to talk about the important things?

Why did everything have to change?

She ran until she came to a pond. That was weird. The woods weren’t big enough for a pond—unless they went back farther than she knew?

Maybe, she thought with a rush of inspiration, there was another path nobody had ever discovered until now. A path where she might meet a real unicorn. Maybe it would even let her ride it!

Plus, the water reminded her of a sapphire she’d once seen on TV. It was so blue it looked fake, like food coloring.

As she neared the pond, a snake with diamond-patterned scales appeared out of nowhere, making squiggles across the path. Tanvi screamed, and the snake reared up, revealing a flared hood. Its fangs glistened in the afternoon light dappling the forest, and its tongue flicked at the air, tasting it.

A king cobra!

Tanvi floundered and fell in the mud. The bracelet flew out of her hand. She didn’t dare blink until the cobra relaxed and slithered off into the water. Were cobras even native to Pennsylvania? Probably not. Maybe some pet owner had released it into the wild. Or maybe it had escaped the zoo.

She thought through theory after theory until her breathing slowed down. Then, careful not to make any sudden moves in case the snake was still around, she started digging for the bracelet.

It was gone.