“I don’t care about that,” King Lír said. He was silent for so long that Schmendrick thought he had fallen asleep, but presently he said, “I wish I could see her once more, to tell her all my heart. She will never know what I really meant to say. You did promise that I would see her.”

The magician answered him sharply. “I promised only that you would see some sign of unicorns, and so you have. Your realm is blessed beyond any land’s deserving because they have passed across it in freedom. As for you and your heart and the things you said and didn’t say, she will remember them all when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits. Think of that, and be still.” The king spoke no more after that, and Schmendrick repented of his words.

“She touched you twice,” he said in a little while. “The first touch was to bring you to life again, but the second was for you.” Lír did not answer, and the magician never knew if he had heard or not.

Schmendrick dreamed that the unicorn came and stood by him at moonrise. The thin night wind lifted and spilled her mane, and the moon shone on the snowflake crafting of her small head. He knew it was a dream, but he was happy to see her. “How beautiful you are,” he said. “I never really told you.” He would have roused the others, but her eyes sang him a warning as clearly as two frightened birds, and he knew that if he moved to call Molly and Lír he would wake himself, and she would vanish. So he said only, “They love you more, I think, though I do the best I can.”

“That is why,” she said, and he could not tell what she was answering. He lay very still, hoping that he would remember the exact shape of her ears when he did wake in the morning. She said, “You are a true and mortal wizard now, as you always wished. Does it make you happy?”

“Yes,” he replied with a quiet laugh. “I’m not poor Haggard, to lose my heart’s desire in the having of it. But there are wizards and wizards; there is black magic and white magic, and the infinite shades of gray between‌—‌and I see now that it is all the same. Whether I decide to be what men would call a wise and good magician‌—‌aiding heroes, thwarting witches, wicked lords, and unreasonable parents; making rain, curing woolsorter’s disease and the mad staggers, getting cats down from trees‌—‌or whether I choose the retorts full of elixirs and essences, the powders and herbs and banes, the padlocked books of gramarye bound in skins better left unnamed, the muddy mist darkening in the chamber and the sweet voice lisping therein‌—‌why, life is short, and how many can I help or harm? I have my power at last, but the world is still too heavy for me to move, though my friend Lír might think otherwise.” And he laughed again in his dream, a little sadly.