Nan is delighted. Delight, on Nan, looks like a crow who has found a shiny button.

“One,” she says. “A horse with a horn that dips in poisoned wells and makes them kind. Travelers needed a reason not to drink from cattle-churned ditches, so they gave the reason a mane.”

“Two. Ice-sea hunters brought a tooth longer than your arm, spiraled, white as a lie that got famous. They sold it to kings as unicorn horn. The animal that grew it never saw a forest. It swam.”

“Three. A white deer when the wood is kept—when people do not take every trophy and every last oak. Spirit-beast, some said. Still a deer, I say, and still a warning dressed as wonder.”

She taps your knee. “People stitch. Rhinoceros from far maps. Antelope seen sideways so two horns look like one. Rare white coats. A tusk in a market. Nobody had to be a villain. They had to be far from home and fond of a good tale.”

Mira glances at the still-wrapped bundle on Cole’s table.

Nan’s eyes follow. “Stories are pockets. Markets are pockets with prices. Those are not the same kind of pocket.”