(Due to massive amounts of spoilers in this section of the novel, this excerpt is shorter than the others. I was actually worried that there might not be a chunk that I could put up here without it containing spoilers and I turned out to be right. But this is a mild one that only has to do with this scene. :) Also, Neidim’s name has been changed to Nadin.)
When they arrived at Nadin’s house, all the doors were closed and locked. Adren put her ear to the barn door, listening for animals, but there was only silence inside. She shook her head. Humans really did operate outside of the realm of logic. Who put a barn inside a town, and then did not even use it for what it had been made?
“If I ever grow to understand humans,” she said to the unicorn, “Please, put me out of my misery.” Then she turned her attention to the lock. Her first thought was to break it with her knife, but then that would leave Nadin without security in his home. If he really was worth her trust, she did not want to do make him vulnerable to harm. The only problem was that she had left her lock pick tools back at her camp, and she was only willing to go back and get them only if she had no other choice. Adren searched her pockets for some kind of, well, anything that might be able to help her and came up with nothing. Fighting back frustration, she twisted the lock around, trying to see if there might be anything in how it was made that might allow her to open it. Again, nothing. One thing she could say for Nadin was that he was knew how to keep unwanted visitors from breaking in the easy way.
She stepped back to get a better look at the house and the barn. All the windows were closed, and she could not see any way of opening them from the outside. Time to check around back, then. Adren turned to leave, but the unicorn did not follow. Instead, it stuck its horn into the lock and wiggled it a bit. Then it pulled back and stepped away stretching its nose towards the lock and feeling expectant.
“That’s not how a lock works.” But the unicorn stamped its foot and refused to come with her. Sighing, Adren went back to the lock and pulled at it, only to discover that it was now unlocked and opened without difficulty. Astonished, she stared at the unicorn, and it responded by feeling smug. A magic lock pick. Adren had never expected unicorns to be able to do something so ordinary.