I whisper like the sea in the horse's ear.

In the sea, Corr’s clumsiness will disappear, his weight cradled by the saltwater. I don’t want to say good-bye. I blink to clear my vision and reach up. I pull off his halter. The ocean is his love and now, finally, he’ll have it. I back out of the surf. There’s a thin, long wail. Corr takes a labored step away from the November sea. And another. He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.

Tell me what it's like. The race." "What it's like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It's the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It's speed, if you're lucky. It's life and it's death or it's both, and there's nothing like it.

Misty of Chincoteague', 'The Black Stallion', the 'Saddle Club' books, I read 'em all. I was horse-crazy.

With his back to us, Sean tugs the halter from the mare's head. She kicks out, but he steps out of the way as if it were nothing at all. With a shake of her mane, she leaps mightily into the water. For a moment she struggles over the waves, and then she is swimming. Just a wild black horse in a deep blue sea full of the ashes of other dead boys.

Eleanor's voice was below zero. 'My finest horse to whichever faerie in this room brings me that woman's left eye.' My thoughts exactly.