Foxheart Page 5

  Anastazia opened her mouth to answer and then smiled instead. “It’s rather difficult to explain. Perhaps I should show you instead. Fox?”

  The older Fox stretched, shook himself, and pressed his snout into Anastazia’s palm. Quicksilver’s Fox trotted toward Anastazia and then stopped, tilting his head. He looked back at Quicksilver and whined.

  “This might get confusing,” Quicksilver said, “to call them both Fox.”

  “Don’t worry about that. It won’t matter for—”

  But Anastazia did not finish her sentence, for at that moment, the chill dawn air of Willow-on-the-River filled with howls.

  Quicksilver’s blood seemed to freeze in her body. She knew the sound of those howls.

  Anastazia leaped to her feet. In a flash, the older Fox was no longer himself, but a dog of light, tinged scarlet and gold. He looked strong, lean, powerful.

  “He’s found me already,” Anastazia whispered. Her breaths came faster, thinner—almost wheezing. “Stars, I thought I would have more time.”

  “Who?” Quicksilver asked, though she thought she knew.

  “The Wolf King.”

  Sly Boots breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “The Wolf King! But that’s good, isn’t it? Well, maybe not for you, you horrible, lying witch lady, but—”

  “It’s not good for anyone, fool,” Anastazia snarled. “Quicksilver! Grab my hand, and your Fox, and don’t let go.”

  Quicksilver reached for Anastazia’s outstretched hand, then hesitated and took a step back. “Why?”

  “I’ll take you somewhere safe. I promise. Hurry!”

  Then a dark, cloaked figure burst into the square. He was surrounded by wolves—seven of them.

  White, gray, black, brown, gold, blue, red, recited Quicksilver’s frantic brain. The pack of the blessed Wolf King.

  “Get behind me,” Anastazia commanded. Quicksilver and Sly Boots hurried to obey.

  “You’ve lost, old woman!” bellowed the Wolf King, in a voice that reminded Quicksilver of metal scraping against metal. Sly Boots, hiding behind Quicksilver, clapped his hands over his ears. Throughout the square, windows glowed yellow as candles were lit. The door of the inn opened with a creak.

  “What’s all this ruckus about?” called the gruff voice of the innkeeper.

  The Wolf King flung out his arm, and two of his wolves broke away, running toward the innkeeper. As they ran, their bodies lengthened and brightened, and soon they were not flesh-and-blood wolves, but wolves of light and fire, and where their paws hit the ground, they left black, charred spots behind. They lunged at the innkeeper, latching on with their jaws. He screamed in terror. His screams did not last long.

  The Wolf King thrust his arm toward Quicksilver. Three more wolves broke away and bounded straight toward her.

  Anastazia turned, her eyes wild. “Quicksilver, grab my hand, now.”

  Still Quicksilver hesitated. As the sleepy villagers awoke and stepped outside to investigate, the wolves attacked, their howls discordant and shrill. Fires broke out where the wolves crashed through wooden market stalls. A wolf shimmering white tackled a woman and tore at her throat. The air filled with smoke and the sound of the villagers’ screams.

  “Quicksilver!” Anastazia cried, her voice cracking.

  Quicksilver could stay here. She could run and hide from the Wolf King and try to help the villagers. She could help Sly Boots protect his parents; maybe she could find out what had happened to everyone at the convent.

  Or she could grab Anastazia’s hand and go with her . . . somewhere.

  What if they went to a place that was even more dangerous?

  What if they went nowhere at all?

  She grabbed Sly Boots’s hand and squeezed.

  “Get Fox!” she screamed, and waited until she saw Sly Boots scoop up Fox before turning to take Anastazia’s hand.

  The snarling wolves leaped, their fiery jaws open wide and blazing.

  Quicksilver felt Anastazia pulling her close. “Don’t let go!” Anastazia cried, and then she whispered, “Good-bye, old friend,” and when Quicksilver raised her head, she saw the older Fox, glowing and magnificent, racing around them, faster and faster, spinning them up into a column of light that pulled and tugged, and made Quicksilver feel as though her limbs would snap off her body.

  “Anastazia!” she cried, but her voice was swallowed away, and she could only hope that Sly Boots had a good grip on Fox, and that he hadn’t let go of her hand, for she could no longer feel the squeeze of his fingers.

  All she knew was the blinding ring of light around her, and an immense pressure upon her chest, as though she were being turned inside out. From amid the wolves’ howls came the frustrated wail of a child—a boy. Was it Sly Boots? Where was he?

  “Fox? Fox!” Quicksilver screamed for him, her throat raw from trying to breathe in this tight, hot place. She would not lose Fox, she would not lose him—

  Then, without warning or ceremony, there was nothing but darkness, and a silence thick as an ending.

  .9.

  THE MONSTER’S DEN

  The first thing Quicksilver heard was Anastazia’s voice.

  “Don’t open your eyes,” she instructed.

  And then, of course, all Quicksilver wanted was to open them as wide as they would go.

  A cool, rough hand pressed against her eyes. “I said don’t open them. Not yet.”

  “Quicksilver?” That was Sly Boots, somewhere nearby. It seemed to Quicksilver that her ears were stuffed full of something heavy and scratchy, making it difficult to pick out sounds. “Where are we? I can’t breathe!”

  “Keep your eyes closed, Boots!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Anastazia, “I won’t let him do anything too stupid.”

  “Fox! Where is he?” Quicksilver cried, trying to pry Anastazia’s fingers off her face. “Did he open his eyes? Is he blind? Is he hurt?”

  “I’m more than all right, in fact—”

  “He’s fine,” Anastazia said loudly. “Just keep your eyes closed while I see about getting us a room. Oh, where is that horrible inn?” Anastazia grasped Quicksilver’s wrist and dragged her along. Quicksilver held tight to Sly Boots’s hand and pulled him along with them.

  The sun was hot on her skin. Sounds of a bustling market met her ears, but they weren’t anything like the sounds of Willow-on-the-River’s market. She heard hissing and croaking sounds, as if strange beasts were speaking to one another, and jiglike music played on discordant, reedy instruments. She smelled dough being fried and smoke that carried the scent of burning flowers. She heard the rattle of coins, the shouts of bartering, and a roaring sound that could have been a bear or a particularly ferocious man.

  But none of these things were as interesting to Quicksilver as the question of who had said, “I’m more than all right, in fact.”

  The voice had been a man’s voice, and before Anastazia had interrupted him, he had sounded both strange and dear to Quicksilver’s ears, as if he had been someone she had always known but had never spoken to before.

  She stayed quiet and considered this while Anastazia guided them up a set of steps and into a building. A door closed behind them, and the air was cooler. There was a bustle of chatter and dishes, the smell of food.

  “Welcome to the Monster’s Den,” came a cheerful voice. “Would you like a room or simply lunch?” And then, much more bewildered, “Why are your children walking around with their eyes closed?”

  “It’s a surprise!” said Anastazia. “For their birthdays.”

  Quicksilver waited while Anastazia spoke to the bewildered someone, discussing prices and room sizes. Quicksilver put out a hand, feeling for Fox, but couldn’t find him.

  Anastazia turned Quicksilver around and sat her on a bench. “All right,” she said, “you can open your eyes now. It should be safe. This little pinchbrain’s giving me a hard time about our room. Just sit there and don’t move.”

  When Quicksilver opened her eyes, she saw that they
were inside some sort of inn. Across the hallway was a high-raftered room where people ate and drank. The shades were pulled shut, but even so, the light streaming through the windows was near to blinding, making Quicksilver squint. Everything glowed—the windows, the glassware on every table, the aggrieved-looking man carrying stacks of plates. He had bright blue hair, done up in spikes, like a bird that had fluffed itself up to look larger.

  Anastazia crouched in front of Quicksilver, inspecting her. Her violet eyes glowed like jewels, and her hair flamed red and silver—but a more vivid red and a more brilliant silver than Quicksilver had ever seen. “How do you feel? Is it too bright? Your eyes should adjust soon.”

  “Where are we?” Quicksilver cringed at how trembly her voice sounded. “Why does everything look so strange? And where’s Fox?”

  “Same place—Willow-on-the-River, in the kingdom of Lalunet, in the Star Lands—but a different time. Long ago, before the hunt began. And everything looks strange because, being before the hunt, the world is full of witches, and therefore full of magic. And Fox is right there.”

  Quicksilver turned. She would not have recognized the dog sitting before her, regal and poised, had it not been for the torn left ear and the big brown eyes. Whereas Fox had always had an air of perpetual hunger about him, this dog looked solid and healthy and altogether completely satisfied with himself, as if he had just enjoyed a gourmet feast.

  “Fox?” Quicksilver whispered. “Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me,” answered Fox, raising an eyebrow. He grinned, showing off his sharp teeth. “Don’t I look incredible?”

  .10.

  THE STAR LANDS OF LONG AGO

  Behind Quicksilver, Sly Boots made a choked, squeaky sound.

  Quicksilver couldn’t blame him.

  It was a curious thing, seeing a human expression on the face of her dog, and hearing human speech from the snout of her dog, and realizing that her dog wasn’t quite there, was no longer quite solid. He looked like a normal dog until he turned, and then a curl of light drifted off him, and his whole body was illuminated as if he were made of sunlight and fire. He looked as though he might soar into the stars and be rather at home there—and then he turned solid again, and licked his behind.

  For the first time in her life, Quicksilver was left completely without speech.

  Anastazia dropped a few coins into the innkeeper’s outstretched hand. “Thank you very much! Always dependable, you are.”

  “But I’ve never seen you before!” said the innkeeper, just before the door slammed shut.

  Anastazia ushered Quicksilver and Sly Boots down the hallway and up two flights of stairs. Through a window on the landing, Quicksilver looked out at a crowded market, though she could only open her eyes a crack against the blazing light. She saw that the hissing, croaking sounds belonged to a pack of furred lizards in a gilded cage, spitting fire at one another. And the roar she had heard did, in fact, belong to a particularly ferocious man, who was singing with great pathos about his lost love to a bemused crowd.

  Quicksilver looked around for some familiar landmark that would confirm that this was indeed Willow-on-the-River, but everything looked utterly foreign. There was no church, the roads were larger and paved with clean stones . . . ah. There was the magistrate’s house. And there was the river. And there, a giant willow tree sat, appropriately, on the river. The tree glowed a bright green, its slender boughs shimmering as if dusted with starlight. But there were no willows on the river—at least, not in the town they had left only moments before. Quicksilver had always wondered how the town got its name—and now she understood.

  “I feel like I’ve gone mad,” said Sly Boots, his nose pressed to the glass, squinting through the spaces between his fingers. “Do you think she’s telling the truth? Oh, I’m going to be sick.”

  Sly Boots bent over and heaved onto the landing.

  “Come, don’t dawdle,” said Anastazia, ushering them up the rest of the stairs. She coughed into her sleeve and wiped her mouth. “Your eyes need some time. Also, my feet are on fire, and I’d like a nice sit.”

  “I’d like an explanation.” Quicksilver said sharply, once Anastazia had shown them into a quiet room with three beds and a cushioned couch by the window. “You’ve dragged us around quite enough.”

  “Have I now?”

  Sly Boots stumbled into the nearest bed and lay there, moaning and rubbing his temples.

  Quicksilver squared her shoulders. “Yes. I’ve reached my limit. Isn’t that right, Fox?”

  She said this automatically, having over the years gotten used to speaking with Fox as though he were a person and not simply a dog.

  “Honestly, I’d rather not get into it.” Fox sighed, settling on the couch to look down into the market. “There are much more interesting things to see here than you two arguing.”

  Quicksilver gaped at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did I misspeak? I said you’re boring.”

  Often Quicksilver had amused herself by imagining what Fox’s voice would sound like, had he been a human—but in none of those fancies had he ever sounded so . . . well, if not hateful, then certainly not loving.

  She turned on Anastazia. “What have you done to him?” The shock of this new Fox left her with a dangerously upset feeling lodged in her throat. “This isn’t my Fox. My Fox would never speak to me like that.”

  “You’re right,” Anastazia agreed. “This isn’t your Fox. And yet you’re wrong, because it is your Fox. He’s the same, and he’s different, and he’s new, and he’s who he was always meant to be. And so are you, my dear. See for yourself.”

  Anastazia pulled Quicksilver to stand in front of the mirror in the corner. Quicksilver saw her own reflection—and yet it wasn’t her own reflection. Much was the same—her squashed, piggish nose, the shape of her mouth—but her hair was a bright, blazing red instead of gray, and her eyes were an even more brilliant violet than Anastazia’s.

  Sly Boots sat up, looking dazed. “I feel a little better now. What did you do to your hair?”

  “It couldn’t ever have happened in your time,” Anastazia told Quicksilver, her eyes fixed hard on Quicksilver’s face. Quicksilver, for her part, kept her expression blank, determined to give nothing away to this woman—nor to this Fox, sitting by the window as if nothing were amiss.

  “Ever since the Wolf King began his hunt,” Anastazia continued, “eliminating witches from the world one by one, magic likewise faded, for without witches, there can be no magic. Magic feeds on itself, you see. The more witches, the stronger the world’s magic, the more you can see it in the forests and flowers, in the sky itself.

  “In your time, so little magic is left that even someone whose blood is rich with magic will never be able to access it. Even blood as rich with magic as your own, Quicksilver.” Anastazia paused and smiled wistfully. “As our own, I should say. But here, in this past . . . here, your blood sings. Magic is everywhere. Magic is at your fingertips. In them.”

  Sly Boots approached them slowly, his eyes wide. “Does she mean what I think she means?”

  “You’re saying I’m a . . . a—” Quicksilver swallowed hard.

  “You’re a witch, Quicksilver of Lalunet.” Anastazia grinned. “Just like me.”

  .11.

  ANASTAZIA AND THE WOLF KING

  Anastazia had lunch sent up to their room—vegetable stew and hot, crusty bread and mint tea, plus a leg of mutton for Fox. They ate in silence, listening to the birds that perched outside the window. The birds’ feathers glowed a rich, deep indigo tipped with glimmering gold, and they sang with eerily human voices. Past them, the stars shone like beacons in the midafternoon sky.

  At last Anastazia turned to Quicksilver with a serious expression.

  “Now that we’ve eaten,” she said, “I suppose you’d like to know what’s going on. I know I did, at this point.”

  Quicksilver folded her arms over her chest. “You might say that.”

 
Anastazia took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “All right. This is always the hardest part. I know it will be difficult for you. I know because it was for me too. And for the Anastazia who taught me. And for the Anastazia before that, and before that, and before that.”

  “What is she talking about?” hissed Sly Boots, sitting with a pillow clutched protectively to his chest.

  “I’ve brought you back to an earlier time in history,” Anastazia said, ignoring him, “so that you might come into your witch bloodlines and learn how to work magic, so that you might help me find the bones of the First Ones’ monsters and defeat the Wolf King, so that we might save our race from extinction.”

  “Nothing to worry yourself about too much,” said Fox breezily, lounging on his cot. “A simple task, really.”

  Quicksilver wondered if she would ever stop feeling disturbed at this snotty, insufferable voice coming from her Fox’s mouth. “Why me? Why couldn’t other witches help you?”

  “Witches don’t help other witches,” said Anastazia, staring darkly out the window. “Since our beginning, it’s been our nature to quarrel, to try to best one another, even to steal other witches’ magic, if we can. We know it’s dangerous to do so—that the health of the world’s magic depends on many witches having healthy magic, not witches constantly stealing and fighting. But that’s how we are. That’s how we’ve always been.”

  Quicksilver nodded. The one time she’d tried working with another thief had been recently, with Sly Boots—and look where that had gotten her.

  “In this case, of course,” continued Anastazia, “no one is helping me but me—albeit a younger me—which is perfectly acceptable. And any other witch who has ever tried to defeat the Wolf King has failed, while we have continued on, life after life after life. So”—Anastazia gave Quicksilver a hard, grim little smile—“I can only assume we’re the only ones fit for the job. Why bother asking for help from anyone else? They’ll only botch things.”