Foxheart

by Claire Legrand

  “We don’t . . . have much time,” said Anastazia, her breath rattling like teeth in a cup. “I won’t . . . be here forever.”

  Quicksilver shifted uncomfortably. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s what happens when . . . you spend your life . . . fighting a mad king.” Anastazia closed her eyes. “This old body’s full of holes and curses like you wouldn’t believe. Should’ve died long ago, but he won’t beat me that easily.”

  Quicksilver settled quietly beside her. “The Wolf King?”

  Anastazia nodded and handed Quicksilver her journal. “Boots has been reading to me, helping me remember. Now it’s your turn. Someday this will be yours, after all.”

  “What is it, exactly?” Quicksilver turned page after page. The paper was old and stained, filled with maps, charts, drawings, and notes—all written in variations of the same scribbled handwriting. Sly Boots read over her shoulder.

  “It’s us, isn’t it?” asked Quicksilver. “It’s all the yous and mes. We kept notes.”

  “Yes,” whispered Anastazia, absently stroking Fox’s head. He remained perfectly still, his eyes closed in happiness. “Everything we’ve discovered, in all our lives—all the important clues and locations. All our battles. All the spells we’ve designed to extend our lives past their natural boundaries. It’s all there.”

  “Not much of it makes sense,” Sly Boots observed, crumbs flying onto Quicksilver’s arm. “At least not to me. At one point I got lost and just started reading nonsense to her—blah-blee-bloo, hoo-diddy-day—and she nodded as though I was quoting poetry.”

  “Some of it’s a bit . . .” Anastazia murmered, and then fell silent.

  Fox lifted his head, and Quicksilver’s heart went cold with fear.

  “Anastazia?” Quicksilver shook her older self. “Anastazia, wake up!”

  Anastazia’s eyes fluttered open. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”

  Quicksilver shared a glance with Sly Boots, who looked as uneasy as she felt.

  “As I was saying, some of these notes are rather patchy,” said Anastazia. “Sometimes I wrote in code when I was in the more dangerous parts of the Star Lands. Sometimes . . . well, the longer you live, the more your mind fades. Not even magic can prevent that. But I’ll help you through it. As much as I can remember, anyway.”

  Quicksilver frowned. She held the journal right side up, and then upside down. “What are these? I can’t make them out.”

  “The skeletons,” said Anastazia, glancing blearily at the journal. “A starling, and a snowy hare. A hawk, a cat, a mouse. An owl. An ermine.”

  “Those were the First Monsters?” Quicksilver peered at the scratchy illustrations.

  “Those are the skeletons we must find.” Anastazia placed her hand on Quicksilver’s, her palm cracked and callused. “Quicksilver. I know this is difficult. I’ve tried to give you time to adjust. But I must insist that we be on our way, and soon. These skeletons will not be easy to find.” Anastazia squeezed Quicksilver’s hand, letting out a shuddering breath. Her shoulders slumped. “To have to start over,” she whispered, “when I spent so many years collecting them . . .”

  “We’ll find them,” Quicksilver said briskly, snapping the journal shut.

  Will we? Fox’s surprise swept through Quicksilver. I thought we were going to forget about all that Wolf King nonsense, and rob the Star Lands blind.

  Well, she doesn’t have to know that, Quicksilver replied. Not yet. We’ll keep her happy for now.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem for us, should it, Fox?” Quicksilver went on, looking pointedly at Fox. “Remember breaking into Sister Veronika’s office to steal the love letters from her secret beau?”

  Fox shuddered. “Please don’t remind me of those. I wanted to scrape my brain clean with a knife.”

  “You actually read them?”

  “I said, don’t remind me!”

  “Quicksilver, this isn’t like our games at the convent.” Anastazia’s eyes drifted shut. The harsh sunlight made her look as creaky and brittle as the ancient trees around them. “This is real, and we can’t . . . let him win. We can’t let him hunt us all until there’s nothing . . . left. No one else will stop him. But we can. We have. A thousand battles, all part of one long war, and we could be the ones . . . to finish it.”

  Anastazia began to snore, her head nodding to the side. With Sly Boots’s help, Quicksilver settled her in the soft grass, balled up her cloak, and tucked it beneath her head like a pillow.

  “Tomorrow?” Anastazia murmured sleepily, cracking open one eye.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow,” Quicksilver reassured her, tucking the journal back into her cloak.

  Once Anastazia was asleep, Quicksilver and Sly Boots sat in a silence that seemed ill fitting with the cheery summer day.

  “What will you tell them?” Sly Boots said at last, gesturing to Olli and the others, who were playing games around the fire. Some of the witches sat apart, sullen and sharp faced, watching Olli and his friends suspiciously. But Olli did not seem deterred; he grabbed the hands of an older, stone-faced witch named Bernt and swung the man around for a dance. Bernt’s bright fuchsia-colored badger monster growled in warning, fluffing up its fur, and Bernt himself glowered down at Olli like he was ready to give him a hard thump on the head, but Olli merrily ignored both of them.

  The fool, Quicksilver thought. Can’t he see they don’t like him? Witches aren’t meant to live in covens. It’s unnatural. You can’t trust anyone.

  You sound just like her, Fox said, picking twigs from Anastazia’s mess of red and silver hair. With barely a thought, Quicksilver shifted Fox into a small, speckle-breasted wren, so he might have an easier time of it. He flitted happily around Anastazia’s head.

  Well, and so what if I do? Quicksilver settled back and sat frowning at the world. I am her. Suddenly the past two peaceful days with the coven seemed small and silly in comparison to everything Anastazia had endured. She’s fought the Wolf King her whole life. What have they ever done but play stupid games and make fools out of themselves?

  As if to illustrate her point, Olli cartwheeled out into the grass and stood on his head. Bernt stalked back to rejoin the sour-faced witches clustered in the shade of the trees, none of whom looked impressed.

  “Hello?” Sly Boots waved his hand in front of Quicksilver’s face. “Did you hear what I said? What will you tell them?”

  “Nothing,” Quicksilver said. “Our business is none of theirs.”

  We’ll steal everything we can, Quicksilver thought to Fox, and then we’ll leave, tonight.

  .18.

  LIKE A PIECE OF NIGHT

  That evening, Quicksilver pretended to sleep while Olli and his coven set up camp at the base of a wooded ridge. Tomorrow they would arrive in Farrowtown, a village on the border between the kingdoms of Lalunet and Belrike. There Olli hoped to convince more witches to join the coven.

  “And how will you do that?” Quicksilver had asked, after a grueling practice of cloaking Fox, and then shifting him into ever smaller animals—a cat, a black rat, a moth—so that he might creep into tight spaces unseen. The difficult maneuvers left them both cranky and with nasty headaches.

  Olli had shrugged. “I’ll tell them the truth—that it’s safer to travel in a group. That being suspicious of other witches is a tired tradition that will end up being our ruin. And,” he had concluded with a grin, “that we throw marvelously fun dinner parties. As you now know. Here,” he had said, tossing her an apple. “Eat something. It’ll help the headache.”

  Quicksilver had taken a huge bite of the apple, and then given a piece to Fox, who made a sound like a purr. Then he became a cat and griped at Quicksilver for shifting him.

  It had been a long day.

  Now, they were all asleep. Quicksilver waited until she heard everyone’s breathing level off and steady snores begin.

  It’s time, she told Fox.

  “It’s time,” she whispered to Sly Boots.r />
  While Sly Boots gently awoke Anastazia, Quicksilver crept past the sleeping coven and their monsters, her body and her footsteps both cloaked by Fox. She nudged purses loose from packs and coppers loose from pockets. At times it felt as though she were guiding Fox; at other times, it felt as if he was leading her down a path only he could see. He pushed, she pulled, and then the opposite.

  Soon, the pouches in Quicksilver’s pack were full. She hurried back to Sly Boots, her hands full of coins, and filled his pockets. Then they fled the camp.

  “You were so fast!” Sly Boots whispered gleefully, helping Anastazia through the dark cow field. “How much did you get? My pockets feel like they’re full of bricks! Oh, think of the medicine this will buy!”

  “I didn’t stop to count.” Quicksilver adjusted the now-heavy pack on her back. “Stop talking!”

  Anastazia glanced sidelong at Quicksilver, her expression decidedly stern.

  “What?” Quicksilver whispered. “You didn’t like them. What does it matter if I steal from them? This will help us as we search for the you-know-whats! We can pay people to give us information! We can buy food!”

  “I only wish you’d told me the plan,” said Anastazia. “I woke up and had no clue what was going on.”

  “Well, that’s what happens when you sleep for twelve hours and belch at us when we try to wake you.” Quicksilver paused. “Fox?”

  Fox, in his dog form, had stopped and turned back to face camp, his ears pricked and his tail standing out straight.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said quietly.

  “What do you mean? Are they following us?”

  “No—”

  I hear something happening, he thought to Quicksilver, but I don’t understand what it is.

  “Wait here,” said Quicksilver.

  “Why aren’t we leaving?” Sly Boots whispered after her. “What’s going on?”

  “Quicksilver!” hissed Anastazia.

  Quicksilver and Fox slipped back through the tall grass, keeping low to the ground. Sounds floated to them through the woods—screams, and a low, rumbling roar. When they reached the ridge that overlooked the camp and peeked through the undergrowth, Quicksilver could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  A great hulking figure as tall as a three-story house lumbered through the camp, scooping up the witches—and their monsters—as though they were nothing but toys. The creature was dark, like a piece of night cut away from the sky. Its arms were as thick as boulders, its legs twice as large as that. On its tiny pin of a head glowed two round white eyes.

  Caught unawares and still half asleep, the coven did not stand a chance. Two witches ran away into the darkness with their monsters, as fast as they could, not even bothering to help the others fight. Quicksilver watched in awe as Olli sent his owl monster soaring at the creature like an arrow from a bow. The owl became a bolt of lightning, vital and sizzling. When it hit the boulder creature, the creature stumbled and roared in pain—but the owl flew crookedly back to Olli’s shoulder with a hurt wing. The creature couldn’t repel magic, then. But it would certainly take more magic than that to fell it.

  With a high peal of laughter, the creature scooped up Olli and his monster, crammed them into a tremendous sack with the rest of the coven, flung the sack over its shoulder, and lumbered off into the woods.

  .19.

  THE ROMPUS

  Quicksilver and Fox dashed back through the field, found Anastazia and Sly Boots exactly where they had left them, and proceeded to shout over each other about what they had seen.

  Anastazia listened calmly and then said, “Well, good riddance, if you ask me. Shall we continue on?”

  “But do you know what that thing was?” Quicksilver insisted.

  “Could have been any number of things, but based on the information you’ve given me, I can’t very well say. Now, shall we—”

  “But we have to go find them!” Quicksilver interrupted.

  Anastazia’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh, yes? And why do we have to do that?”

  “We were going to leave them anyway,” Sly Boots pointed out. “And, ah, to be honest, I don’t much fancy the idea of chasing after some giant, bloodthirsty creature.”

  “I wanted to leave them, yes,” said Quicksilver, “but I didn’t want them to die. There’s a difference.”

  “We left my parents,” said Sly Boots sullenly. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with that.”

  “Boots, we’re getting back to your parents as soon as we can,” said Quicksilver impatiently. “But not until we do this first, and by the way, it’s not like either of you can stop me. I defeated you with a spatula,” she said, pointing to Sly Boots. “And you’re a witch without a monster,” she added, pointing to Anastazia. “So if I wanted to, I could bind you both up with Fox rope and float you in front of me all the way to wherever we’re going, and you couldn’t do a thing about it.”

  Sly Boots looked ill. “Please don’t do that. I don’t want to be squeezed up tight against her.”

  Anastazia studied Quicksilver with an unreadable expression. Then she said, with great dignity, “Very well. Lead the way, Quix.”

  “Wait just a moment.” Sly Boots’s eyes narrowed. “Is this about that nitbrain Olli?”

  “Oh, shut it, Sly Boots!” snapped Quicksilver.

  Sly Boots, quite wisely, fell silent.

  The creature’s tracks were easy to find and follow—at first.

  Tremendous blunt-toed indentations marked a path of flattened trees and undergrowth that led them into deeper and deeper woods. But soon the tracks became smaller—narrow and clawed—and then they disappeared altogether.

  “Fox?” Quicksilver whispered. “Do you smell anything?”

  Fox rummaged about in the trampled grass and then pointed with his front paw.

  “That way,” he said, “but careful . . . I smell bones.”

  “Bones?” Anastazia perked up.

  “Fresh bones, if you know what I mean.”

  “I smell something too,” said Sly Boots, wrinkling his nose. “Something awful.”

  Quicksilver thought of Olli and the others, smashed into bloody bits, and felt that evening’s supper turn in her stomach. But she led them on through the tangled woods until they found the source of the increasingly rancid scent—a cave, dug into a rocky hillside. A tiny brook nearby gurgled and glimmered.

  The tall round mouth of the cave, easily big enough to accommodate the creature they had seen, gaped at them like someone caught in the middle of a yawn.

  “Well, that settles that,” Sly Boots said, a slight hysterical edge to his voice. “I’m not going in there. You’ll have to bind me up with Fox or knock me over the head, or . . . or—Quicksilver, please don’t make me go in there!”

  Anastazia sat on a large rock, flipping through her journal. “I’m inclined to agree with him, for once. While I myself have never seen a creature like the one you described, I’ve just found a note written by one of our previous selves, and if I’m reading this correctly . . .” Anastazia held the journal to her nose, squinting. “Blast it all, why couldn’t she have written this even somewhat legibly? Anyhow, it’s either a . . . Pompous, or a Bumpits, or a . . . rompus?”

  “Rompus!” called a voice from the cave, and before any of them could react, a fat black snake slithered out to coil at Quicksilver’s feet. It looked up at her expectantly, with eyes white as stars.

  Sly Boots squeaked in dismay.

  “Er . . . hello there,” Quicksilver hedged. “Who are you?”

  “Hurry, hurry, add them to the rest,” muttered the snake, and as it spoke, it grew, and fattened, and its voice boomed like drums. Soon it was all hard edges and boulder-rough hide. Starry white eyes blinked on a tiny head.

  “It’s you,” whispered Quicksilver.

  “Rompus,” agreed the creature, and scooped them up into its meaty hands.

  When Quicksilver groggily opened her eyes some time later, she was met with the rather unex
pected sight of a lace-covered table set for tea, complete with heaping plates of cakes, cookies, and tiny frosted pies.

  The Rompus loomed above her, with those same glowing white eyes—but it was no longer a boulder creature, nor a snake. It was a dragon with gleaming purple scales and a set of black horns. It watched her unblinkingly, its narrow, scaly chin propped up in its claws.

  When it saw that Quicksilver was awake, it clapped joyful, thunderous claps. The cave around them quaked, raining dust from a ceiling of shadow and stone. Quicksilver could only see the outside world through the cave mouth some distance away. A staggering array of portraits hung from fire pokers jammed into the walls. Each portrait displayed a person in a stiff collar and fine hat.

  “I painted them meself,” the Rompus announced. “Would you like one?”

  Upon examining the paintings more closely, Quicksilver noticed, with great alarm, that the painted figures were . . . skeletons.

  “All the ones I’ve ate,” the Rompus explained, pointing. “That one was me first. That one laughed all the way down me throat. That one tasted like dung.”

  Fox? thought Quicksilver.

  Right here, master, answered Fox, tickling her neck. Fox the invisible mouse, at your service and not at all terrified out of his wits.

  And Sly Boots? Quicksilver’s throat dried up with fear. Anastazia?

  I’m not quite sure.

  Quicksilver pretended awe at the arrangement of ghastly paintings. “These must have taken you quite a long time. I’ve not the skill for painting, but your talent is plain to see.”

  The Rompus grinned—an unnervingly toothy sight. “That’s what I tell meself every day. Oh, it’s been so long since I had a visitor, and I do like the look of you. You’re as ugly as me.” The Rompus circled the tea table. “How many sugars in your tea, Pig Face? Twenty? Thirty?”

  Despite the perilous situation, Quicksilver felt her temper rise. “I’m afraid you’ve gotten my name wrong, my talented friend. It’s Quicksilver.”

  The Rompus paused, a tiny flower-patterned teakettle pinched between its massive claws. “I like Pig Face,” he declared.