by Ann Aguirre
“We should call someone,” Lucy said, tugging his arm gently and trying to lead him away.
But Joshua ignored her. Once the guards came, there would be investigators and questions. They would ask him about what had happened. They would ask Lucy. And neither of them would have any real answers to give. Joshua had questions of his own, and right now they seemed more important. In particular, why?
“He wouldn’t,” Joshua said. It was more a wish than a fact.
“Maybe there’s a note,” Lucy suggested.
Despite the grisly state of the desk, Joshua stepped forward and carefully sorted through the papers around Lucas’s body. There was nothing. No note. No report that might explain why Lucas had taken such a drastic measure. He went around to the back of the desk and opened the single drawer, only to find a few pens and a picture of Lucas’s wife and son.
Perhaps it was that he didn’t want to believe his mentor would take his own life or perhaps it was that photograph or maybe it was the different angle, but when he looked back up at the desk, it struck him that the desk was too neat. Too organized. Matthew Lucas was a genius at everything but organizing.
“Someone straightened his papers,” he said in a hoarse whisper. Lucy moved next to him and took his hand.
“Maybe a secretary before…”
“No.” Joshua shook his head. “No one was allowed to touch his desk but me. He said I was too young to know any better.”
“Than to mess with his stuff?”
“Than to steal it,” Joshua said. A chill began at the base of his skull in the exact spot that was now missing from his mentor’s head. He had been murdered, Joshua was sure, but there was no proof. “Someone’s killed him.”
Lucy sucked in a breath, but didn’t speak.
“There’s no way to prove that. I’m sure I sound crazy, but I know it, Lucy.”
Her girlish face was pale, maybe even a little green from their discovery, but she gave him a small, supportive smile. “I believe you. But if he was, maybe we should leave. Whoever did this—”
“Could come after us,” he finished for her. She was right. The longer he stayed there searching for clues, the more danger he was placing her in. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait.” Lucy grabbed his arm. “What’s that?”
She pointed to the chair and Joshua saw a piece of paper sticking out of Lucas’s pants pocket. It had been shoved in hastily and Joshua was able to pull it free easily. He ignored the cling of iron on his tongue from the heavy scent of blood around the desk and smoothed the paper out. It was a note addressed to Albert. Joshua didn’t know any Alberts on the base, but it was clear from the content of the note that this man was working on the Cypress Project.
“What does it mean?” Lucy asked. Her voice was high, but other than that and a slight tremble in her hands, Joshua thought she was holding up remarkably well.
“They’re building a new world, Lucy,” he told her, the truth spilling out. There was no time to wait for proof. Lucas had surely died because of what he’d discovered. “They’re going to create a world with those machines they’ve been testing you on, and girls like you are going to create it.”
“That’s not possible,” she said. “What is he talking about, though? ‘Fountain of youth’?”
“I’m not sure. There are other experiments going on. Soldiers have been brought in. I haven’t seen any of them myself, but I heard Lucas talking about the things they could do. They can manipulate people. Change them. There’s an entire department devoted to studying this alteration ability.”
“Change them how?” Her voice was hollow, and he worried she might faint.
“Change their memories. Maybe even their faces. Lucas said the experiments were a bust. Unethical. He was going to stop them,” Joshua said. But he hadn’t been able to. Someone had stopped him first. Up until this moment Joshua had believed he was working for the greater good. Now he wasn’t so sure that the Cypress Project wasn’t going to destroy the entire world. It was supposed to end violence, but now Joshua was staring at proof that it was going to do the opposite.
“We need to find out who Albert is,” Lucy said. “Anyone here could have killed the doctor.”
“But Lucas trusted Albert, and he kept this message safe. He didn’t want his killer to discover it.”
“No, he didn’t.” It wasn’t Lucy’s voice. It was a man’s, and the couple looked up, startled.
“How long have you been there?” Lucy asked Patton in a whisper.
“Long enough.” Patton snapped a finger and two guards rushed into the room. Joshua struggled against them and Lucy came to his aid, kicking at the guard. The man struck her hard across the face and the blow knocked her to the ground.
“Lucy!” Joshua cried, losing focus only to find his hands pinned behind his back as a pair of handcuffs snapped shut over his wrists. The guard pushed him out the door past Patton, but Joshua pulled away, cornering Patton against the door. “You did this!”
“I wouldn’t say anything more,” Patton said. “Your fingerprints are all over that room, and then you attacked that poor girl.”
“What are you going to do to her?” Joshua snarled.
“She’ll be fine, I can promise you. The Cypress Project needs her. You, however, are expendable.”
And at a flick of Patton’s wrist, Joshua was dragged away.
* * *
She awoke under a light so bright that for a moment she thought she was blind, but as Lucy blinked, shapes swam around her. As the seconds passed, the room stayed fuzzy and out of focus. If it weren’t for the outlines of the light and the crease where the walls met in the corner, she might have thought she was dead. Then there was the matter of the cuffs that strapped her down to the bed.
Her throat felt stuffed with cotton, and she couldn’t force a swallow to wet it. Although she was mostly blind, all her other senses were as sharp as the tip of a knife. Lucy felt the pulse of blood in her dry throat. She thought she might be able to count each hair on her body as they stood up, alert to the danger she’d found herself in.
Because despite having very little memory of how she’d got here, she knew she was in trouble.
Something had gone horribly wrong and it didn’t take perfect vision or a clear memory to tell her that.
The door clicked open and Lucy heard the tap-tap-tap of shoes on tile, growing closer with each step, and then the stranger spoke, or rather barked, “Turn that light down.”
She froze when she heard the voice, and a rush of memories came back to her in a tangle. She sorted through them until she found the face the voice belonged to: Patton.
“What have you done with Joshua?” The question scratched across her parched tongue.
“You’re awake,” Patton said.
Lucy fought against the panic tumbling through her body, but she stayed calm. Patton wasn’t the type to take kindly to a hysterical girl, and thankfully Lucy had never qualified as one. The door behind her had begun to open and close to a stream of traffic, but Patton was the only one interested in speaking to her. The others didn’t look at her, even as they came to check the monitor by her bed. A pretty young nurse with a freckled nose gave her a sip of water and then disappeared without a word. With others nearby, she was safe for now.
“Why am I in cuffs? And where is Joshua?” she asked again.
“Your young friend couldn’t join us,” Patton replied as he tapped a finger against her bindings. “He’s been … reassigned to avoid further issues.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Lucy said. Her voice rose an octave, not from fear, but from the injustice of her situation.
“Of course you didn’t, my dear. Young girls need to be protected from predators like Mr. O’Donnell. It was a mistake I won’t allow to happen again.” He hovered over her like a cat closing in on a mouse, and Lucy realized he’d only removed his competition. She shrank back against the exam table, but there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t run. She
couldn’t call for help. No one nearby seemed concerned for her safety and without Joshua she was friendless here. She strained against her cuffs to distract herself from crying.
“I’m afraid that you’re much too important to our plans,” Patton said. “We can’t afford for you to run off again.”
“I’ll cooperate,” she promised, but she couldn’t quite keep the hint of a lie out of her words.
“You will cooperate. I’ve already seen to that.”
The night’s events grew clearer with each passing moment, and bile rose in her mouth as she recalled Lucas’s body collapsed on his desk with the back of his skull blown out. She was in danger, which meant she had to play the one card she had. Lucy dropped her voice to a whisper. “I know what you’re planning.”
Patton’s jaw tightened, and Lucy thought he might strike her, but instead he straightened up. “Out!”
The others in the room exited swiftly and Patton locked the door of the lab behind them.
“I suppose you want to bargain then.” He drew up a stool and sat across from her bed. “What’s your price then, Miss Price?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“A little joke,” he said, “to lighten the mood.”
“I suspect most things about you are little.”
The smug grin dropped from his face. “Let’s talk business. Before one of us does something we’ll regret.”
“You’re creating a new world,” Lucy said. “And keeping it from this one.”
“That’s hardly a secret. We can’t announce our intentions until we’re certain we will succeed.”
“And when you make the announcement, who gets to go and who will be left to die?” It wasn’t so much a question as an accusation.
Patton didn’t blink. “We can’t save everyone. This war has taught us that.”
“And who will you save? The rich? The powerful?”
“Yes, but we will also save the intelligent and the healthy and the strong. This new world—Arras—will be a fresh start for humanity. Imagine it, Miss Price. No wars. No famine. Soon not even disease. We can control it all.”
Lucy had heard crackpots talking before, trying to sell their visions to eager buyers. A friend had dragged her to a Pentecostal church once and she’d watched people speak in tongues and men heal the sick of heart. It had been revolting, save for one thing: the fervent belief that had pervaded that tent. It had been palpable, hanging in the air like sticky, humid heat. How her heart had pounded, her cheeks growing red in the crush of the crowd. She’d almost believed it all herself.
She thought Patton could use a lesson or two in selling lies, especially to himself.
“And what about the alterations department?” she asked when he’d finished the last of his sales pitch. “What will you use it for?”
“Arras needs strong leaders to establish order—” he began.
Lucy laughed at him. “The same leaders in perpetuity? That’s what those plans said. You called these alterations ‘the proverbial fountain of youth.’ You want to live forever. You don’t care about saving anyone but yourself.”
“It’s fortunate for you that the alterations department exists.” Patton stood and moved toward the door.
“And why is that? Are you going to kill me like you killed Dr. Lucas?” She spit the question at him, anger boiling over inside her. It was impossible to hide it.
“Alterations have another use, Miss Price. They can alter memories. Our tests so far have had varying success rates, but I’m sure our boys only need more practice.” Patton’s lips curved into a thin smile that didn’t reach his near-black eyes.
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise. Prepare yourself, Miss Price. You’ve been chosen to help us build the new world,” he said.
“And if I won’t?”
“You will, because after my boys are done with you, you won’t remember this conversation. You won’t even be Lucy Price anymore. Enjoy tonight. Tomorrow will be a whole new world.”
And with that he flipped a switch, washing away the room in a torrent of light and screams.
THE TOO-CLEVER FOX
Leigh Bardugo
BY LEIGH BARDUGO
Six of Crows
~ The Grisha Trilogy ~
Shadow and Bone
Siege and Storm
Ruin and Rising
Meet Leigh Bardugo
The idea for “The Too-Clever Fox” began with a moment in Siege and Storm, the second book in the Grisha Trilogy, when my protagonist, Alina, meets a privateer named Sturmhond. Sturmhond is a trickster—brilliant, glib, and cocky to a fault. As soon as you encounter him, you know that some of his schemes are bound to backfire. “He reminds me of the too-clever fox, another of Ana Kuya’s stories,” Alina says, “smart enough to get out of one trap, but too foolish to realize he won’t escape a second.”
At the time, that line was really all I knew about the story of Koja, the too-clever fox. I didn’t know who he would meet, who he’d best, or who he’d fail to best. With my novels, I always create an outline. I don’t feel safe writing without one. But with my shorter work I just let the story unfold. Sometimes, I begin by literally telling the story, speaking it out loud as if I were sitting by the fire on a stormy night. (“You want to hear a story? All right then, be very quiet and I will tell you the tale of an ugly little fox. What was his name? Well, he didn’t have one to begin with…”)
I’ve written three Ravkan folk tales now, and each is a (very loose) retelling of a well-known fairy tale. They’re meant to be stories that the characters of the Grisha Trilogy would have been told when they were younger. “The Too-Clever Fox” is a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” but you’ll find it heavily steeped in the magical-animal tales of Russian folklore. “The Witch of Duva” and “Little Knife” are based on two fairy tales that always bothered me as a kid, “Hansel and Gretel” and “Rumpelstiltskin,” respectively. (If your dad lets your evil stepmother send you into the woods to die, why would you even want to go back? And who would want to marry a king who threatens to kill you if you don’t spin a room full of straw into gold? Not a great way to start a relationship.)
For me, these stories are a chance to mess with some of the iffy ideas in fairy tales—the conflation of beauty and goodness, all those wicked witches and stepmothers. “The Too-Clever Fox” is a morality tale (“pride comes before the fall, kids!”), but I hope it’s also a look into the loneliness we all experience. And the stories give me a way to shed light on how religion, superstition, and myth might blur in a world where magic really does exist. In the trilogy, the country of Ravka is protected by a magical military elite known as the Grisha. But though the Grisha train in a palace and live lives of privilege and luxury, ordinary Ravkans view them with fear and suspicion. There are also magical creatures that can increase a Grisha’s power and that are often hunted by them—none of the animals talk in the trilogy, but in “The Too-Clever Fox,” they get to weigh in on how they might feel about this state of affairs.
Okay, but how did Ravka and the Grisha Trilogy come to be? It really all began with a question—what if darkness was a place? In fantasy, darkness usually works as a metaphor (a dark age is coming, darkness falls across the land), but what if darkness had physical form? And what if the creatures you imagined lurking in the dark were real? What if you had to fight them on their own territory? Those ideas became the basis for the Shadow Fold, the swath of nearly impenetrable darkness that has torn the country of Ravka in two. Because the truth is, no matter how old we get, our fear of the dark never completely goes away. It’s the monster under the bed, the creature in the closet waiting for you to turn out the light. As a child, I was convinced that there were a pair of two-headed red dragons living in my closet. Why two? No idea. You’d think one two-headed dragon would be enough to scare a kid. Of course they could only get out if someone accidentally left the closet door open. That’s the thing about dragons and doorknobs—no thumb
s.
I’ve been making up stories since I was lying in my bed trying to work up the courage to slam that closet door shut. In middle school, I discovered science fiction and fantasy and began writing down my stories as a way of dealing with a pretty rough reality. I always dreamed of becoming a writer and through the Grisha trilogy I’ve gotten to introduce readers to some of my favorite monsters, to a country of ice and snow and dark magic, and to a girl named Alina who discovers an extraordinary power that makes her the most valuable Grisha in the kingdom. In my new book, Six of Crows, I’ll be taking readers to a different corner of the Grisha world, a city ruled by thugs and thieves, and a gang of young criminals who must pull off an impossible heist. And then who knows? There are always new worlds to explore and more monsters waiting in the dark.
THE TOO-CLEVER FOX
by Leigh Bardugo
The first trap the fox escaped was his mother’s jaws.
When she had recovered from the trial of birthing her litter, the mother fox looked around at her kits and sighed. It would be hard to feed so many children, and truth be told, she was hungry after her ordeal. So she snatched up two of her smallest young and made a quick meal of them. But beneath those pups, she found a tiny, squirming runt of a fox with a patchy coat and yellow eyes.
“I should have eaten you first,” she said. “You are doomed to a miserable life.”
To her surprise, the runt answered, “Do not eat me, Mother. Better to be hungry now than to be sorry later.”
“Better to swallow you than to have to look upon you. What will everyone say when they see such a face?”
A lesser creature might have despaired at such cruelty, but the fox saw vanity in his mother’s carefully tended coat and snowy paws.
“I will tell you,” he replied. “When we walk in the wood, the animals will say, ‘Look at that ugly kit with his handsome mother.’ And even when you are old and gray, they will not talk of how you’ve aged, but of how such a beautiful mother gave birth to such an ugly, scrawny son.”
