“If Mountain Crag was visited by a Hound, I thought the same might be true of the Fountain Sprite.” Hawk sank into the cushioned chair Moon indicated and nodded when she pushed a decanter of pear brandy closer to his hand. “And perhaps she was not able to fight the beast off.”
“It is one explanation, certainly—” Moon began.
Nighthawk rapped the tabletop sharply with his knuckles. “But why is this happening now? There’s no logic, no cause and effect—but perhaps logic’s the wrong word when speaking of the Hunt.” He poured himself a glass of the brandy. “The Hunt has been in and out of the Shadowlands many times since the Basilisk brought them under his control. How is it that they are only now preying on these hidden ones?”
Moon sat down in the nearest chair, accepted with a nod the glass Hawk poured for her. “These are all excellent questions,” she said. “But I’m still unsure why you have brought them to me.”
Hawk sat staring at the surface of his brandy a moment before he took a deep breath and looked up. “I have known your sister a long time. It is I who trained her, during the period of the Exile, to use the weapons and the gra’if she bears. I know how being a Healer gives her a particular view of the world, and I know of her great loyalty.” He took a mouthful of his brandy, and Moon was reminded to do the same.
“Now she is High Prince, and beset with problems and worries the like of which I can barely grasp.” He put his glass down. “Before I add to these travails, I would like to be sure that what I have is more than a suspicion. And so I come to you, as someone who might have answers. Though you are not yourself a Singer, you have gathered the Singer’s lore.”
Moon sat up straight, bringing her knees and ankles together. When she noticed what she had done, she smiled. She had sat this way when she was a child, and her sister had been teaching her. “If I do not know the answer myself, I would very likely know where to find it.”
“First, is it true that the Hunt will follow the trail they are set on, to the exclusion of all others?”
“So much the Songs tell, yes.” She had encountered that fact among many Songs, old and new—and she’d found that the more often a piece of lore was repeated from Song to Song, the more dependable it was.
Hawk leaned to replenish her glass. “Do they tell how a Hound is set upon its trail?”
Moon hesitated. “That is not so clear,” she began. “Of necessity, these Songs tell the tales of those who were being tracked. No Song tells the point of view of the Hound. Mentions of the Horn I have already spoken of, but as for whether they can be set on a trail without its use? That I cannot say.”
“Without the Horn, do they govern themselves?” Hawk leaned forward, amber eyes narrowing.
“We cannot even be sure of the function of the Horn, from the Hunt’s perspective,” warned Moon. It was so difficult, sometimes to make people see the logic of things. “Did the Basilisk control them completely with the Horn? Or was he also offering other incentives? Does the Horn merely summon? Or does it command? These are among the questions I am seeking to answer now.”
“We know of someone who was set on the trail of People in the Shadowlands.” Hawk pursed his lips and took a deep breath in through his nose before continuing. “One who has visited both Shower of Stars and Mountain Crag. If the Sprite is Faded, it must be at the hands of someone who knew she was in the moving water of the fountain. Someone to whom she would allow entry.”
Moon felt the temperature in the room drop. The older Rider’s bronze face was grim.
“If you speak of Stormwolf,” she said slowly, “did you, Nighthawk, not tell us that he helped you kill the Hound that had been following you in Granada?”
Hawk lowered his eyes and nodded. “But would it be unheard of, or even unusual, for one member of the Hunt to turn on another?”
Moon sat up straighter. “You think his helping you was a ruse? But Wolf is not a member of the Hunt. He was cured of his affliction by the High Prince herself.”
Hawk turned his free hand palm up. “Truthsheart was not yet High Prince when she cured Stormwolf. Even so, I do not suggest that the fault lies in her, but in him.”
“This is the trouble you do not wish to bring her.”
“Can we bring this to Truthsheart without further proof? Should we?” Hawk lifted his shoulder slightly and tilted his head to one side. His amber eyes were rounded with concern. “What would be the reaction, even among the most open-minded of the People, if they should learn Truthsheart has tamed one of the Hunt, and he has proven to be not so tame after all?”
Moon stood up. She felt like shaking him. “You speak as though you were still the Senior Warden of the Exile, and my sister was still a novice under your supervision. You forget yourself, Nighthawk. She is High Prince. Do you doubt her Healing? I cannot, that is certain. I have been Healed by her myself, Healed of a sickness of the soul as great as any Hound’s. Before or after the Stone acclaimed her, what does it matter? She was acclaimed because of what she was already.”
Hawk bowed his head, placing his hand over his heart. “Your pardon, Walks Under the Moon. You are right. It is too easy for me to slip into my old role. I assure you, I do trust your sister’s Healing.” Hawk raised his head. “Before and after she became High Prince.” He shrugged, and grinned at her. “If I am being honest, I liked Wolf immediately, and I do not like to think that my judgment should be so poor. But I also know that a person can be led astray by clinging to old loyalties, and that even the best intentions can lead to tragedy and disaster. The humans have a saying, ‘Measure twice, cut once.’”
Moon flushed. Impossible that what Hawk suggested should be true, but…Wolf was concerned with his old loyalties, even if not in the way Hawk suggested. “You are wrong about Stormwolf.” Moon could hear the tremor in her voice and cleared her throat. “You may ask Lightborn’s mother, Honor of Souls, if you doubt it. After the turning of the Cycle, she fostered us both. There is nothing wrong with Stormwolf. I swear it.”
“If it is only circumstances which are against him, all the better.” Hawk held her eyes with his until she acknowledged his statement with a grudging nod. He leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping out a rhythm on the arms. “Perhaps he is being used—followed, tracked without his knowledge. But if so, we must know.”
Moon felt herself growing colder, though the fire in the hearth burned true, the work of a Fire Sprite as were all the fires in her home. She knew Wolf was innocent of wrongdoing—or of this evil, certainly. But Hawk’s suggestion that Wolf was being used as a stalking horse was a legitimate possibility. Righteous indignation would not resolve this.
She had lived with Wolf in the same home after the Cycle had turned. Eaten with him, walked with him, Ridden with him. He was no Hound, that she felt was a truth beyond doubt. But not everyone would feel the same way, not everyone would be persuaded by her words alone.
“We must have proof,” she said finally. “In that, I agree. But I am not so sure we do right in not telling my sister.”
Hawk leaned forward, his face creased in concentration, the ruddiness of his Sunward coloring somehow rough, as if he carried with him the years he had spent in the Shadowlands. “You have said it. One way or another, we must have proof before we speak. If we can answer this question ourselves…”
Moon pressed her lips together, refraining from pointing out that she, at least, did not need the question answered. “The last time I made plans without my sister’s knowledge, it did not go well.” But to go to her now, with this news, so soon after letting Wolf return to the Shadowlands without permission? “If you find even one more person who has been visited by the Hunt, or who is missing after Wolf has visited them, then we must tell her of your fears. It is her responsibility, not ours.”
Hawk drained his glass of brandy and stood. “You are right, Moon. She is High Prince; I will not act further without her knowledge.” His voice was steady, but Moon thought he looked troubled.
“In the meantime
,” Moon smiled, “I may have news of my own to report to my sister. I believe I have found the first thread that will lead me to the Horn.” She took a deep breath, heat rising in her cheeks as the older Rider gave her a deep bow.
“Possession of the Horn would certainly do much to solve the problem of the Hunt. While you pursue these efforts, I will return to the Shadowlands and see if there is more evidence to be found.” Hawk looked down at his hands and back at Moon, a slight frown on his face. “I am certain we will find Stormwolf innocent in this.” His tone was firm, but the look on his face spoke more of hope than certainty.
“I have already pledged myself to help these people. That is enough! Why must you put yourself in any further danger? You have only just met them.” Alejandro was checking the pockets of his suit jacket for mobile, billfold, and keys.
I blinked. I had only just met them, I realized. All the time we’d spent in the Lands had only been hours here. It was only, what? Days since I’d met Nik, gone with him to take Elaine to the palliative care ward? I scrubbed at my face with my hands. It felt like weeks. And here was Alejandro, like a parent telling me to stay away from the bad boys.
“You didn’t know me.” My headache was coming back.
For a second he stood completely still, eyes wide, mouth open. “That is different! Vastly different.”
I let my hands drop. “Right, because you’re so old, and you’ve been around so long, and you have so much more experience than poor little human me.” He was being so unfair, and on top of all the other unfairness I’d had piled on me just recently, it was too much. A volcano erupted inside me, and the words came pouring out like lava. “You have no idea what I’ve experienced, no idea at all.” I was on my feet jabbing at him with a stiff index finger. “Dozens of lives, maybe hundreds—so many people I can’t even remember them all. And people, human people. Like I’m human, like Elaine’s human, and Nik. Like—” I stopped before the words came out, but it wouldn’t take a psychic to know what I had almost said. Like Alejandro wasn’t human. It would have been unforgiveable to say it, and some knowledge of that stopped me from speaking the words aloud. But they hovered in the air between us, no less real because unsaid.
“You are my fara’ip,” was what Alejandro finally said. But not at all like he was reminding me, more like he was reminding himself. I felt a little chill.
But then I knew what he was saying, and it made my breath come a little easier, and my heart slow down a bit. We were the same fara’ip. That couldn’t be changed by anything that either of us said, or even anything we did. It couldn’t be taken back, but that made it a double-edged sword. It meant there were things you couldn’t say, maybe things you couldn’t do, because you were in the same fara’ip. It was what had stopped me, I suddenly realized, from saying that Alejandro wasn’t human, and that because of that, he wasn’t really on the same side as me.
So he was reminding both of us, really, that we were always on the same side, no matter what.
So I did something I’d never done before. Something that startled me almost as much as it did Alejandro. I burst into tears. Suddenly it was all too much for me. I had to face that in trying to help both Nik and Wolf, I might not be doing the best I could by either of them. I had to face that after years of isolation, I was attracted to both of them, but only one of them was mostly human. I had to face that I still hadn’t found my other family, or the place I belonged—and that there was one home, at least, I’d never be able to go back to.
I was dimly aware that Alejandro had his arms around me. Was I ever going to know anyone else well enough to stand like this with them? Well enough that all I would get was their immediate emotional state? Touching Alejandro, I could feel the Healing that Cassandra, the High Prince, had given him. I could read the shift in his dra’aj that acknowledged his visit to the Lands. He didn’t feel younger, exactly, just refreshed, like he’d gone to a spa. I hadn’t known that just living so long in the Shadowlands would have affected his dra’aj in this way. He was older even than I had believed.
I was just framing a question arising out of that thought when the phone rang, and Alejandro released me. He didn’t answer it, however, just stood looking at it with his brow wrinkled, so I went over to see for myself what the call display said. “Unknown caller.”
I touched the phone with the tip of my finger. “Nighthawk.” I frowned, concentrating. “I think he’s alone.”
I left Alejandro to his call, reminded by it that I should check my own messages. Unlike most humans my age—and unlike Alejandro who was neither human nor my age—I didn’t have a bunch of girlfriends from high school or university to text me, friend me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter. Unlike most humans my age, mobiles, tablets, e-readers, even computers, were something I’d only learned about in the few years since Alejandro had rescued me from the Collector. So checking my phone or computer for messages or emails still wasn’t second nature to me.
All I had was a text from Nik. MT ME? He wants to see me. My lips curled into a smile. Had he left that text before or after he’d spoken with Alejandro? Here I’d just been wondering whether I’d ever know anyone as well as I knew Alejandro. Could Nik be a possibility?
Alejandro was off the phone. “Hawk has returned from the Lands. He has asked for the whereabouts of Stormwolf.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Suddenly, the idea of another Rider was more than I wanted to deal with. If my trip to the Lands had taught me anything, it was that my connections with any of them were going to be limited.
“So it’s off to Australia for Nighthawk?” I did the best I could to keep the resignation I felt out of my voice.
Alejandro nodded, but his eyes were on my mobile. I hadn’t put it away, and I could tell that since he’d told me about his call, he expected the same courtesy in return.
“Nik,” I said. “Just to say everything’s okay, I guess.”
Alejandro’s face clouded over. Here we go again. This, I thought, is really how teenagers must feel. “Just tell me what you’re thinking,” I said. “Keeping in mind that I don’t need your permission to talk to anyone.”
He waved this away. “It is only that I wish you to take care. It is one thing to know these people are no danger to you in themselves, that they mean you no harm. It is another thing entirely to put yourself in peril in order to help them. They have all been touched by the Hunt.”
“It isn’t just that they mean me no harm.” I spun my mobile on the table, stopped it, and set it spinning again in the other direction, wondering how to say what I needed to say. “These are all good people.” I remembered the look on Nik’s face as he showed us the news clips. “Aren’t these the kind of people I should want to help? The kind of people who would make good friends? You didn’t turn me away, when I needed your help.”
Alejandro’s smile was crooked, his old familiar grin that made me feel warm all over. “I see.” He nodded. “So this is my fault, then, querida?”
I grinned back. “Sure. I’m just following the example you set me.” My tone dropped into seriousness without my really intending it to. “You wouldn’t want me to do anything else.”
“I would, though I am ashamed to say so. But I am proud that you will not listen to me. Afraid, but proud.”
“Then we’re okay.”
Fox flipped the cell phone shut and sat looking at it, watching as the numbers that told the time faded.
“River on her way?” Badger sat across the table from him. Fox hadn’t noticed before that she was a Starward Rider. He couldn’t tell whether she looked paler than usual in the dim light at the back of the Hair of the Dog.
“No reason for us to be scattered now,” he reminded her. “We’re not looking for the Exile anymore.”
Badger shook her head. “I’m sorry about Stump.” Fox lifted one shoulder and let it fall. Encouraged, Badger continued. “I don’t know what possessed him, though he was always impulsive. He just didn’t get it that it’s
still dangerous here.” She looked away and when she looked back, her eyes had changed color. “It’s better now we’re all together.”
“You can have Longshadow to replace Stump.” Fox picked up the glass on the table in front of him and put it back down without drinking from it. “Once the others are here, we’ll see how many more we need.”
Now Badger was grinning, her teeth too many and too long. Fox tapped his own mouth and she quickly covered hers with her hand. When she lowered it, she looked normal again. Evidently, Stump wasn’t the only one who could get careless.
“So there’s more of them? More like Longshadow?”
“Looks like it.” Fox smiled as he picked up the cell phone. It was strange to be thinking about Riders as more than just a source of dra’aj.
The booth where he’d established them was tucked into the corner farthest from the bar, and secluded enough that the casual observer could easily overlook it. Even the bar staff, busy at this time of day, would approach it only if waved down. Fox was finding it difficult to judge the passage of time here in the Shadowlands. He’d been expecting daylight when he left the den in the empty sports arena, but it was evening again, twilight heading into dark. He’d thought they’d broken the whole nocturnal predator habit, but it looked now like that had just been part of the compulsion of the Horn.
“We really don’t need to be so careful, do we, Fox? Now that there’s no Horn?”
“Really?” Fox pulled back his upper lip and Badger dropped her eyes. He was Pack Leader now, not just a Five leader like her. She should remember that. “You mean like Stump could stop being careful? Just because the humans aren’t any danger to us, doesn’t mean there’s no danger out there.” He pointed at her. “We don’t know enough. We’re still outnumbered, and we’re split. What’s happening to the ones left in the Lands? What’s happened to the Horn? Just because it isn’t compelling us right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. No. There are still too many questions for us to get fat and happy.” Should he tell her about his plan, or should he wait until all of them had arrived?
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