The Demon and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  Memory jolted his panic away. In Splint’s office—

  No. Don’t think of it now. He replaced the thought with the memory of the burning barn and Farley’s terrified coughing, focused on it as strongly as he could.

  “You may escort him out now, Argent,” Jaeger said. “Penfold, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that someday I may resume our acquaintance.”

  This was it, this severing of his ability from the magic world. At least, he thought, resting against a flowery relief in the hallway outside Jaeger’s office, Coppy was still enrolled here, and as long as the otter was here, there could still be a Calatian sorcerer. Kip wanted desperately for it to be him, but if that were impossible, then his best friend was the next best thing. He could even smell Coppy here.

  “Come, Penfold.” Argent was two steps down already, but Kip brought his nose to the stone of the hallway, down at his waist level. Yes, unmistakable, there was the oily, musky smell of otter. Coppy had been in this hallway.

  “Penfold,” Argent said gently. “He will not reverse it, no matter your argument.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Kip said, and hurried away from the stone.

  Argent’s mention of reversal led Kip back dangerously close to the subject he didn’t want to think about. How far from Jaeger’s office was far enough to safely think about things he didn’t want the old sorcerer to hear? Gugin had stayed three floors above everyone else, so perhaps the third floor. But as Kip followed Argent down past the fourth floor landing, he remembered that on his previous visit, Jaeger had made reference to Kip’s stay in Splint’s ward. So he knew, and he hadn’t told Argent nor Patris. Would Splint have told them?

  Kip focused on the stone as his bare paws touched each step. Peter? Please, I need your help.

  There was no answer. They descended another level, closer to the Great Hall and the last chance Kip would have to talk to Peter. Please, please, he said. They’re going to take all of this away from me if you don’t help.

  One more floor. No response. They descended to the Great Hall, Kip holding his breath waiting for an answer. Still the Tower remained silent. “Please,” he said to Argent, “may I have a moment to say good-bye to the elementals?”

  The sorcerer nodded, so Kip walked over to the fireplace. He leaned on the stone against it and said, “Good-bye, fellows. I hope I’ll someday see you again.”

  As the elementals chorused their questions about where he was going, he pleaded silently one last time with Peter, focusing on the stone. Still he heard no response, so he reached for magic again and again felt nothing, a blank numbness where there had been power. Peter, I won’t have another chance.

  Still there was only silence. “Penfold.” Argent rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “One more good-bye,” he said, his mind racing. “Forrest, in the orchard. I promise I’ll make it quick. It’s cold out.”

  “That is outside the Tower,” Argent said, “so you may take more time if you wish. But you must leave the Tower now.”

  On the way back from the orchard, Kip could contrive to touch the wall one more time. He nodded and made his way outside.

  Snow covered the ground and got into his pawpads, making him hurry his steps as he ran to the orchard through a brisk, chilly but not cold morning. The trees stood in skeletal lines, frost and snow dotting their branches, shadows in the first light of dawn stretching like bony fingers across the orchard and the wood beyond. Kip reached the edge without seeing any movement amid the harsh shadows; even the birds that filled the air with their song sat fluffed and still in the crooks of branches. He called out, “Forrest?”

  A bird took flight. Kip flattened his ears and lifted his nose to the wind. Forrest’s distinctive scent was nowhere on the breeze. Where would he be, if not here? It was too early for the dining tent, and he wasn’t in his master’s office.

  Kip recalled again Gugin’s body on the couch, and his fur crawled. He took another breath, looked back to Argent waiting on the path, and walked slowly in a circle around the orchard. Two more birds took flight, but nothing stirred between the rows of trees. And then he caught a scent, sweat and earth together. He froze, casting about, but it vanished.

  The air had brought the scent to him so he slitted his eyes and stepped forward into the breeze. Ten paces brought him to a snowdrift with an odd, lumpy shape. The scent came to him again as he approached, and when he put his paw to the snow, he already knew what he would find.

  Kip waited outside the doors to the Great Hall. When he’d run back to tell Argent about Forrest’s body, curled in a fetal position against a tree and frozen nearly solid, Argent had gone to see for himself and then grimly told Kip not to go back into the Tower, but that he could wait inside a tent if he wanted. Kip would not have minded getting out of the wind, but he found a place to stand with his back to the ancient stone where only an occasional breeze caught his ears and nose. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked up as a shadow passed over him. A raven had taken flight from the Tower and now soared for the orchard.

  Kip.

  He jumped, bringing his body away from the Tower, and then pressed back against it. Peter?

  He was watching for me, the old one, but he is distracted now.

  Warmth suffused Kip. He gasped, sagging back against the stone, and when he reached for magic, it came easily to him. Thank you, he breathed.

  Extinguish it, Peter said, but Kip was already letting the magic seep away from him. The purple glow around his paws faded and vanished.

  Thank you, thank you, Kip said again.

  Keep my secret.

  I promise.

  And then the Great Hall doors opened, and Patris stormed out with Argent at his side. They pushed off from the ground and hovered a foot above the snow, flying out toward the orchard. Kip strained to watch them through the blinding white, but lost them until they returned, the body of Forrest floating at their side with a raven, likely Blacktalon, perched on it. Patris glared at Kip and said something to Argent as he and the frozen body floated into the Hall. Argent stopped and landed on the path near Kip. “Wait out here,” he said.

  Kip nodded and settled back against the stone. It was cold, but the knowledge that Peter was there and still talking to him allowed him to relax back against it.

  A trio of ravens departed the Tower not long after, but no person emerged from it for a good half an hour. Then Patris came out, ignored Kip, and walked to the gates. Feeling invisible, Kip padded around the corner of the Tower and waited while Patris greeted a lanky man who resolved in Kip’s eyesight into Sheriff Winters as the two returned to the Tower. “Afternoon, Penfold,” Winters said, and turned to Patris. “Penfold involved in all this?”

  “He found the body,” Patris growled.

  “Let’s bring him into the Tower where it’s warm and we’ll conduct our investigation, what d’you say?”

  Patris’s cheeks grew even redder. “You may question him here,” he said. “He’s no longer allowed inside the Tower.”

  “Ah.” Winters looked Kip up and down. “At least we could go into one of those tents?”

  “Yes, yes. Not that one.” Patris gestured at the dining tent. “Lunch will be served soon. But the one beside it, that’s fine.”

  The practice tent still had not been repaired from Adamson’s fire. “That’ll do just fine,” Winters said, so affably that Kip couldn’t tell whether he knew about the state of the tent or not.

  When they reached the practice tent, the sheriff ushered Kip inside through the burned doorway. “At least we can get a little bit out of the wind,” he said, and as he followed Kip in, he went on, “Now what’s this about you not being allowed in the Tower?”

  “Ah.” Kip rubbed his paws together and then reached up to warm his ears. “I’ve been expelled from the college.”

  Winters’ eyebrows rose. “I suppose the surprise isn’t that it happened, but that it took so long, given what I hear from the headmaster.”

  “I was
useful,” Kip said. “I obeyed all their rules, until Alice was kidnapped.” He couldn’t stop himself then, pouring out all his account of the incident to Winters, who listened impassively. “He was going to kill me, and probably her,” Kip finished with a snarl. “But they don’t care about that. Patris doesn’t care about that. He only cared that I broke the rules, even if I had to do it to save a life.”

  “Well,” Winters said, “Speakin’ as one who has to keep the peace, we generally frown on breakin’ rules as well. There wasn’t nothing you could’ve done but set the fire?”

  “I…” Kip shook his head. “I don’t think so. Farley’s strong at physical magic. I wouldn’t have been able to hold him back that way. And I don’t know much other magic yet. If I’d learned translocation I could’ve brought myself here and gotten Alice out easily.”

  “None of your friends knows that?”

  “Emily does. But I didn’t know where she’d gone, and Farley was getting ready to cast his spell...” He paused. Could he have called Emily to come help him? He could have. And maybe if he’d not set the fire, if he’d only told her where to go, she could have rescued Alice and he would have been reprimanded only for personal use of a demon. Or maybe not even that, if there were no reason for his presence to be revealed at all. The unfolding of the very simple means by which he could have avoided expulsion tightened his chest again. Why wasn’t there a spell to go back in time and undo stupid mistakes?

  “Be that as it may, I only want to ask about how you found the body.”

  Kip nodded, rubbing his eyes. “I wanted to delay leaving. I was saying good-bye to the elementals in the fireplace and as we went out the door I thought of Forrest in the orchard. I’d talked to him and knew him so I wanted to say good-bye to him as well. But he wasn’t there. I walked around and sort of caught his scent through the snow. I put my paw into the snow and…” He shuddered. “I touched him. So I told Master Argent and he brought Patris out and they brought him back. That’s all.”

  “Right.” Winters scratched his beard. “When was the last time you saw him before today? Alive, I presume.”

  “Aye.” Kip thought back. “It was before Christmas, probably about a month ago. I went out to bring him blankets and I set a fire to try to warm him up, but he didn’t like that.”

  “Mm.” Winters looked Kip up and down. “Like setting fires, do you?”

  Kip gritted his teeth. “If you’ve a better way of warming someone quickly, I’m happy to hear it.”

  “Ah well, I find a nice hot toddy does the trick. But the College is dry, isn’t it? More’s the pity.”

  “You’d rather have drunken sorcerers?”

  Winters conceded his point with a wag of his index finger. “All that said, Penfold, I won’t say that I haven’t seen many a sorcerer makin’ a show of their magic when there’s no need. So you seem to fit in right well with the sorcerers. And if you want to make a job out of lighting fires, I believe Carrier’s smokehouse might have a job for you.”

  “They’ve stopped me using magic.” Kip’s heart sped up at the deception. “So I’d have to do it with matches and tinder, the same as everyone. I’m sure there are many in town who’ll be pleased by that.”

  He didn’t have to fake the bitterness in his voice. Winters raised his eyebrows again and then nodded slowly. “Reckon there are.” He put a hand on Kip’s shoulder. “Reckon you best not spare those kind much thought.”

  “You came up here on their request, back when I was first admitted.” Winters had come up on behalf of the town to ask that Kip’s matriculation to the College be revoked. Patris’s pride had stopped him then from kicking Kip out, though if the headmaster could have looked into the future, the fox thought bitterly, he would have swallowed his pride.

  “Aye, I’m bound to do so. Took more pleasure in returning the answer than in carrying the question.”

  Kip’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Wish you had more t’thank me for.” Winters shook his head. “Ought’ve jailed Broadside a while ago, but his ma a widow and all, what would she have done without him to work their farm? Always held out hope he’d learn a trade and settle down. Not much to be done about it now.”

  Kip wanted more to be done, but he couldn’t see what right at the moment. So he said his good-byes to Winters, but stayed in the practice tent. As long as the investigation was going on, perhaps Patris would forget about him.

  Not five minutes later, his name sounded loudly outside, but the voice wasn’t Patris’s. He poked his head out of the tent, drawing the attention of Malcolm and Coppy, who were standing by the Tower calling. Malcolm, in a thick coat and bright green scarf, reached the tent before the otter did. “Strewth,” he said, “we thought you’d be gone already.”

  “I would be if not for Forrest,” Kip said.

  Malcolm shook his head. “Saw the body. Everyone heard so we all came down to the Hall and saw him float it through on the way to Splint’s office. Terrible thing. Not a surprise, though.”

  “I suppose not.” Kip reached out to hug Coppy. “But why now? We’ve had colder days.”

  “A body can only take so much before it wears down, I suppose.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Coppy said.

  “What?” Kip pulled away. “No, you have to stay and learn. You’re doing better, you said so! If I can’t be the first Calatian sorcerer, I’ll be happy for it to be you.”

  The otter shook his head and stifled a yawn. “Windsor’s better, but I know enough already. Besides, who’s going to take care of you? You’ve no magic now and Farley’s still out there.”

  “If you leave, they’ll take away your magic.”

  “Not if I go to join the road crew.” The otter smiled. “You can come back to the Isle with me. Stay there while I work around London.”

  It was tempting. “I thought,” Kip said slowly, “that if I could keep going, to figure out who attacked the college…I’m so close right now.”

  “Are you?” Malcolm asked.

  Kip patted his bag. “I’ve got a glass bead here and an idea of how to find the demon that made it. We know someone cast the spell from the sixth floor, and there’s the one locked room we can’t get into…” He trailed off. The door that had had Coppy’s scent on it. “We have so many clues, there has to be something there. I mean…” He lowered his voice and sniffed, but no tingle of demon magic came to him. “If Gugin was killed, then maybe Forrest was too. Maybe they were killed because they have information.”

  “If they gave you the information,” Malcolm pointed out, “then why kill them? Why not kill you?”

  Coppy grabbed Kip’s arm. “Kip has fire.”

  “Not any more.” He didn’t want to lie to Coppy, but it was too dangerous not to, here on the grounds of the College.

  “All the more reason you need me to protect you.”

  Kip shook his head again. “I’d rather you succeed even if it costs my life.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Kip wrapped an arm around Coppy’s shoulder. “I mean it. I want to learn sorcery more than anything, but if it comes down to you or nobody, of course I want you to succeed. You’ll be the sorcerer the young Calatians look up to, the one who inspires them to tell the College they can do magic and demand to be taught. And they’ll ask for Master Lutris.” Kip forced a smile, looking down at the otter. “Imagine that.”

  “I don’t want to be Master Lutris,” Coppy said. “Not if there’s no Master Penfold.”

  “That’s silly.” Kip hugged him. “You’ll be a good sorcerer. And if I can figure out the attack, there will be a Master Penfold. But whatever happens, sorcerer or no, I won’t leave your side. Even if I’m powerless.” With his friends, he felt the return of the energy that the expulsion had sapped from him.

  “Can we have a look at that bead you mentioned?” Malcolm rubbed his hands together.

  Kip nodded and rummaged in his bag for the vial. Malcolm peered in as he did. �
�What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a scrap of paper. “List of possible suspects?”

  “Demon names,” Kip said. “Powerful ones. Too much for me to summon, but I thought they’d be useful.”

  “Aye, I can see that.” Malcolm stared down as Kip brought out the little perfume vial. He took it from the fox and held it up, letting the glass bead rattle inside. “You think this is a clue?”

  “It is for sure,” Kip said. “It used to be a person.”

  Malcolm dropped the vial into Kip’s bag with an exclamation, and then rubbed his hands vigorously. “Strewth, Kip, you carry around corpses in your bag?”

  Coppy, too, was eyeing the bag a bit askance even as he brought a paw to his muzzle again. Kip pulled it against his side. “It’s an important clue,” he said. “But first, I think I have an idea about what to do about Farley. I’ll need Emily, though. Can you all meet me at the Inn tonight? I don’t know how much longer I’ll be allowed to stay on the hill.”

  “Not long once Patris remembers,” Malcolm said.

  “Aye.” Kip released Coppy and embraced Malcolm. “Thank you both. I feel much better about this.”

  They didn’t want to leave him, but Malcolm’s cheeks and ears grew more and more red and eventually Kip told them to go inside, that he was going to go down to the Inn. Having talked to Peter and gotten magic back, he felt much better about leaving the college now. Especially as the Inn was likely to have a fire on.

  By the time Emily, Malcolm, and Coppy arrived at the Inn, Kip had spent a good hour listening to Old John’s stories and another two hours composing a letter following the idea he’d had about Farley. Taking any kind of action, even something as uncertain as this, felt good until he could resume his investigation.

  “Malcolm said you had a plan?” Emily said without preamble as she sat down.

  “What did Sheriff Winters find about Forrest?” Kip asked.

  “We don’t know. Weren’t allowed to hear the results,” Malcolm sat down as Coppy did, though the otter sat down more heavily and rested his head on his elbows.