by Tim Susman
Kip’s tail flicked, and he lowered his ears. “It’s dangerous. I want to be sure before I try.”
“Don’t wait too long.” His father patted his shoulder, but the older fox’s muzzle creased in a smile.
“Did Master Vendis say anything about us being Selected?”
Max hesitated. “He said that it was too early for any of the masters to make up their minds.” His ears lowered. “He also said he would not take you or Coppy. I offered to leave his service until your apprenticeship would be over, but he thought his sorcery would suffer in the meantime. I’m sorry, boys.”
“We’ll have to impress someone else,” Coppy said, and patted Kip on the arm. “Eh, fox?”
“Aye.” Kip smiled with more confidence than he felt. “How’s the town?”
“Oh, things go well enough.” His father spoke casually, but Kip saw the flick of his ears, the way his eyes slid to the side. “I let Johnny take some days off so he can work with his mother as well.”
“Is he not learning the business quickly enough?”
Max shook his head. “It isn’t that,” he said. “Johnny’s bright. He has other things to occupy his time, that’s all.”
“And you’re able to manage the store by yourself?”
“I get by.”
Kip frowned. “Is business doing well?”
His father nodded. “Good enough.” He rubbed his paws down the front of his shirt, smoothing the fabric, and then tugged at one of the laces near the collar. “Your mother has some relatives in Peachtree, and they say they need help rebuilding if Prince Philip’s is to be restored. We might take a vacation to go down there.”
“Down to Georgia?” Kip frowned. “I don’t remember hearing about relatives there.”
“There’s a fox family named Shanton.” The older fox lifted his paws to his muzzle and blew on them, then dropped them to his sides. “They’re descended from your great-grandfather’s brother, who came over to America with him last century. After the attacks, your mother reached out to the town and found them.”
“Oh.” It seemed strange and sudden, these relatives out of nowhere, but it made sense that his mother would have been reaching out to help those in need, and after all, the Calatians of Peachtree were now a community without sorcerers to defend them. He glanced at Coppy, who seemed unaware that anything about this might be strange. “When would you go?”
“We haven’t decided. The next boat from England is due in a month, so perhaps another month after that. There are usually slow times between boat shipments.”
The slow times were when his father liked to work with perfumes, sometimes go out on day hikes for plants and other ingredients. “Are there other plants you could bring back from Georgia?”
“I’m reading up.” Max smiled. “I’m going to go to Forman’s in Boston—you remember them?”
The grand perfume shop, the bright glass windows and marble flooring, the elegantly dressed clerks and the jovial shopkeeper. Kip had not been allowed to walk alone on the streets of Boston, but had brought bottles and boxes down from the shelves that his father had sniffed before consulting with the tall, taciturn Mr. Forman. Kip nodded, and his father went on. “George said I might consult his library if I wished. I shall see what his books know about Georgia herbs and florals.”
“All right.” Kip felt a tingle in his whiskers that had nothing to do with cold or magic, a feeling he remembered from the night of the attacks, a feeling that something was wrong behind a shroud of darkness he could not penetrate. But his father’s easy manner was as effective a barrier as the magical darkness on the hill had been, and so he did not resist the change in subject when his father asked how he was getting along.
He wanted to mimic his father’s casual ease, to hide his trouble with Farley behind a similar curtain, but Coppy spoke before he could. “Farley’s Farley,” he said. “Those kind never change. He threw rocks at Kip, but Kip handled it well.”
And then Kip had to recount the incident, sparing the details of the kicks he’d received so as not to worry his father overmuch. Coppy went on to say, “Malcolm wants to have it out, but Kip won’t do that.”
“Good,” Max said. “This fight isn’t with Farley. You know that.”
Kip did, sort of, but he inclined his head and cupped his ears forward, letting his father explain. “It isn’t a case where you’ve wounded him personally.”
“It is, rather,” Coppy put in.
“With Farley, yes, but the issues underlying it are different.” Max straightened. “If it were only that you’d stolen a chicken from his farm…”
“Dad!”
Max smiled. “Among ourselves, we can laugh at the jokes. The point is, if it were a mundane matter, eventually a fight would settle it. But the tension between you two is not so simple. If he drives you out, he’d turn his malice on Coppy. If you were both gone, he would find another target. And likewise, if you drive him out, there will be others waiting to take up his arms. The only way in which you can win this fight is to strike at its cause.”
“How do we do that?”
“If I could tell you, we would already have done it. Look to the agitators in Boston who seek to change Massachusetts Bay’s status in the Empire, not with a war of force, but with a war of words.”
“The ones who are in jail, you mean?” Kip couldn’t help asking.
“Not all are in jail, and the ones in jail are not dead. John Adams takes advantage of his standing with the Crown to remain free and vocal.” His father shook his head. “What those agitators are trying to do is change attitudes. They seek to make people believe that Massachusetts Bay—that all these colonies—should be free and independent, willing partners with the Empire rather than subjects of it. Most people will not follow them; why should they? The Empire is all they have known. So Adams and his friends try to change the beliefs of those here, to show them the benefits of freedom.
“There is no blueprint for what you two are trying to do. You must show the sorcerers the benefits of accepting you. You two must change their conceptions that Calatians cannot do some things. Farley is not the enemy.”
“He’s an enemy,” Kip growled.
“He throws a mean rock,” Coppy said. “An’ he’s learning sorcery now.”
“Defend yourself, but do not allow this fight to become your priority. You can also lose your status at the college if you fight too often, and Farley doesn’t lose as much as you do if he’s also expelled.”
Kip folded his arms. “I won’t get thrown out.”
His father gestured toward the tents. “This is a large, faceless enemy you fight, and it will take a long time to win even a small battle. It is capable of swift, devastating attacks, and you must always be on your guard.”
The thunder, the darkness, the rubble…Kip swallowed and nodded. His father’s scent on the air held no fear, only assurance and a small amount of worry. “I’ll try.”
“Aye,” Coppy said, as serious as Kip had ever seen the otter.
“I wouldn’t be telling you this,” Max said, “if I did not believe you were capable of succeeding.”
Though he looked at Coppy as well, his eyes came to rest on Kip, and the fox knew that he bore the weight of his father’s hopes and expectations. If Coppy succeeded while Kip was sent home, they would be happy for him, of course, but Kip would still feel a failure. He was the one who had mastered more spells, he was the one who led their class after nearly two weeks of study, he was his father’s son.
“Kip,” Coppy said, and the change in tone was audible even if Kip hadn’t noticed the otter’s tightened shoulders, his whiskers flaring outward, his attention fixed on something at the corner of the Tower.
“Go on, Dad.” Kip embraced him quickly. “Coppy’s got an eye on them.”
His father looked past him. “Is that Farley?”
“Yes. We’re outside the Tower, alone—you should go.”
“I’ll fight with you.”
Kip s
hook his head violently. “He knows sorcery now. Coppy and I can handle him.”
“He’s not doing anything,” Coppy said. “Not yet.”
Max nodded quickly, and then held up a finger. “Remember what I told you.”
Kip still had not seen the shadows behind him, and the breeze was wrong for him to smell anyone, but he felt them at his back. “I will, I will. Go!”
His father turned and hurried toward the gates. Kip spun to face the direction Coppy was looking, already gathering magic and cursing himself for not doing it earlier. He saw the lime-green glow of Farley’s magic, saw Coppy’s turquoise beside him, but nothing was flying through the air at him, nothing approaching from—
He whirled around, expecting something from behind him, but perhaps that was giving Farley too much credit. No rock shot at them from out of the darkness. No movement at all, in fact, save for his father walking toward the gate, pulling it open…
“Kip!” Coppy called, and in that moment Kip was distracted. He turned his head, saw out of the corner of his eye the green-glowing arms pointed straight at him—and then on his other side, quick motion, a thud, another thud, and the clang of iron on iron.
He spun back and faced the closed iron gates, a form lying prone beyond them. “Dad!” he yelled, and ran for the gates.
Now his nostrils burned with cold, tingled with magic. He reached the gates and pulled, but they would not shift. Desperate, he rattled off the spell, seized them, and pulled back, but still they would not open. Behind him, he heard more noises, but all he cared about was on the other side of that iron. “Let me out!” he cried.
“Steady on,” a voice said beside him. “You’d only to ask.”
The gates released. Kip forced himself through as soon as there was room between them, and ran to his father.
The older fox lay on his side, breathing, but unresponsive when Kip touched him and called his name. He gripped Max’s upper arm and then saw the awkward angle of his father’s forearm, a bend in the fur where there was no joint. He turned his muzzle back to the gates and saw the demon who’d greeted them on that first day watching him through the bars.
“Get Master Splint!” Kip called.
“Get him yourself.” The demon mocked his tone. “I owe you nothing, nor him either.”
“Coppy!” Kip did not want to leave his father. He stared past the demon, searching for Coppy’s turquoise glow, but saw nothing. At least Farley’s lime-green was gone as well; probably the spell to slam the gates on his father was all Farley’d managed before Coppy had taken care of him.
Kip leaned down to his father. “Dad,” he hissed. “I gotta go.”
But he hesitated. The demon watched both foxes with cold eyes, and Kip had initially thought his father would be safe with the demon keeping watch. But the demon had let Farley come in with a wild fox and gut it, and had just said he owed Kip nothing. And his father lay outside the gates. If Carmichael were waiting somewhere for Kip to go get help…no, he could not leave.
But he remembered then that someone was watching him. “Master Vendis!” he called.
No raven came down out of the night. Kip called again, while the demon watched him with a smile. Coppy did not answer either; the otter must be occupied with Farley. Kip had heard the start of a fight, perhaps, but now the night was silent when he was not calling out into it.
He stamped the dry ground, his breath a fog in front of his nose. If only he could summon a raven without leaving his father’s side—
His eyes traveled up the Tower. And then he cursed himself and held out his arms, gathering magic into him again.
Lifting himself was trickier with his father in his arms. The spell bore the brunt of the weight, but holding the older fox was still awkward. Legs and arms spilled out, and while Kip was careful to keep the injured arm still, he didn’t know what other injuries his father might have suffered.
He floated them through the gates under the eyes of the demon, who closed them after him, and down over the lawn. Up close to his father, he stared down at the closed eyes and slack jaw, and almost flew them into the corner of the Tower because he wasn’t paying close attention. His eyes blurred; he wanted to wipe them, but couldn’t with his father in his arms.
Coppy was coming out the front door as Kip rounded the corner. The otter looked up and gasped. “What happened?”
“The gates.” Kip swallowed. “Farley slammed the gates into him. We were prepared, so he attacked Dad.”
Coppy gaped, and then his paws clenched into fists. “The filthy beggar ran away before I could do anything. I came back, but he’d run upstairs. I’ll go find him now, that’s for certain.”
“No. Hold the door, please.” Kip maneuvered himself and his father carefully to the stoop and through the great double doors.
“No magic allowed in the Tower,” Coppy said, and Kip glared at him until the otter dropped his eyes.
“Don’t want you to get in trouble,” he muttered.
Emily and Malcolm had looked up from the fire and now ran over to Kip, asking the same questions. “Someone get Master Splint,” he said urgently over them, and Coppy ran across the Hall carpet, away to the stair.
He didn’t let go of the spell for fear that he would have to take his father upstairs. Emily helped guide him over the carpet and Kip lowered him nearly to the ground while he told them what had happened outside.”
“I told you,” Malcolm said tightly. “You’ve got to speak a language he understands. Me da used to say, a well-placed fist can be worth a year of trouble.”
“It can also cause a year of trouble.” Emily bent over Max. “He’s still breathing, at least.”
Focused on the spell, Kip didn’t want to say any more. He stared at the back corner of the hall and waited.
An eternity later, Coppy returned, the scarecrow-like red-haired sorcerer behind him. Though the otter hurried across the room, Master Splint walked deliberately. “What’s been going on?”
“We were attacked,” Kip said. “He was attacked.”
Splint, closer now, knelt beside Max. “Is there sorcery in use here?”
“Er, yes,” Kip said, but a voice interrupted him.
“Aye, a physical spell upon the two foxes, cast by Penfold.”
The four students looked around, startled. Master Splint did not seem disturbed. “Thank you, Burkle,” he said. “Penfold, you may release the spell.”
Kip let go, and watched his father sag to the carpet. He sat down himself, partly to be nearer his father, partly because all of his energy had vanished with the spell. The sense of urgency had passed now that the healer was here to take care of his father, and his fear and weariness overtook him. Anger was there, too, below the surface; it would keep until later.
The four students remained so quiet while Master Splint examined Max that Kip heard the soft brush of Master Vendis’s long black robe arriving behind Master Splint, but Kip did not look up. “What has happened here?”
Kip waited for someone else, anyone else, to respond to the high voice. But Coppy only said, “Farley attacked him…” The silence pressed in on Kip’s ears; even Master Splint was no longer murmuring, his hands still on Kip’s father. Kip folded his ears down, stared down at his father’s closed eyes.
“Did anyone witness it?”
“I did.” His voice scraped against his throat. He pressed fingers to his eyes, squeezed them shut, opened them again and looked up. “Dad…Max was leaving. Farley cast a spell and slammed the gate into him.”
Master Vendis’s face did not register the astonishment or fury that Kip might have hoped. His brow lowered, and so did his voice. “Why?”
“Because of me, I suppose.” Kip thought about his father’s words, how the fight was not only between the two of them, but he’d been wrong. The fight was between him and Farley, and the attack on his father was an attack on him. He could see it as clearly as though it were a spell written down. Just as the fox in his tent had not been an attack on th
e fox, this attack was designed to hurt him in ways that physical magic could not. His fists tightened. Maybe it would not be the best course to eliminate Farley. But at this moment, that was all he wanted to do.
Max stirred, then, and opened his eyes. He frowned, looking up, and struggled to get up. Master Splint held him down. “Lie still,” he said shortly. “I’ve not quite finished.”
“What happened? I remember…” His eyes met Kip’s. “We were talking. I thought I turned to leave…”
“You did. You got hit by an iron gate.”
Master Vendis said, sharply, “You are certain it was Broadside?”
“Yes,” Coppy jumped in before Kip could speak.
Kip echoed him. “I saw the glow of his magic.”
The sorcerer rubbed his goatee. “I will attend to this,” he said. “Max, you are well?”
“I feel well.” Kip’s father looked up at Master Splint. “Am I?”
“Your arm is mended, and your head is healed. There was something in the tail that did not feel right to me—a muscle pull, perhaps.”
The fox’s long tail curled and uncurled against the floor. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Welcome.” Splint got to his feet. “You’ve provided service to the Tower and been assaulted in the course of that service. A small amount of relief seems warranted.”
“Very well.” Master Vendis held down a hand, which Kip’s father grasped as he got to his feet. “I shall escort you out myself.”
Kip scrambled to his feet as well. “I’ll go—”
“No.” Vendis held up his other hand. “I think it best that you remain here, if indeed your presence is making a target of your father.”
“But you’ll be with him.” Emily had gotten to her feet as well.
“It’s fine.” Kip reached out to grasp his father’s arm. “I’m glad you’re well.”
“No ill effects.” His father leaned forward, his nose an inch from Kip’s. “Remember what I told you.”
Kip nodded. Master Vendis had said he was going to take care of things, and all Kip felt now was weariness, a desire to go downstairs and fall into his bedroll and sleep.