by Julie Abe
My chest tightened. I glanced back at the corner where Soma and his crew had slunk into town. He’d—he’d tried everything to help his family, and for that, he had gotten thrown out. It just wasn’t right.
“Nothing’s fair, is it?” Rin said, as if she knew what I was thinking. “He’s doing much better as a sailor, though. He sends a chunk of his pay back home every moon, even if it isn’t as much as when he marauded. I heard his father will sometimes even read the letters he sends.” Rin cleared her throat and tried to smile at me, as if she wanted to banish the weight of her words. “Other than pirates and stubborn parents, how’re you doing, Eva?”
I didn’t want to explain to my guardian that no one had stopped by, except for Soma. “Been… busy… Oh! Thank you so much for these crates and the cushions—they’re perfect!”
“I’m glad to see them go to a good home.” Rin toyed with the tips of her short hair. “Ah, also, one of the sailors said you’re looking for ol’ Vaud?”
“Vaud?” I echoed.
She plucked the sign up and studied my drawing. “This flamefox—you’re looking for his owner, right? The old man whose arm you healed. It’s funny, Vaud was asking all around the boat, but he didn’t want to wake you.”
“I found Ember—I mean, the flamefox—I found him in my knapsack,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to take him, I promise.”
Rin grinned, shaking her head. “Believe me, I know. Vaud’s brought a few of them in. Each has been more trouble than I’d say they’re worth. On the ride over, one of them jumped over the railing and the whole boat had to stop or Vaud said he’d jump overboard.” Rin picked up my charcoal stick and drew a map on the parchment. “Take care, though; he shelters more than just flamefoxes.”
She slid the paper over.
“Thank you.” I swallowed. I hadn’t expected to find Ember’s owner so quickly. Then I brightened. “Did you come by to get something fixed?”
Rin shook her head. “Nothing today.” I deflated. Then she added wryly, “Unless you have some way for my mother to not be upset again?”
“Er…” Mayor Taira was difficult for me to figure out. I couldn’t imagine being her daughter. Or a fix for them, either.
Rin took one look at me chewing my lip nervously and laughed, picking up a cloth bag at her feet and pushing it over my counter. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to repair that. But here, a few supplies from the grocer; I bought too many emerald onions and coral apples. Let me know if you need any help, okay?”
I needed a lot of help. I didn’t know how to get customers to want my fixes. More importantly, I still needed to find a way to protect the town from the Culling.
I waved as she made her way down to a skiff, and then I stared at the paper. Ember’s face looked up at me, next to the charcoal lines. The map led over the rocky cliffs and through the farmlands.
My heart wrenched in a strange twist. I had to take Ember back to his real home.
CHAPTER 14
A REAL HOME
The cottage door creaked as I pushed it open and stepped inside, away from the cool evening sea air. I tripped on something and gasped. It looked like a typhoon had ripped through the cottage.
Torn black dresses lay scattered on the floor, bite marks scored book covers, the bed was pockmarked, and my closet door swung on one hinge with telltale scratches on the front.
The flamefox was curled up in the corner of my bed, wrapped in my blanket and fast asleep.
“Ember, what did you do?” I cried.
He woke from the sound of my voice and scrambled out of bed. He started jumping up, his curved claws scratching like paper cuts on my legs.
“Ember, no!” I scolded.
I picked up a piece of bristle lying at my feet. It was disconcertingly familiar. “No, no… The Fiery—”
I strode to the closet and flung the door open. It slammed against the wall, echoing in the tiny cottage. The room shrunk around me as my lungs imploded. The broomstick my mother had given me lay on the floor, with deep bite marks all over. The Fiery Phoenix’s magical bristles were a chewed-up stub with broken bits crunching under my feet.
That was the last straw.
My voice was sharp, aimed straight at Ember. “I need the broom to pass my quest.” I spun around and glared. “I don’t need to take care of a flamefox.”
Ember stopped wagging his tail and curled it between his legs. He scurried to the bed and hid in the corner of the mattress.
I slumped to the ground, gathering salvageable bristles into a jar. After I’d manifested and first gotten my broomstick, the shopkeeper had told me I could easily fix the broomstick itself, but the magical bristles—the engine of the broom—were difficult to replace. Shoving the jar onto the highest shelf of the kitchen, I boiled a quick dinner of buckwheat noodles, thin and chewy, delicious with the emerald onions from Rin and a bit of salty broth.
Ember got a bit of noodles and a slice of mackerel, even when he didn’t deserve anything. He chewed nervously, glancing at me. The mouthwateringly savory noodles couldn’t extinguish the fire in my stomach. I didn’t want anything to do with him.
I’d been planning to spend the next day at the shop, but I wasn’t getting any customers anyway. It was time to take Ember home.
Picking up the flamefox, I deposited him on the ground next to my bed. I burrowed under my hole-filled blanket and fumed over the disastrous day as I fell asleep.
The sun blazed bright through the morning haze as we climbed through the cliffs behind Auteri. Ember and I puffed out breaths as we trudged up worn tire tracks. It was so steep that it felt like we were walking on stairs up into the sky, and so narrow that there wouldn’t have been enough room for us and an automobile. Thankfully, we didn’t see any as we walked up the path.
An hour later, with sweat trickling down my back, we hit a plateau. Ember wriggled his curly tail and jumped around, thinking we were just going for a fun walk.
“Oh, we’re going places, buddy.” I glared. “For a real long hike.”
Rin had written the address for a house in the farmlands. I touched my wand to the parchment and traced an arrow mark as I cast a navigation spell I’d made a few moons ago, walking in the forests between my parents’ house and Miyada’s town square. “Where to go, where to be, let me know, let me see.” A red arrow blinked on the paper, pointing straight down the dirt path.
I wished I could use that spell to figure out where my future destination might be. Or where I might be able to find answers to help Auteri.
We walked through low, rolling hills of farmland. To our left, a grove of gnarled trees sagged under branches heavy with dark brown nuts. To our right, the fields burst to the edges with tall cornstalks, the bright green leaves waving in the light breeze. Occasionally, roads wove through the fields and led away to small farmhouses, different crops, or pastures full of grazing animals. From time to time, farmers stopped to wave as we walked by.
“If I had the Fiery Phoenix—in one piece—we could’ve tried flying.” I sighed. Ember was having fun, though. He kept darting to the crops and then running back to me making little growls of contentment. “I should find a new name for my broom. Maybe the Bald Phoenix? That would be fitting.”
The sun beat down hard overhead by the time we got close to Vaud’s house. My canteen was almost empty, and Ember—who had drunk most of my water—began to pant. I checked the map one more time, and the red arrow flickered on the parchment and pointed off the main path, to a tiny blue farmhouse that almost looked like it was afloat in a sea of tasseled cornstalks.
Ember sniffed at the stake marking the driveway. The sign had recently been covered with a messy splash of white paint, so I couldn’t make out the letters.
He tugged at the leash, a bit of red rope Rin had given me so he wouldn’t run off. The flamefox wanted to continue down the main road, but I called him back. “Ember… it’s here.”
We began walking up the gravel path to the farmhouse, past a round,
algae-flecked pond. A sleek, sunbathing waterrabbit took one look at us and hopped inside, its round eyes and long, slick-furred ears peeking out of the shallows, tracking our every move and those of the creatures in the pond. In the center, a long, scaly black fin stuck out of the water as a shadow circled under the murky surface. It looked eerily like a dragonshark. I tugged Ember away, and we skirted well around the pond.
As we got closer to the house, a volley of barks rang out. A cloud of dust rose up, moving toward us. The sound of gravel spraying grew louder and louder, and I realized it wasn’t a dust storm—but a pack of flamefoxes, much larger and fiercer than Ember.
The flamefoxes’ tails flickered with bright orange flames. Their gleaming eyes narrowed in on me, fangs bared.
“Run, Ember!” I shouted, turning around.
But Ember leaped between me and the pack of flamefoxes, snarling, with his hackles raised and teeth bared, though he was just a runt compared to these huge flamefoxes.
“No!” I cried and dove for him, holding his tiny body in my arms and curling into a ball as the flamefoxes rushed toward us.
I shielded Ember in one arm and curled my hand around my wand. My thoughts whirred as the snarling flamefoxes pounced.
“Deflect and protect!” I cried, and a flurry of dirt and pebbles rose, swirling from my wand and covering me and Ember in a makeshift barricade.
The flamefoxes slammed into the thin, trembling barrier, their fangs a hair’s breadth away from us. They started scratching at the dirt and rocks, growling. Heat from their flaming tails licked at us.
The shield flickered out and the pebbles fell to the ground. “Help!” I cried. The largest flamefox stepped closer, its black eyes glittering, and let out a low snarl that made my hair stand on end. “Deflect and protect!”
The shield rose again, wavering but there—for now.
Sweat trickled down my forehead as I struggled to keep the shield up. Magic leached out of me, and my body numbed.
“Ember,” I hissed, “if my magic runs out, get away fast.” He whimpered, claws scratching as he burrowed closer. “Please.”
Then a sharp whistle pierced the air.
“Whoa, whoa!” a voice bellowed from the house. The door flew open and an old man ran out. “Stop!”
Like magic, the pack’s hackles lowered, and their growls melted into whimpers of delight. They turned and raced to the old man, prancing around him.
The pebbles fell to the ground around us. I loosened my grip on my wand and collapsed onto my knees, panting heavily. Black spots dotted my vision.
The old man slowed and limped toward me, and the pack parted to let him through. They gazed at him dotingly. It reminded me of how Ember looked when I opened the cottage door and he wagged his tail with his whole body because he was so excited to see me.
“Hey there.” It was the man from the boat—Vaud. “Didn’t you see the sign at the front of the driveway?”
I shook my head. “It was blank.”
Vaud scowled. “Those darn farm kids painted over it again. Nothing else to do in the farmlands, so they think it’s a fun idea to scare the living daylights out of the few visitors who walk my way. What’d you come here and risk your neck for?”
Then he saw Ember in my arms. He took off his glasses and wiped them clean. “I was wondering where he went.” He put them back on his round nose and stared at us again. “That’s why the pack’s in a fury. All they see is a flamefox that’s intruding on their territory. Don’t worry, the pack knows to behave around me.”
I set him onto the ground. “It’s okay now, Ember.”
“You’ve named him?”
My cheeks burned. “I just needed to call him something other than ‘flamefox.’”
“Hmm…” Vaud rubbed his largest flamefox behind its pointed ears. “I asked around at the docks, but I thought the runt had disappeared on one of the earlier stops.”
“I’m sorry I held on to Ember—er, the flamefox—for so long,” I apologized. “I brought him back as soon as I could.”
Vaud’s flamefoxes circled us, drool dripping from their jowls. Ember slipped between my legs and poked his head out to growl at them. I hushed him.
Vaud looked at Ember hiding behind me. “Want to come in for a glass of cloudberry lemonade?”
“I’m sorry, I have to head back.” The sun was high overhead. I needed to continue fixing up my shop or, at this rate, there was no way I’d be able to protect the town from the Culling.
Vaud let me fill up my canteen at his well, and I wiped sweat from my face with a handkerchief I’d moistened in the cool water. When I slid my canteen into my knapsack, Ember tried to climb in, too, but I tied the top tightly. He clung to my legs, whimpering sharply.
“Troublemaker,” I muttered, even as each of his cries scratched at my heart. “You tore up my cottage. Dug holes in my mattress… shredded all my magic tomes…”
Ember sensed something was different, and he was definitely not interested in making friends with the other flamefoxes. He kept snapping when they came close to him.
“Well… I have to get going. Thank you for the water, and I’m sorry it took me so long to bring him back.”
“Thanks for coming all the way out here.” Vaud paused. “Ah, I have something for you—wait just a moment, would you?”
Vaud disappeared into his house and hurried out with a glass jar, waving it proudly. “Watch this.”
I stared at the empty jar in confusion. “Is there something—”
“Nothing, right? For now, for now. C’mere, Hina.”
The biggest flamefox brushed up against Vaud’s legs and sat in front of him, with her red-orange tail waving back and forth.
“May I?” Vaud asked, and at first, I thought he was speaking to me. But Hina moved her muzzle in the slightest of nods. He leaned over and swung the jar through her fiery tail, capturing a flame, and twisted the lid on tight.
“As a thanks for bringing this little one back.” He held the jar out.
The flame flickered merrily in the jar. Strangely, the glow seemed to be pulsing brighter.
“For me?” At my side, Ember whined mournfully and grabbed at his bushy tail, as if that could make it light up. As if having flames might mean he could go back with me.
“It doesn’t burn out,” Vaud explained. “A flamefox’s flame will last as long as it’s alive and gives you just the right amount of light that you need, wherever you go. It doesn’t burn unless they’re real mad.”
“Is the jar hot?” I asked.
“Nah, the jar makes it easier to hold, or else it’ll go rolling away like a ball of yarn. It’s just warm. Like a freshly drawn bath.”
I gingerly cupped the jar in my hands. The flaming light circled around the bottom, but the glass was pleasantly warm, like when Ember sat in my lap when I was shivering.
“Oh! Thank you.” I tucked the strange jar into my knapsack.
Then, finally, I handed over the red leash to Vaud, who held it tight in his wizened, papery hands.
Ember squealed a sharp puppy sound that wasn’t quite a bark. My eyes watered.
“This is your home, Ember,” I said sternly. That didn’t console him. He strained against the leash. From the front porch, a silver rockcrow with a broken wing cawed uneasily, hopping from side to side at its bowl of dried corn.
Ember whimpered, his eyes wide and confused.
“You belong here.” I couldn’t delay it anymore. “Vaud’s your owner and this is your home.”
With one last look at Ember, I turned away.
At the crossroads with the main road, I tapped the sign with my wand and incanted a quick spell to repair it. “Undo what’s done, let it be gone.”
The white paint trickled away and Vaud’s warning, BEWARE: VAUD’S WILD-BEAST SHELTER, appeared. A final spell—“A sign none can paint over, unless you’re the owner”—made it impossible for troublemakers to cover his words. It was the least I could do for Vaud.
I sighed
and continued on my path back to Auteri. “Ember’s a good-for-nothing fluffball. Eats all the croissants, licks my jars of redbud jam clean, leaves nothing for me.”
As I walked down to the main road, I kicked at the rocks on the path. “Remember how the Fiery Phoenix is a bald phoenix now? And all my witch’s dresses are in shreds?”
My words sounded empty and hollow.
“And I hate falling into the holes he chewed in the mattress. Darn Ember.”
Even though I trudged farther and farther down the dusty road, Ember’s cries seemed to echo in my ears.
I stopped when I got to the cliff that overlooked Auteri. “Darn flamefox. He broke my broom, he—” I pressed my hands to my mouth, barely able to breathe. If I breathed in too fast, I’d break into tears. I couldn’t see the path down because my vision blurred.
My jaw clenched up. I didn’t miss him. I didn’t miss him at all—
Suddenly, shouts rang out from behind me. I turned and my heart wrenched tight.
The old man hitched up his baggy trousers as he ran. His face was splotched red and sweaty, and he chased after something small, a red-gold dot that streaked toward me like a shooting star.
Ember.
The flamefox’s eyes zeroed in on me, and he ran faster than I’d ever seen him chase after seagulls around the cottage.
Then Ember was within arm’s reach and he didn’t stop. He leaped up and my arms opened automatically. I caught him against my chest. “Ember.”
He whimpered, his body quivering. I realized it wasn’t just him. I trembled, too. I slid to the ground, holding him tight.