Fox and Phoenix

by Beth Bernobich

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgements

  BOOKS BY BETH BERNOBICH

  BOOKS BY BETH BERNOBICH

  A Handful of Pearls & Other Stories

  Passion Play

  Fox and Phoenix

  VIKING

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2011 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Beth Bernobich, 2011

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING -IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Bernobich, Beth.

  Fox and Phoenix / Beth Bernobich.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old Kai, a magician’s apprentice and former street tough, must travel to the Phoenix Empire, where his friend Princess Lian is studying statecraft, and help her escape so she can return home before her father, the king, dies.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54791-5

  [1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—

  Fiction. 5. Princesses—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B45593Fo 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2011009388

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Tamora Pierce, for inspiring me in so many ways, but especially about griffins

  1

  ONCE UPON A STUPID TIME, I LIKED FAIRY TALES.

  Ai-ya, what’s not to like? The poor kid from nowhere wins the jackpot, while the tilt-nosed snobs get turned into gargoyles. Or worse. But you know what? All those stories stop right there. They never mention what comes later. How your gang changes. How your best friend doesn’t end up as your one true love. And they never tell you how your heart’s desire might be a dangerous thing.

  Or, in my case, just so damn boring.

  I scanned the front office of my mother’s tutoring shop. The room was tiny and hot. Shelves climbed all over the walls, crammed with boxes, books, scrolls, and jars, and the scent of herbs and paper dust lingered in the air. On the top shelf, a dead, stuffed griffin (miniature) curled around a glass vial that glowed faintly silver in the afternoon sunlight.

  Mā mī had left me with clear instructions—review all the homework from yesterday’s beginner arithmetic class, mark any corrections, and leave the papers in her basket. I scowled at the stacks of scribbled sheets. The oldest shop cat had built her nest atop them. Hsin was ancient, her spine and haunches almost bald, and her teeth mere nubs, but she glared back at me with yellow eyes, as if daring me to disturb her.

  Right. Like I want to.

  With a sigh, I slapped the toggle switch on the wall. Magic flux buzzed uncertainly into life. The ceiling fan creaked into a slow circle, stirring the hot air like a spoon; our ancient radio sputtered in time with the magic flux. I fetched brushes and bottles of ink from a closet, then shooed away a grumbling Hsin and settled onto the stool behind the counter. From here I could watch for customers while I marked papers. Double duty, as Mā mī said.

  I picked up the first sheet. It smelled strongly of cat piss.

  This. I scowled at the papers. This is not what I wanted for my life.

  Once upon a time, I’d been Kai, Prince of the Streets. I liked to brag about fancy dagger strikes, ghost dragons, and knowing where to get the best meat pies in Lóng City. I had my own gang of kids. I had Yún as my best friend and second-in-command.

  Then the king of Lóng City declared a contest for his daughter’s hand. The winner had to fulfill three impossible wishes. If he did, he got fifty thousand yuan, plus the hand of Princess Lian. Not just any man could enter, of course. You had to be a prince. Luckily, Yún figured out how to get past the prince part, and I convinced the princess I’d already done two impossible things, just by getting admitted into the palace. Just as luckily, Princess Lian didn’t want a real suitor. Her heart’s desire was a year or two at the famous university in the Phoenix Empire, where she could study government and politics and all those ruler-type things. That was the third and hardest wish of all. In the end, we—my gang and me—got our money and Lian got her heart’s desire.

  And she called us her truest friends.

  All that seemed like a different story, with different people.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and squinted at the homework sheet. As bad as I thought—full of stupid mistakes, just like last week’s batch and the week before. My mother ran a tutoring shop in conjuration and mathematics. Her best students got private sessions, but a couple dozen more attended classes where she drilled them in spells and numbers. Basic stuff. Now that I was her apprentice—another so-called reward from that contest—she gave me all the scut work. Thinking of all the other same-old same-old mistakes I would find, I spat on the floor, which crackled with a special cleaning spell.

  If only I had stashed the king’s reward in secret. But I hadn’t. And I had believed Yún’s wonderful description of our lives together as apprentices. We would learn magic. We would save our reward for later. And maybe, just maybe, we’d be more than friends. Okay, she didn’t exactly say that, but I remembered the grin on her face as she dared me to follow her into this splendiferous new life. Except now Yún no longer had any time for anyone. And today I was stuck inside this shop.

  I slid my talk-phone from my pocket. If I could buzz up Jing-mei or Gan, or even that toad Danzu, we could make a run through the Pots-and-Kettles Bazaar, stir up a little trouble. Same old, same old. After that, we could talk about the new, old days. There would be plenty of time later to grade these papers.

  Before my fingers could tap out a single number, a strong piggy odor floated past my nos
e.

  You promised Mā mī to grade those worksheets before dinner, Chen grunted.

  Of course Chen knew what I was thinking. He was my spirit companion. Chen had arrived when I was six years old—two years past the usual age—but that was the first and only time he was ever late. Back in those days, he’d helped me play pranks all over Lóng City. Lately, though, he acted more like a nanny than a friend.

  I didn’t promise, I said silently to him. She ordered me to.

  Does that make any difference?

  It should.

  But I could almost hear Mā mī’s soft voice saying, “Kai-my-son, if you wish to continue as my apprentice, you must show more responsibility. The shop cannot run itself, nor can you learn your lessons by sleeping through them.”

  I shoved the phone back in my pocket and set about dividing the papers by name and grade. Stupid students. Stupid shop. Most days, I didn’t mind the work. But most days, I wasn’t stuck in the shop alone, sweating and cranky and bored. Today, Mā mī had dismissed her regular classes so she could shop for fresh magical supplies, while Yún was busy on some secret errand of her own. Again.

  At the thought of Yún running around the sunny streets of Lóng City, my frustration bubbled over and I jammed my brush into the bottle. Ink squirted out, spattering the worksheets. Damn. I fetched a rag to wipe up the mess. That’s when I managed to knock the bottle over, sending a river of ink over the desk and stool and floor.

  A still-invisible Chen made squealing laughing noises. Cursed pig-spirit. I flung my brush at the sound of his voice. Will you show yourself?

  The brush clattered off the wall. (More ink, damn it.) With a sputter and a pop, Chen materialized at full size in the middle of the room. He was a dark brown pig, huge, with bright black eyes and a double row of spines that zigzagged down his back, like daggers held ready. Today, he wore a pair of rimless spectacles, and an elegant calligraphy brush rested in the crook of his left front hoof. With his tusks and bristles, he was one fierce pig, but right now he looked pretty silly.

  What are you doing? I demanded.

  Double-checking your homework, Chen said. Qi suggested it. Did you know you’re failing advanced calculus?

  I know that. But why did Qi—Oh, never mind.

  Qi was Yún’s crane-spirit. She and Chen had become close friends, while Yún and I . . .

  I threw down the rag and stomped on the ink-stained floor. Thinking about Yún had that effect on me.

  You’re just jealous of Shou-xin, said Chen.

  Stop reading my mind! I stomped again.

  I don’t blame her, Chen went on, with a wicked grin. Not after you flirted with that teahouse girl.

  Shut up!

  Chen shrugged his massive shoulders and went back to squinting at my homework. I quashed the temptation to fling my chair at him. Chen would just vanish into the spirit plane, leaving me with a broken chair to explain to Mā mī. This time, she might really feed me to the watch-demons, the way she always threatened.

  Still muttering, I picked through the ink-soaked papers on my desk. Ruined, all of them. Which meant no money from the students. And another lecture about responsibility.

  Do you want help?

  No.

  I swept all the sheets into a pile and started mopping up the ink. Stupid papers. Stupid work. Stupid me for thinking I could make a good apprentice. Yún could fiddle formulae and spells better than I ever could, and that was even before she signed up as an apprentice to my mother. No wonder she was always running off to visit that stupid Shou-xin. He was Mā mī’s best paying student—talented, rich, and charming. Even Mā mī said he would end up the king’s chief wizard someday.

  Twenty minutes later, I wiped the sweat from my eyes. All that scrubbing and I couldn’t tell a difference in those blasted ink stains. If anything, they looked blacker than before. Suspicious now, I sniffed. A faint metallic smell in the air made me think of magic, not ink and paper.

  Oh, crap.

  I retrieved the bottle from the counter.

  EXTRA-DARK RUB-RESISTANT BLACK INK. Then in smaller characters, ENHANCED WITH MAGIC.

  Some of the students cheat, Chen grunted. The ink won’t let them change their answers later and pretend they deserved a better grade.

  So I figured. I must have grabbed the bottle without checking the label first. Bad move in a conjuring shop.

  By the way, have you looked in the mirror?

  Why?

  Then I noticed my hands. Ink all over them, of course. Extra-dark ink all over my palms, my sleeves, and underneath my fingernails. I rubbed my cheek with a clean rag. It came away smudged with black. When I blinked, my eyelids felt sticky, and not just from sweat.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  I hauled the bucket outside and emptied its contents into the courtyard, where Old Man Kang’s chickens scolded me. The rags went into the special laundry tub. By the time I came back to the front office, Chen had discarded the spectacles and my homework. He was reading a paperback with a lurid cover, making absentminded snuffling noises to himself.

  I surveyed the remaining mess. Maybe I could pull the rug over a few inches to hide the stains. No good. Mā mī noticed everything. I’d have to bribe one of her advanced students to help me clean up the mess before she came back from shopping. But not Shou-xin. Someone else. Anyone else.

  Something poked my elbow. I glanced down.

  A thin brown scroll floated in midair. It looked like one of Mā mī’s older scrolls, its edges dark and crinkled. A velvety blue ribbon tied in a complicated knot kept it from unfurling.

  I glared at my pig-companion. Chen feigned being absorbed in reading, but I wasn’t fooled. He had probably conjured the thing from my mother’s archives. We’d both be in trouble if she found out.

  The scroll darted in to give me a quick poke in the stomach. I made a grab for it, but the cursed thing soared out of reach.

  How can I read the scroll if it won’t let me touch it?

  Chen grunted and flipped a page over with his tusk.

  With a sigh, I held out my hand. The scroll settled delicately onto my palm. When I touched the ribbon, it unwound itself and curled around my wrist. The scroll unfurled, showing a single densely written paragraph in the center.

  And if a man or woman should wish to break a spell for unwashing such as the old wizards might put upon an enemy and his entire wardrobe, here are the words you must use . . .

  It was a laundry spell, of sorts. Reading the old-style calligraphy, I wondered if some old priest or scribe had brushed those characters, all crisp and dark, like tiny black birds hopping across the rice paper. After thirteen months studying under Mā mī, I could detect glimmerings of power in the spell’s deceptively simple phrases. Whoever created this scroll must have infused the characters with more magic as they brushed them, and the sequence of syllables (long and short, to be spoken with special stresses) hid the mathematical properties required to summon the magical flux. Simple and complex. Yin and yang. Chen had chosen well—a person didn’t need to understand the math or the magic behind the spell to use it.

  But it still required concentration.

  So. Time to make all those tedious lessons in meditation pay off. The key was to eliminate distractions. Visualize the barriers to failure, then imagine them dissolving into nothing. I closed my eyes and concentrated on calming, magic-like thoughts. It was hard, especially with Chen’s audible breathing, and the slither, slap each time he turned a page, but eventually, I managed to empty my brain of any thoughts except the here and now.

  I opened my eyes and scanned the spell a second time.

  (Ready?)

  (Not nearly.)

  Slowly and carefully I began to recite.

  “Thunder and water, fire and wind, from east to west and north to south, we the unworthy call upon the sunbird and dragon to bring purity to these quarters. . . .”

  The air around me shimmered as the magic flux thickened. My skin itched and a strange sharp sce
nt filled my nose. Distracted, I stumbled over a couple syllables, but soon found my rhythm again. Was that something burning? I was galloping toward the last paragraph, when suddenly a cloud of smoke and fire exploded in front of me. I yelped and fell over backward. My head smacked against the wall, and my vision went dark. I couldn’t see anything but white and red sparks jiggling in front of my eyes. There was a buzzing noise inside my skull that made me think of mosquitoes. Someone talking?

  That someone seized my elbow and dragged me to my feet. “You mispronounced the third and thirty-second phrases.”

  I blinked. My vision cleared.

  Mā mī. Oh, no.

  My mother, tiny, whisper-thin Mā mī, who reminded me of a ghost dragon, the way she studied me so coolly. My mouth turned dry as she continued to gaze at me, her expression unreadable, while all around the magic flux sparkled and fizzed.

  Right when I thought I might faint, Mā mī recited something in a peculiar language that sounded like a kettle hissing. The radio sputtered into silence, and a metallic smell permeated the room. I still didn’t dare to move. My mother’s gaze flicked over my ruined clothes, the mess of worksheets, the splotches of ink over walls and floor and bookshelves. Silently, she plucked the scroll from my hands. It obediently curled into a tight coil, and the ribbon slithered back into place, tying itself into a knot.

  Mā mī uttered another incomprehensible phrase. Electric fire rippled through the air. With a loud pêng, all the ink disappeared. My mother held out her hand. The (dead, stuffed) griffin shook itself into life and skittered down the shelves to perch on her wrist. My mother scratched it behind its feathered ears, and its flat stone eyes narrowed to slits in contentment.

  Only dead things felt safe around my mother, I thought.

  She still hadn’t said anything. I coughed to clear my throat. “I’m sorry for the mess, Mā mī. I’ll finish the worksheets before dinner.”