Children of the Fox

by Kevin Sands

  Checker was frozen. Shattered like ice. Starling, too. Crack and crumble, she did.

  And now I recalled something Mr. Solomon had said to me when we’d asked him about the High Weaver’s traps. Every Weaver specializes in the kind of bindings they create. The High Weaver’s talent is in manipulating the cold, but he is also an expert in creating wards.

  Cold and wards. Not fire.

  So what had happened to Oran?

  My thoughts were interrupted by the Lady in Red. She returned, rounding the study to hover off to the side. Mr. Solomon came in after, eyes eager.

  “I’m told you have something for me—” He broke off. My hand was still covering my face. “Are you injured?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, and I pulled my hand away.

  My Eye-vision returned, and I saw the runes covering the room. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, the desk, everything, was inked in glowing symbols.

  And then there was Mr. Solomon himself.

  His skin glowed, a red similar to mine, though a little darker. I’d suspected the jewelry he wore was enchanted. I was right: his necklace shone bright orange, the rings on his hands yellow and green. But that wasn’t what made my blood go cold.

  His body was covered in runes. Swirling designs glowed all over him, like enchanted tattoos. His entire face was covered with a single glyph. It scrolled from his forehead around his eyes, looping over his mouth and chin, ending in curls high on his cheeks. The rest of him was the same, his flesh a canvas of madness.

  If I’d given away my shock, Mr. Solomon didn’t notice it. He just stared at the Eye, attached to my socket. Then he said, “What is this?”

  “I can’t get it off,” I said. “It’s stuck itself to my face.”

  Mr. Solomon continued to stare. Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it. His eyes flicked to the side. “Check it.”

  The Lady in Red approached. Instinctively, I began to turn toward her, but she seized my head with one hand and held me still.

  Her fingers burned, like hot metal. “What are you doing?” I said, alarmed.

  “I need to be sure it’s real,” Mr. Solomon said. “No offense, but you wouldn’t be the first to try and trick me.”

  The Lady leaned in. Heat came off her in waves. “She’s hurting me.”

  “I apologize for the discomfort,” Mr. Solomon said. “It will be over soon.”

  I tried to twist away, but the Lady’s grip was like a vise. Then she turned my head to face her.

  And I nearly screamed.

  The woman was wreathed in flame. No—she was flame. The Lady in Red was fire incarnate, an inferno in human form, burning underneath as if trapped under a skin of glass. In the Eye’s sight, her parasol was not a shade, but a sword. It, too, was flame. Burning tears dripped from the blade, falling to fizzle and vanish into smoke as they hit the rug.

  Oran, I thought. Oran was burned to death.

  By her.

  It took all my will not to say anything as she leaned in, her blazing face nearly touching mine. She stared into the Eye, looking this way and that, tracing her fingers over it.

  And all I could think was She burned Oran. Why?

  She let me go and stepped back. Sweat dripped from my chin, cool drops staining my collar. My skin felt burned where she’d touched me.

  “Is it real?” Mr. Solomon asked her.

  She nodded.

  The Weaver closed his eyes. He tilted his head back and sighed, a sound of victory and relief. “I was right. A child. A foxchild. I was right.”

  The word made me freeze inside. That’s what the Eye called me. “What do you mean, ‘foxchild’?” I said.

  “Nothing important. Just the words of an old manuscript.” He quoted something, speaking with a strange accent. “ ‘Tief’d bay a foxchild alane.’ ”

  He seemed to have forgotten what he’d told us before. That Seamus the thief was the one who’d claimed it would take a child. I wanted to ask him more, but I was scared to remind him he’d contradicted himself.

  He turned back to me. “Words don’t matter now. You. You’re extraordinary, Callan. I apologize again for doubting you. Even now, as you sit before me, I can still barely believe you’ve succeeded. I’d almost given up hope.”

  I needed to test him. “It wasn’t just me,” I said, watching him carefully. “Everyone else helped, too.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “Except for Oran. He didn’t join us.”

  “His loss.”

  He said it casually, as if he barely remembered the boy. But however powerful a Weaver Mr. Solomon was, he was still a man, as predictable as any other.

  And when I’d mentioned Oran’s name, for one brief moment, he’d glanced toward the Lady in Red. Which meant he knew Oran was dead. He knew the Lady had killed him.

  And the Lady worked for him.

  Why did he murder Oran? was my first thought. The second: Why won’t he just kill me?

  He can’t kill me, I answered. He has to pay me to get the Eye. And he can’t take back what he’s paid. The contract he signed binds him to it. Literally.

  “Still,” Mr. Solomon said, “one question remains. How did the Eye end up in your head?”

  “Can you get it off?” I said.

  “I believe so. But to do that, I’ll need to know everything you can tell me.”

  There was something in his tone I didn’t like. Something cautious, probing. He wanted to know something specific about the Eye.

  I was torn. Knowing what he’d done to Oran, I didn’t want to say anything that might make the Lady in Red kill me, too. In particular, I couldn’t tell him the Eye let me see enchantments. He’d know I saw his companion was made of flame.

  But if I told him too little, well, what if he really did need the information to get the Eye off? And right then, right there, what I wanted most was to be rid of the thing.

  Sometimes, the Old Man said, the most effective gaff is when you tell the truth. Just not all of it.

  Sounded like a plan. “The Eye said it could help me. It told me if I looked through it, I’d be able to see the escape route out of the High Weaver’s laboratory. But when I did, it didn’t show me anything. It just grabbed on to me and wouldn’t let go.”

  Mr. Solomon got so still, he stopped breathing. “It . . . spoke to you?”

  I’d told Meriel before that half of what gaffers do is play the odds. This time, it appeared I’d guessed wrong. And it was too late to take it back. “Yes. Just after I picked up the Eye.”

  “What . . .” He cleared his throat. He’d changed his mind about what he was going to ask. Instead, he said, “Is it speaking to you now?”

  Mollify him. “No. It’s been silent since I got here.”

  He relaxed a bit, tension easing in his face. He scratched his chin as he studied me. “There are wards on my home. I placed them there specifically to constrain the Eye’s power. I’m relieved to see they’re working.” He cocked his head. “Though it’s strange it remains fixed to you. It’s not doing anything else?”

  I’d already let the cat out of the bag. Maybe I could use this mistake to learn something. “It just won’t let go. It didn’t want to come here, though. It wanted to go down to Lake Galway.”

  “Did it say why?”

  “No. I asked, but it wouldn’t tell me.”

  He relaxed a little more. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go.”

  “Why?”

  “The Eye is not the only artifact of its kind,” he said. “There’s a . . . let’s call it a set. The Eye, no doubt, wanted to join with its brethren.”

  He was being awfully cagey. “What would that do?”

  “Doesn’t matter now.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s time to settle things. You brought me the genuine Eye. I must fulfill my part of t
he bargain. The two million crowns are yours. I give them to you freely.”

  His words had a ritual sort of feeling to them, like when Padraig had relinquished the keystone. The Lady in Red, burning furiously in the Eye’s vision, opened the chest in the center of the study. As I stared at the money—my freedom—something felt wrong. I should have been overjoyed. Instead, I was scared.

  “Now,” Mr. Solomon said, “you must relinquish the Eye.”

  “Gladly,” I said. “How?”

  “My assistant will help you with that.”

  Before I could object, she was on me in a flash. The flame-thing slammed into me, bowling me over in my chair onto the rug. She sprang, landing all fours on my chest.

  Her blow had hit me like a battering ram. But as the Lady crouched on top of me, her body carried no weight. All I felt was an intense heat where her feet and fingers touched.

  “Get off!” I tried to push her away, but her strength was inhuman. She grabbed my wrists and slammed them into the carpet. My skin started to burn.

  Straddling my chest, she pinned my arms under her knees. Then she plunged her burning fingers into my face. She grabbed the Eye and pulled.

  Hot needles lanced into my flesh.

  Agony.

  “Stop!” I screamed.

  She grinned, an evil thing. I kneed her in the back, trying to buck her off. It was like hitting iron.

  The flame-thing’s grin widened. As she pulled with one hand, she pressed down with the other against my jaw. I was burning.

  “Stop! Please!”

  Mr. Solomon sounded regretful. “It’s the only way, Callan.”

  Now the Lady wrenched my skull. The pain was blinding. I called, this time to the Eye.

  “Help me! Help me! Please!”

  But Mr. Solomon’s wards had done their job. It couldn’t—or wouldn’t—respond. The Lady pulled, and I cried, and then I felt the Eye tear away.

  The gemstone was in her hand. The agony in my head remained.

  My vision had changed. No longer could I see the enchantments that surrounded me. The Lady of Flame now looked no more than the Lady in Red. But my sight seemed terribly narrow. Narrow and flat.

  And even as my mind railed at the horror, I understood. She hadn’t just removed the Eye.

  She’d left me half-blind.

  CHAPTER 39

  The pain.

  The pain.

  I rolled over and retched.

  Mr. Solomon stood over me. “I’m sorry, Callan.”

  I couldn’t move. The agony—the horror—it paralyzed me. My voice came out a croak, a single word. “Why?”

  “It was our bargain,” he said simply. “I must have the Eye.”

  “You never intended to let us go,” I groaned. “You planned to kill us the whole time.”

  “Not true. I hadn’t decided what to do with you until tonight.”

  “But you killed Oran.”

  If he was surprised I knew that, he didn’t show it. “That was Oran’s fault,” he said. “The construct I gave you has the ability to recall anything it hears. When you sent the bird back to me, asking about willbinds, I listened to your conversations and learned Oran had refused my offer. So I looked in on him. He’d contacted the Weavers, Callan. He was going to sell me out. Sell all of us out. What choice did I have?

  “As for your friends, I will do nothing to them, for there is nothing they can do to me. I have the Eye. They may go in peace. They can even crawl to the Weavers if they like. Darragh and his pets never really understood what they had in their possession. They’re so useless, so ignorant, they can’t imagine what I’ll do next. None of them can stop me.

  “But you, Callan . . . the Eye spoke to you. I’m sure it told you more than you confessed. And even if it didn’t, it bonded with you. I cannot understand why. And I don’t know what it means. But it makes you too dangerous to keep around.”

  I struggled to get up. I felt so weak. “But . . . you can’t kill me,” I said. “Our bargain . . . the lifebond. I delivered the Eye. You can’t kill me.”

  “No, Callan. You are in error. You were all so worried I’d cheat you, that I would take the gem and not pay for it, that you failed to realize how you’d left yourselves exposed. The lifebond does prevent me from killing you so I can take the two million back. But I’m not taking the two million back. The money remains yours. I have the Eye, you see. What need do I have now for coin?”

  I clutched at his heel. He pulled away. “Farewell, Callan. I wish things could have been different.”

  He motioned to the Lady in Red.

  And then everything began to burn.

  CHAPTER 40

  Mr. Solomon left, taking nothing but the Eye. Smiling, the Lady in Red traced her finger across the bookshelves.

  Everything she touched burst into flame. She strode around the room, eyes shining with delight, and within seconds, the whole room was ablaze. She followed her master out the door, both hands touching the walls, leaving a roaring inferno in her wake.

  It’s over, I thought, and my mind sighed with relief. Just a few minutes left. Then it will all be over.

  A burning leaf of a manuscript fluttered to the carpet. It curled and crisped into a razor-thin flake of blackened ash. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, some part of me screamed, No! Fight, Cal! Fight!

  There’s no point, I said. I am lost.

  No!

  But I was lost, lost in despair. It was the easiest thing, to lie there; to die. Let it end.

  Then a new voice cut through the crackling of the flames. And this one made my blood burn.

  That’s right, the Old Man said. Give up. You always were a quitter.

  Get out of my head, Old Man, I snarled.

  Solomon rookered you, the Old Man said, mocking. He snaffled you good. All those years I spent on you, all those gaffs you learned, and still you didn’t see.

  Shut up.

  What a waste, he said.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  I knew what he was doing. He’d done it often enough.

  He was trying to make me mad.

  And it worked. I was furious. The fact that I knew he was doing it made me even angrier. And the fact that, even though I knew better, it did work; that drove me over the edge.

  Rage burned inside, even hotter than the blaze around me. I pushed myself to my knees. “Don’t talk to me, Old Man.”

  I tried to stand, but I couldn’t keep my balance. I wobbled and fell back to the ground.

  More pages fluttered down, burning. Where they touched, the rug caught fire. The chest, too. The bills inside curled into ash. My future, my freedom. And my friends’. Gone in smoke.

  I tried to stand once more. “Don’t ever talk to me again,” I said. “You don’t have the right.”

  This time, I made it to my feet. Everything was a blur of orange and gray. I peered through the haze with my one good eye, then stumbled toward the doorway. It was easy enough to find. It was the only thing that wasn’t yet on fire.

  “I didn’t quit,” I said.

  That’s it. One foot in front of the other.

  “You quit.”

  The house was already an inferno. Flames rose from where the Lady had touched the walls, rushing upward. The ceiling was a carpet of roiling fire.

  “You left,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  The gallery was a hellscape. The painting of the Fox, the Bear, and that odd-looking crow went up in seconds, the oils bubbling and bursting in the flame. The display cases melted in the heat, dripping hot glass onto the smoldering artifacts within. Three were empty: the dragon staff, the velvet robe, and the tome with the spiraling symbols were gone. But the dagger, the jeweled dagger of Mr. Solomon’s ancestor, was still here. It clattered to the floor, its stand wilting as it burned.

  I nodd
ed toward it. “See, Old Man? Mr. Solomon left his things behind, too. None of this matters to him anymore. Just like you.”

  Through the gallery, into the hall. Above me, the ceiling crackled as it blazed, the plaster already burned away. The timbers groaned, then broke and fell with juddering crashes. I bumped into the doorjamb, scorching my shirt, scalding my skin. My lungs burned, the smoke hot and thick.

  “You never cared,” I said. “You never cared about anything.”

  Timbers fell, a burning hail of wood and ash. Beyond, far in the distance, was the front door, the cool, living darkness of the night.

  “You never cared about me.”

  I kept moving. Then a collapsing timber struck me on the head and drove me to the ground. I looked around, dazed, but even my good eye was blurry now. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up.

  It was over.

  “I failed,” I said. “I failed, Old Man. But I tried.”

  I felt him then, crouched beside me. He laid his hand on my shoulder.

  I know you did, he said.

  Then all was darkness.

  CHAPTER 41

  I dreamed.

  I am six years old again, cold, hungry, and so, so scared. The walls of the dungeon are fuzzy with mold, a thin, yellow sludge oozing from the edge. I huddle in the back corner, away from the bars, flecked with rust, that keep me in the cell. It stinks. It stinks of waste, of blood, and of fear.

  The Stickman who comes to the door looks angry. He has narrow eyes and a mean sort of face. His stomach groans against his uniform’s buttons.

  “You do not belong here,” he says.

  He holds out his hand. Somewhere inside me, a voice screams

  NO

  but he holds out his hand, and I take it.

  The dungeon is burning. The stone walls melt in the flames. The ceiling is liquid fire, dripping white-hot tears of molten lava, but the Stickman doesn’t seem to notice. He walks me down the jail.

  The other cells are empty, except for two. One holds a crow, slowly opening and closing its wings. The other contains a shadow, and that shadow seems to fill the whole cell. It laughs and wheezes in a voice that shakes the earth with ancient power. The crow sees me and caws.