Foxheart (18 page)

Wasn't she?

“Here, Boots,” she said harshly, tossing her pack at him. “Sing it a song or recite poetry or something. The Wolf King got it into a nasty temper.”

While Sly Boots sang, Quicksilver kept her eyes on the bright blue star she could see through the treetops—the eye of Valkar, the White Bear, which pointed the way north.

I
n the kingdom of Belrike—which sat to the south and west of Quicksilver's home of Lalunet—there lived a king named Kallin.

His castle was squashed and gray, perched precariously on the side of Silverhair Mountain. Five tiny villages dotted the foothills below the castle, linked by several slender bridges, for the mountainside glittered with a web of tiny rivers. King Kallin had a queen and five beloved daughters—the youngest of which, Tatjana, would soon turn thirteen.

On the very day that Quicksilver, Fox, Anastazia, and Sly Boots entered his kingdom by way of the forest known in those parts as
the Skullwood, King Kallin was preparing to hold a grand party in celebration of his daughter's accomplishment—that is, having survived thirteen years without being eaten alive by the numerous skeletal remains housed in the catacombs beneath their castle.

The king and his wife, Voina, sat in the royal dinghy as it glided across the still black lake at the bottom of Silverhair Mountain.

“My dear,” said Queen Voina to her husband, and not for the first time, “don't you think you're worrying yourself into a fit over nothing? Must we really do this
again
?”

King Kallin rubbed his bald head and scanned the water for any signs of disturbance.

“In two days the castle will be crawling with well-wishers,” said the king. “Do
you
want to risk their lives unnecessarily?”

Queen Voina raised one bored eyebrow. “Well, I wouldn't mind terribly much if your cousins disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Now
there's
a good use for the royal witches' talents. Never mind spells and traps and—”

A fish jumped out of the water and plopped back in. King Kallin yelped and drew his cloak tightly about his body. “What was that?”

“A fish, my darling husband. No haunted skeletons chasing us tonight.” Queen Voina smiled slyly. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Don't even joke about that!” snapped the king. Then he drew himself up and attempted to look regal as the boat approached the castle's three massive sewer pipes, which drained into the lake. The king's guards lifted a man out of the boat's bow, untied his hands and legs, and shoved him into the nearest pipe.

The man picked up his shoe to inspect the bottom and wrinkled his nose. “So all I have to do is get up through the catacombs and into the castle proper, without dying . . . and you'll let me go free? You'll pardon me?”

“Of course, young man,” said King Kallin, with a magnanimous flourish. “Consider it penance for your crimes. The way is hard. Long and dank. Lots of sewage and the like. Rats, most assuredly.” The king twiddled his fingers, recoiling as the water nudged the boat closer to the pipe. “Good luck!” he called out to the prisoner, and then hissed to his guards, “Back off, back off! Return to shore, for the love of all the stars in the skies!”

Queen Voina rolled her eyes and splashed water at her husband. The king screamed and flung himself at one of his guards, who patted him on the shoulder and settled him back into his seat.

As the boat glided back to the royal docks, the king kept his head tilted toward the pipe, listening. Only when he heard the prisoner's screams, the roar of fire, and the clatter of bones did
he relax, for that meant the test was successful, and that the traps throughout the catacombs were in working order.

King Kallin shuddered to think of the generations upon generations of kings and queens buried beneath his home. Catacombs were a nasty tradition, but no matter how hard he tried to convince his court, no one would allow him to change the law and simply dump the bodies of dead royals into the sea. Everyone told him skeletons were merely bones, and could not come back to life, and that it was disrespectful to simply discard bodies like old handkerchiefs. No one believed the story about Old Throop, the legendary witch who had, as revenge against Queen Varaline the Fourth, cursed the catacombs' contents to come alive unpredictably and without warning—but King Kallin believed it. Years ago he had commanded one of his own royal witches to set a series of magical traps in the catacombs, so that when the cursed skeletons did come alive, they would never make it up into his castle.

But even the best spells required regular testing. And no one made for better test fodder than the criminals filling the royal jails.

So, in remarkably good spirits at the sound of this latest prisoner's dying cries, King Kallin kissed his wife and suggested they all sing a rowing song to pass the time.

“I
can't believe we spent the rest of our money on
this
.” Quicksilver held up the hem of her gown as if it were a piece of dung rather than a fine length of satin. Her pack, hidden on a belt under her huge ruffled skirts, was much lighter now, with so much of their coin gone. “Fox and I should have just stolen what we needed.”

“An unnecessary risk,” Anastazia muttered. “Better to keep our heads down when we can—”

“Yes, I know, I know. Just let me complain without explaining why I'm wrong, won't you?”

“Well, I think we all look fantastic,” said Sly Boots, marching alongside them. “Besides, how else would we get inside? Sneak past the entire royal guard in our filthy everyday clothes?”

Quicksilver glared at him. He looked far too content dressed in that vest and silk shirt. The cap on his head reminded her of the well-dressed people from town who had visited the convent from time to time and pretended to care about orphans.

“Stop waving at everyone,” she grumbled at Sly Boots. “We're not here to make friends.”

“We're at a party.” He jabbed her in the side, a little too sharply. “We should act like it.”

“Oh, and you've been to many a party, then? You were a regular partygoer, back home?”

Sly Boots ignored her, waving at a pretty girl with glowing spring-green hair down to her feet, who wore a billowing satin dress adorned with plum-colored ribbons. The girl waved back and then hid behind her hands to whisper to her friends. Sly Boots puffed out his chest like some featherbrained bird, and Quicksilver wondered, with a hot flash of fury, how she could ever have stood the sight of him.

“Are you certain the bones are here?” muttered Anastazia, glaring at the crowd from within the folds of an excessively
ruffled collar. “I feel like the most ridiculous twit in this getup.”

“Why, Anastazia, you've never looked better!” crowed Sly Boots, bowing gallantly to her.

Quicksilver and Anastazia exchanged a look.

Can we accidentally lose him in the crowds and leave him here?
Fox grumbled from Quicksilver's hair. He hid behind her ear as the tiniest mouse he could make himself, and the slight softness of him against her scalp made her enormous, flouncy dress almost bearable.

Almost.

“I'm sure it's here,” said Quicksilver under her breath. “Fox feels it, and so do I. It's somewhere in this castle.”

“Like an itch you can't scratch because it's just out of reach,” said Fox.

“I think this one is the cat.” Quicksilver concentrated on the Wolf King's memories, swimming chaotically through her mind.
You're close,
they seemed to purr.
Here. Almost.
“Don't you think? It feels like a cat.”

“Of course, it
would
be a cat that would drag us into such a place,” said Fox. “Miserable, wretched creatures.”

“Somewhere in this castle,” murmured Anastazia drily. “That shouldn't be a problem.”

They stepped through the castle doors, which had been thrown open to receive visitors, and into a grand receiving hall decorated with garlands of luminescent flowers and banners embroidered with the young princess's likeness. Hundreds of candles lined the room, and an orchestra of fiddles, trumpets, and tambourines performed a merry jig from a stage in the corner—in front of which Princess Tatjana twirled from dance partner to dance partner, her golden curls flying.

The hall itself was thrice as tall as the church tower back in Willow-on-the-River, and twice the length of the Convent of the White Wolf. From where Quicksilver stood gaping near the doors, she saw a dozen staircases, fifteen curtained balconies, dozens and dozens of amber-glass windows.

“Stop staring,” muttered Sly Boots through a fixed smile. “You might as well run through the hall screaming, ‘Hello, I don't belong here!'”

Quicksilver bit down on her angry retort. He was right, after all. “Fox?”

“Working on it.” Fox peeked out of Quicksilver's hair, his mousy whiskers tickling her neck as his nose twitched “Yes. Yes, I think . . . there. Head for that corridor, on the far left. The air smells more exciting there.”

“Does it smell like skeleton?”

“It smells like
something
.”

Quicksilver blew out an exasperated breath, but nevertheless made her way across the tremendous room, pausing only to sample the punch.

This way,
Fox thought to Quicksilver, tugging on the magic that bound their hearts, guiding her to the left through the crowded room.

By the time they reached the corridor, Quicksilver felt ready to punch the next person who got in her way.

“Is this what all parties are like?” she asked Anastazia. “So many people, all of them hot and sweaty. It's unbearable.”

“Haven't been to a party in quite some time, myself,” muttered Anastazia, staring up at the ceiling with her mouth hanging open.

Quicksilver followed her gaze but saw nothing there.

Fox,
Quicksilver thought,
is Anastazia quite well?

Right as she thought this, Fox was thinking to her,
What's that fool boy doing?

Quicksilver turned and immediately saw what he was talking about: Sly Boots leaned on a tall table near one of the hall's towering windows. He flashed a surprisingly charming
smile at two witches nearby—one with yellow curls and a bright green frog monster sitting in her pocket, the other with orange spiky hair and a bluebird monster perched on her elaborately coiffed hair, from which dangled a wild assortment of baubles. The girls laughed at something Sly Boots said and swished over to him. Sly Boots beamed, and something about his smile made him seem . . . taller. Happier. More
together
, from his freckles down to his overlarge feet.

In other words, he looked nothing like himself at all.

For a moment, Quicksilver stood in shock. A strange sort of pain hooked deep into her gut.

Something wrong?
thought Fox, looking at her curiously.

“Nothing,” Quicksilver bit out. “Just a stupid boy in a stupid vest who apparently can't be bothered to stay with his friends at a party.”

Fox thought delicately,
And here I thought you found Sly Boots more of a burden than a friend.

Quicksilver spun around and snapped to Fox,
Hide us
, and when Fox's cloak settled around her and Anastazia, Quicksilver did not look back. She grabbed Anastazia's wrist and led her down the corridor, leaving Sly Boots and his jabbering girls behind.

She did not stop until they had gone down that corridor, and then ten others, and then through a door behind a tapestry, and then down three flights of stairs that spiraled deeper and deeper into the palace—all while following Fox's whispered instructions as the call of the skeleton pulled them farther on. Whenever they encountered a locked door, Fox wiggled through whatever cracks he could find and let them through. The farther they went, the more clearly Quicksilver could hear the skeleton's movements and memories, all tangled up in her mind—its purrs, its tiny hisses, the clack of its thin claws against the floor.

Definitely the cat,
muttered Fox.

At last, at the end of a quiet, shadowy corridor, they pushed open a heavy stone door and emerged into a dark series of caverns. Passages snaked off into the shadows, marked by engraved stones. Quicksilver marched onward and then, at a sharp cry of alarm from Fox, stopped.

Before her, the stone dropped into a wide, dark chasm. A gust of cold wind raced up the sheer walls and blasted her in the face.

Shaking, Quicksilver found a small rock on the ground and threw it as hard as she could. The rock clacked against stone, and then stone again, and then silently disappeared into blackness.

“What's happening?” Anastazia murmured, peering over the chasm's edge. “Where are we?”

Quicksilver pulled her back to safety. “Listen to me carefully: You're going to follow me and do exactly as I say until we find this skeleton and get out of here. No wandering off, no leaning over the edges of chasms, and no asking questions. We have to move quickly. Do you understand?”

Anastazia nodded eagerly.

What's wrong with her?
Fox inquired.

I don't know, but we can't worry about that right now.
Quicksilver edged closer to the drop. There was a set of narrow steps carved into the chasm wall.
How far down do you think this goes?

I'd rather not think about it,
master, but I do know the skeleton is down there.

“Right, then.” Her skin tingling with nerves, Quicksilver started down the steps, Fox in front of her and Anastazia following behind.

“Stairs!” Anastazia clapped her hands gleefully. “Hooray!”

They crept down the stairs, deeper and deeper into the darkness. It was too quiet for Quicksilver's liking—the air thick and still, Fox's yellow glow the one lonely light. The longer they
walked, the more the snowy hare skeleton, tucked safely away in the pack beneath Quicksilver's skirts, squirmed and fussed. Quicksilver hoped that was a good sign—that it meant they were getting closer to the next skeleton.

Your guess is as good as mine,
Fox thought to her.
Or maybe it's just fussing for the sake of fussing.

Maybe.
Only when they at last reached the bottom of the winding stairs did Quicksilver feel like she could breathe safely once more.

“Now what?” Even her whisper seemed booming in this quiet. The world above them was total darkness, whatever ceiling there was too high to see.

We're closer.
Follow me.
Fox led them farther into the caverns, down a twisting series of passages with low stone ceilings, until they finally emerged into a vast chamber lit with torches.

It was littered with thousands and thousands of bones.