Foxheart (4 page)

A
fter a day on the road, her stomach pinched with hunger and her feet raw from walking, Girl stopped to rest at a river. Countless stars, even more brilliant at night than they were during the day, spilled across the sky. In the light of the two moons—one near and pale violet, the other white, more distant—she saw a shabby, mud-colored town, its rooftops a tumble of mismatched shingles. A sign at the town's western bridge told her that this was Willow-on-the-River, where the sisters shopped for goods when their own small village's market ran low.

But she would not think about the sisters just yet, nor any
of the others back at the convent. First she must find food and a warm place to rest. Then she could sort out everything else.

“The Wolf King doesn't attack children and old women,” Girl muttered to Fox, for the twentieth time that day. “He only attacks witches. And the witches are nearly gone.”

She stopped at the town church, hesitated, then went inside. Though she was normally not one for prayer, as praying required her to sit still and recite someone else's words rather than her own, she lit a candle for everyone back at Saint Martta's. She even prayed to the Wolf King, as she had been taught, but then she thought of Mother Petra's screams and hesitated.

“I'm not sure he deserves my prayers,” she whispered to Fox, who was keeping watch at the chapel door, “not until I know that wasn't him. Although I can't imagine that it
was
him. It couldn't have been. But I know what I saw.” She paused. “Is that sacrilege?”

Fox whuffed in what sounded to Girl like enthusiastic agreement, his breath puffing in the chilled air.

So Girl clasped her hands and prayed instead to the ever-present stars above her, from which the Star Lands got their name. She prayed that the sisters and girls were unhurt, that they were not too terribly afraid, and that if they needed rescuing,
she, Girl, would be the one to save them, and in reward they would give her gold and swords and all the cakes she could ever want.

Then she and Fox explored the town square, just outside the church. The closed market stalls stood in rows, heavy canvases pulled down over their fronts.

“I know. I'm hungry too, Fox,” said Girl, rubbing her arms beneath her cloak to keep warm. Fox had offered Girl several quails and hares as they traveled, but Girl could not stomach raw meat and was afraid to build a fire in case the smoke gave away their position to any wolves prowling about. Since Girl did not eat the meat, neither did Fox, and Girl did not try to persuade him otherwise. They were partners, and it seemed to her that partners should eat together or starve together.

“I suppose I could wait until morning and buy something from the market like a respectable person would,” said Girl, thumbing through the stolen coins in her pocket.

Fox cocked his head.

Girl grinned. “Or I could steal something, like a respectable
thief
would.”

Fox wagged his tail.

“Come on, then!” Girl hurried through the dark streets,
assessing each house she passed. None of them would do—too many people inside, items that could easily be used as weapons against her lying out in plain view, foul cooking smells indicating whatever food she found would not be worth stealing.

Then, on a quiet, ramshackle street, Girl saw a humble house, crooked and narrow, squashed between two larger buildings. The arrangement of its door and windows gave it an expression rather like someone who had long ago resigned himself to a cramped and crowded fate. One of the second-floor windows was ajar.

“Wait here, Fox,” whispered Girl. She started scaling the wall, using cracks between the stones to pull herself along. She looked back and saw Fox staring up at her, his torn ear sticking out crookedly as it always did.

She crawled through the open window into a dark room with an empty bed. She paused, crouching, listening for signs of danger and hearing none. Creeping out of the bedroom and down the stairs, she encountered nothing but bare walls and dust bunnies. Once she thought she heard someone moving about, but then realized it was only her own pounding heart. She opened the front door a crack and whispered to Fox, “I'm almost done. Stay right there.”

Fox did not move from where he sat in the road, though he licked his chops and quivered with excitement.

Girl tiptoed, grinning, to the kitchen.
I
knew
no one was home,
she thought.
I sensed it right away when I saw this house. I really am the cleverest thief there ever was.

But as Girl rummaged through the kitchen stores, it quickly became clear that she wasn't as clever as all that. The cupboards were bare. The pots and pans were cold and clean and neatly put away. There were no rolls, no pies, no potatoes. She even climbed atop a stool to check the highest shelves, but the only thing up there was a fuzzy layer of dust.

“What kind of kitchen is this?” Girl hissed, ready to smash every last maddeningly empty dish.

“It's not your kitchen, I know that much,” said a voice behind her, and when Girl whirled around, she saw a shadowy figure standing in the kitchen doorway and the glint of a small, sharp blade.

G
irl fumbled for a weapon, and came up with only a spatula draped in cobwebs.

“Get back!” She whipped the spatula back and forth. “Don't touch me!”

“
You
get b-back!” The knife-wielding figure hurried away, tripping over a burlap sack.

It was only a boy. Girl thrust the spatula in front of her. The boy scrambled back, his knife clattering to the floor. Girl grabbed it and, knife and spatula in hand, advanced on him.

“Beware, boy!” she said. “My name is Quicksilver, and I'm
the best thief in all the Star Lands, and if you believe the tales, you're a bigger fool than you look, for they're not half so bloody as the
real
stories.”

“Who? I've n-never heard of . . .
what
silver?”

Quicksilver.
Girl's giddy heart danced.

Quicksilver was one of the dozens of potential thieving names on her list, but she had never given it much thought until now. She had, in all honesty, always been drawn to the alliterative. Constance Craft. The Silent Shifter. The Fleet Fox (in honor, of course, of Fox).

But now . . . now, she knew that no other name would do. The fact that she could make such a spectacular choice while her life was in danger reassured her of her own brilliance.

I am Quicksilver,
she thought, and with each word, she stood up a bit taller.
My name is Quicksilver.

“Quicksilver, you fool,” she said to the boy, grinning, and with those words, she shed the name Girl like a sheath of dead skin. “Let me pass without any trouble, and I'll spare your life.”

“Er . . . just wait a moment,” said the boy, even as he continued backing away with his hands raised in surrender. All of a sudden, moonslight came in through the kitchen window, and Quicksilver saw a pale, freckled, lanky boy with hair the
color of tallow. There were shadows beneath his eyes. He kept glancing up the stairs toward the second floor.

Quicksilver followed his gaze, her thoughts racing. Perhaps she hadn't surveyed the other rooms as thoroughly as she ought to have. “What's up there? What're you hiding, boy?”

“M-my name's Sly Boots,” said the boy.

“That's a stupid name.”

Sly Boots straightened. “Well, y-you have a stupid face.”

“That won't matter much, will it, when I've robbed you blind and left you for dead?” Quicksilver jumped toward him with a growl. Sly Boots yelped and stumbled back against the wall, and Quicksilver ran up the stairs. She would make a quick search, grab whatever she could find, climb back out the window, and run away before the boy had even managed to regain his footing. Maybe he was hiding a stash of coins, or jewels, or—

At the door to the second bedroom, Quicksilver came to an abrupt stop.

A man and a woman lay sleeping in a bed, their skin pale and slick with sweat. The air in the room was stale and heavy. In the corner was a chair draped with a threadbare blanket, and on the table by the bed an empty bowl and spoon.

“Please . . . don't hurt them.”

Quicksilver turned. “Who are they? What's wrong with them?”

“They're my parents,” said Sly Boots, wringing his hands by the bedroom door. “And what do you mean, what's wrong with them?”

“I've seen sick people before at the—where I used to live.”

“You haven't seen sickness like this before.” Sly Boots inched past her warily, eyeing the knife. To remind him who had the upper hand, Quicksilver slapped his arm with the spatula.

“We were on a job in the hills,” Sly Boots continued. As he spoke, he pressed his hands to his parents' foreheads, wiped their faces with a damp cloth, arranged their pillows. He scooped a dark, viscous liquid from a jar and spread it across their throats; their rattling breath quieted. Downstairs, he had been clumsy, faltering, but here, tending to his parents, Sly Boots moved almost . . . elegantly.

Quicksilver forgot herself for a moment and asked, in a hushed tone, “How do you know what to do for them?”

Sly Boots shrugged. “I've always been good at this sort of thing. I read whatever books my parents could steal for me. I used to watch Reko—he's the town apothecary—when he spoke to people in the market, and take notes and such. But he never
liked me, seeing as how my parents are thieves, and then when I tried to steal from him a couple of weeks ago . . . well, I'm just lucky he didn't report me to the magistrate.”

Quicksilver fixed on one word. “Thieves? Your parents are thieves?” She stepped back, assessing him in a new light. “Are you one, too?”

“Sort of. Well. No. Not really. See, they were on a job—my parents—but I went along even though I wasn't supposed to. And then I . . .” Sly Boots looked away, as if remembering who he was talking to. “I shouldn't be telling you these things.”

Quicksilver shook herself too. This boy was a mark, not someone to have a conversation with. “No. Indeed it's rather careless of you. You don't know anything about me.”

“You're a thief.”

“The best there is. Better than your parents, I'll bet.” Quicksilver approached the bed. She poked the man's foot with her spatula.

Sly Boots shoved her away. “Don't touch them!”

“Will I get sick if I do?”

“No. I'm not sick, am I?”

“
Are
you?”

Sly Boots sighed.
“No.”

“You look sick. You've got dark circles under your eyes.”

“Are you going to leave now? I wish you would. As you can see, we don't have anything worth stealing.” Sly Boots glanced at her. “How'd you get in without me hearing you? I wouldn't have found you if I hadn't come down for water.”

Quicksilver shrugged. “A thief never reveals her secrets.”

“That's what Mother always said.” Sly Boots paused, staring at his mother's face, and then sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.

“Are you
crying
?”

Sly Boots, sniffling, didn't answer. Then he looked up at Quicksilver, his expression watery and hopeful. “Just how good a thief are you?”

Quicksilver narrowed her eyes. “The best there is. And I don't like repeating myself, so maybe you should pay better attention.”

“Maybe . . . we can make a deal, then.”

A
deal
. Quicksilver perked up. Could Sly Boots have coin stashed somewhere? Coin he could be persuaded to give up in exchange for her leaving quietly? “What kind of deal?”

“You can stay here, at my house—it's cold out, you'll lose your toes to frostbite soon—and in return, you help me steal.
We've no more money, and I've almost run out of medicine, and . . . well, you saw the kitchen.” He paused, twisting his hands together. “You know, since you're . . . the best thief in all the Star Lands?” Sly Boots cleared his throat. “The legendary . . . Kicksliver?”

“Quicksilver,” Quicksilver ground out.

“Right. Quicksilver.”

“Why would you want some strange thief living in your house? Why would you trust me?”

Sly Boots's smile looked strange on his face, as though he weren't used to doing it. “I don't really have a choice. It's either trust you, or . . .” He fell silent, gazing at his sleeping parents.

“What happened to them? You have to tell me, before I agree to anything.”

“We were on a job in the hills—”

“Which hills?” Quicksilver interrupted. “Be specific.”

“The Viskan Hills.” Sly Boots blinked. “You're really not from around here, are you? That's what we call them.
The
hills.”

Quicksilver could have smacked herself. “You think I don't know that? You still need to refer to things by their proper names. It's the rules of storytelling.”

“What rules?”

“
My
rules.”

Sly Boots held up his hands. “All right, all right. Anyway, my parents were out on a job in the hills—the
Viskan
Hills—and they told me not to come because, well, I'm a terrible thief. Always knocking things over and making too much noise, and dropping things, and forgetting where to meet after, and . . . well, you get my meaning. But I followed them anyway, because I wanted to show them I'm better now than I used to be—which I am! I don't break things nearly as often now as I used to—”

“I don't need to hear your tragic life story,” snapped Quicksilver.

“
Fine.
Well, they broke into this trader's carriage, and I followed them in, and they were mad when they saw me, I'll tell you that, but they couldn't do anything about it then. So we gathered up the loot, and my parents ran for it, but I tripped trying to climb out of the carriage and dropped everything, and there was this great crash—are you
laughing
at me?”

Quicksilver bit her tongue and attempted a sympathetic expression. “Just a frog in my throat, is all. How
awful
that must have been for you.”

Sly Boots wiped his nose. “It was. My parents had to come back and help me, and the traders chased us into the forest.
We got turned around—it was dark, and they'd already gotten into scrapes with the magistrate twice before, so we couldn't get caught a third time, so we kept running, and . . . and then we found the witches.”

“Witches.”

“Yes, witches! They had—” Sly Boots glanced at Quicksilver's hair, which was sticking up every which way. “Well. I knew what they were.”

Quicksilver ignored the gooseflesh prickling her skin and snorted. “You saw wrong. Almost all the witches are gone. The Wolf King—”

“Almost,”
said Sly Boots, his voice sharp. “And these were witches, I know it. My skin tingled around them, like a lightning storm was coming. And they hurt my parents. I don't know what they did to them, but something bad. I wager they would've hurt me too, if I hadn't fallen so far behind. I don't think they knew I was there.” Sly Boots wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. “Those witches and their animals—strange animals, all lit up like fire, they were. If I ever meet another witch, I'll—I'll—”

“Oh, yes? You'll what? You'll fight them? Honestly. You couldn't even fight a girl with a spatula.” Quicksilver rolled her eyes, but in fact she was thinking very hard about what
Sly Boots had said:
strange animals, lit up by fire
.

Like the wolves in Mother Petra's office?

“Insult me all you like,” said Sly Boots, “but I know what I saw. It took me hours to drag my parents back home, and I got some funny looks, I'll tell you that, and now . . . I can't get them to wake up. They're better than they used to be. I got their fevers down, and they can still swallow, so I feed them broth, but it's getting harder to make them eat it, and—I don't know what to do. We've run out of everything, and if I don't keep giving them their medicine, they'll get feverish again and start crying out in their sleep, like someone's hurting them in their dreams.”

Sly Boots's father shuddered, as if he had heard his son's words. His face contorted and then relaxed.

“You see?” Sly Boots reached for a fresh cloth. “It's already happening. You've got to help me, or else . . . or else I don't know what we'll do. Once our money ran out, I started trying to lift things from the market—just basic tonics for fever and the shakes—but I'm caught every time. I'm just hopeless at it.” Sly Boots sat heavily on the bed. “It's my fault. If I'd just stayed home, like I was supposed to, if I hadn't tripped and fallen, if we hadn't run off into those woods . . .”

Sly Boots grabbed the empty bowl on the bedside table and flung it against the wall, shattering it.

Quicksilver's opinion of Sly Boots improved. Throwing and smashing things was much preferable to snotty crying.

“If they can't get better,” said Sly Boots mournfully, “if they stay like this forever, it'll be my fault. They should never have had me. I should never have been born—”