Foxheart (31 page)

B
y the time the coven—twelve witches and monsters, altogether—reached the Wolf King's castle, which was past the border of Valteya in the Far North, they had crafted a plan that, in the broad light of day, had seemed to Quicksilver both sound and promising.

But now, looking up at the Black Castle towering over them, she felt . . . differently.

The two moons, white and violet, cast soft colored shadows over the high, snowy mountains of the Far North—but the Black Castle did not shine. Its black stone swallowed up even
the near moon's violet glow, leaving the castle looking like a dark castle-shaped hole cut out of the sky.

It was narrow and tall, its lines clean and sharp. It stood on a rocky plateau and seemed to loom over everything, even the cloud-piercing mountains that surrounded it. Hugged by snowy rock, crowned with pointy towers, it reminded Quicksilver of a beast scanning the mountains, poised and ready to hunt.

Beside her, Lars let out a long, slow breath. His squirrel monster, Naika, glared at the castle and snarled softly.

“That's quite a sight,” muttered pink-haired Otto, his vole monster perched on his shoulder.

Sly Boots, on Quicksilver's other side, whispered, “Don't be afraid.”

Quicksilver poked him. “I'm not!”

“I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to myself.”

“Let's move in,” Lars whispered, signaling to the others. Naika scurried ahead to scout.

They followed the icy road across the plateau and up a series of foothills, cloaked only by the shadows. If they used magic this close to the Wolf King, they would lose the element of surprise—which was their one real advantage.

Quicksilver tried not to think about when the First Ones
would sense the ermine skeleton and attack. Instead she focused on moving as quietly through the trees as she could. Maybe if she focused hard enough, she would stop thinking about Anastazia and Fox, and wishing desperately that they were there beside her.

Sly Boots seemed to know what she was thinking. “Feels strange to be going on adventures without them, doesn't it?” he whispered.

She glanced at his snow-dusted self and clamped down on a surprising feeling of fondness. “Just keep singing,” she snapped. “And stay close so the bones can hear you.”

Nodding agreeably, Sly Boots resumed singing “The Thief Dagvendr” under his breath. He had chosen that particular song at Quicksilver's request—a request she now deeply regretted. But this close to the Black Castle, the ermine skeleton in her pocket no longer seemed to care that Quicksilver was magicless, and had begun to fuss and scrape and snarl. She feared it might soon claw through Anastazia's thick cloak to freedom.

At last they reached the castle's front entrance, and Sly Boots fell silent. Stubby evergreen trees shivered around them; the ground was a choppy sea of rock and snow. The ermine skeleton thrummed and chattered, pricking Quicksilver's side with a stinging pain each time it thumped against her. She
couldn't imagine how it would feel to have all seven of them in her possession at once—but she would soon find out.

She hoped.

Beside her, Lars's monster, Naika, transformed into a small orange-gold rat and disappeared with a soft puff of light.

Silent and tense, they waited, flat against the castle walls. The stone felt unnervingly strange—warm and damp and prickly. Quicksilver imagined she could feel the castle breathing against her back, and hoped fear was simply getting the best of her. Who knew what sort of spells the Wolf King might have crafted since she had last seen him?

One of the tall black castle doors creaked open. Naika, a squirrel once more, hurried back to Lars and curled around his boot. “The way is clear,” she whispered to him, and Quicksilver forced herself to look at them, though their obvious connection made her miss Fox all the more.

She was Quicksilver Foxheart, and she would have to learn how to be alone in a world full of monsters.

If there was still a world left, after what they were about to do.

Lars placed his hands on her shoulders. “You'll be all right, Quix?” he asked one last time.

She nodded, bracing herself—and then someone screamed.

They whirled.

The Wolf King's black wolf was dragging Karin across the snow, his jaws tight around her leg. Karin's black-and-white bat monster shifted into a mountain cat and sprang onto the wolf's back with an ear-piercing yowl.

More wolves darted out from the shadows. The brown wolf lunged for Tommi, jaws open wide. Tommi ducked and swerved. His cat monster shifted into a great red stag and crashed into the brown wolf, antlers first. Another witch screamed, and another—the blue wolf, the gray wolf. Irma and Veera shifted their monsters into green-and-blue stallions and sent them galloping toward the blue and gray wolves. The blue wolf saw them first, let out a fierce howl, and leaped for the nearest horse, sinking its teeth into the horse's neck.

Otto bellowed a war cry. His pale pink monster, now a coiling, fat serpent, struck at the red wolf with glistening black fangs.

The First Ones—six long shadows with grinning faces and reaching arms—swooped down from the castle walls and rushed at them, a black tidal wave.

Quicksilver staggered back when they raced past her, choking
on the sudden, shivering, furious cold. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see. The howling shadows of the First Ones clogged the fight with thick, smoky darkness.

Lars threw himself in front of Quicksilver and Sly Boots.

“Ready?” he cried.

Quicksilver squinted through the darkness, found the tall, narrow castle entrance. One door still stood open.

She grabbed Sly Boots's hand, her heart a frantic drum. “Ready!”

Suddenly the gray wolf jumped out of the blackness, running straight for them.

Lars shifted Naika into a snarling wolverine and sent her flying toward the wolf.

“Go, Quix!” shouted Lars—but Quicksilver was already running, tugging Sly Boots after her.

They slipped through the open castle door and into a massive entrance hall. Seven staircases branched off in seven different directions. Behind each staircase was an immense painted-glass window. Each one depicted a First One, robed and imperious, with a monster: a starling, and a snowy hare. A hawk, a cat, a mouse. An owl. An ermine.

The ermine skeleton in Quicksilver's pocket rattled and
shrieked. Claws raked her skin through her cloak and winter clothes.

“Where do we go?” Sly Boots squeezed Quicksilver's hand, looking wildly about the massive room. “Which way?”

Quicksilver withdrew the ermine skull from her pocket and held it out in front of her. She had no Fox, and no access to her magic, so this time she could not use the Wolf King's stolen memories to help her. But the skull's excitement was obvious. It vibrated so hard she thought it would shatter. It jerked her body right, then left, then right again. Had she let go of it, it would have flown toward the second staircase from the right.

The staircase was crowned by the glass portrait of an ermine and its First One, painted in moon white and blood red, autumn-sky blue and shimmering moss green.

Quicksilver hoped the ermine skeleton wasn't trying to trick her.

“This way!” she cried.

The screaming sounds of the battle outside faded as she and Sly Boots raced up the stairs and down a series of shadowy corridors with high, arched ceilings. Quicksilver held tight to the ermine skull as it hissed and shook, letting it pull them where it wanted to go. Animal skeletons were everywhere—crowning
each doorway, lining window panes, embedded in the very stone beneath Quicksilver's feet.

“Disgusting,” Sly Boots muttered as they ran.

No, it's clever of the Wolf King,
Quicksilver thought to Fox.
Who would ever think a few monster bones were special, when there are so many normal ones lying around?

When Fox did not answer, Quicksilver gripped the ermine skull harder. She needed to
think
, not cry. Lars and his coven couldn't hold off the wolves forever.

The skull led them deeper into the castle and down a set of narrow stone steps. Quicksilver had to hold on to the skull with both hands to keep it from throwing itself down the corridor ahead of her. She was concentrating so hard on keeping it under control, in fact, that she almost stepped into a pit of stone.

Sly Boots grabbed her cloak and tugged her back to safety. Together they lay flat on their bellies and peeked over the edge into the pit. They had entered a throne room, with the pit at its center. Torches flickered between seven jeweled thrones carved into the pit's sloping stone walls. The walls themselves were crowded with narrow shelves, also carved into the stone, on which were displayed countless bones—for decoration? Perhaps trophies, relics of all those the Wolf King had killed. Ominous
splatters of dried blood marked the walls and many of the bones. A set of wide, shallow steps curved around the pit, leading down to the floor.

There, a seven-pointed star surrounded by a circling pack of toothy wolves had been carved into the stone. In the star's center lay the Wolf King. He was pale and thin, his breath fast, ragged, and shallow, his dark hair drenched with sweat. He looked not a day older than when Quicksilver had last seen him—and just as sick. If Sly Boots was right about Ari . . . he had now been fighting the First Ones for hundreds of years. His body jerked violently—an echo of the battle outside?

For the sake of Lars and the coven, she hoped that, after so many years, the First Ones had grown as tired and ill as the Wolf King himself. It had to be exhausting, hunting and killing and living through another person's body.

“Ari!” Sly Boots whispered, scrambling to his feet. Pieces of stone crumbled off the ledge and fell to the pit floor below.

Quicksilver tugged him back down—but it was too late. The white wolf slunk out of the pit's shadows, sniffing, its eyes narrowed. Quicksilver froze, her hands tight around the shuddering ermine skull. The other skeletons
must
be near, but finding them with the white wolf on the prowl seemed
impossible. She and Sly Boots lay still, hardly breathing.

The wolf grabbed the Wolf King by his collar, lifted him up into the air, and shook him with a growl.

The Wolf King's eyes fluttered open, his body hanging from the wolf's jaws like a rag doll. “Be quiet, you filth,” he said.

“Who is he talking to?” Sly Boots whispered.

Quicksilver squinted through the gloom and nearly gasped. There, past the far side of the pit on the other side of the room, staring blearily through the bars of iron cages, were girls. Dozens of them—shivering and filthy, clothed in rags.

Her blood ran cold. “The Wolf King is especially hateful of girls,” Lars had said. The dried blood on the walls took on a new, hideous meaning.

He feeds them to the wolves.

Sly Boots, following her gaze, gripped her arm hard. “What do we do?” he breathed.

Quicksilver's mind raced, searching for a plan. If there were cages, then there must be locks and keys, and if she could unlock the cages, free the girls, create a distraction . . .

She looked around wildly for inspiration. Then she saw the torchlight gleaming off the Lady's heart jewel, still hanging from Sly Boots's neck.

“Can you pick locks?” she asked.

“Yes.” Sly Boots paused. “Well, mostly.” He paused again. “My parents taught me. I get the general idea of it, but I'm not very fast.”

It would have to be enough. “The clasp of that necklace might work.” Quicksilver gestured at the heart jewel. “I'll distract the wolf while you pick the locks, free the girls, and run. Then
you'll
be distracting him, and I'll find the bones.”

Sly Boots frowned, palming the jewel. “That seems risky. What if—”

“Just do it! And don't let him see you.”