Page 29 of Red in Tooth and Claw

Chapter Twenty-nine

The cave cat wouldn’t go through the tear in our worlds, and its chance to go home was rapidly diminishing. The edges of the portal were hazing, the line between the cave and the wall softening.

I squatted before Chirp, though my body was fiercely complaining about the movement. It wasn’t too long ago that I’d almost died, after all. Giving in to my exhaustion, I sat, before brushing my fingers along his face. “You could go, too, you know?” I tipped my head toward the wall. “Go home.” The words rasped in my throat. Chirp leaving would make me heartsore. I’d grown attached to having him around already.

But if that’s what he wanted, I would help him. The grief would be a small cost for his happiness.

Chirp stared at the opening for a long moment. Then he let out a low whistle. He bumped his forehead against my chin. A tentative emotion slipped through me. Chirp wanted to stay, but it was my choice, too. He understood on some level that him being here with me would make my life a bit more complicated.

I scratched behind his ear. “I like complicated. It’s never boring.” He purred a rusty, grating sound, and I laughed.

Chirp glanced at the other cave cat, yowling plaintively.

It stared at the fading portal, an expression of naked longing in its eyes, but its feet didn’t move. Tallis reached out, moving slowly so it wouldn’t startle. He hummed the Rover song “Raina’s Lament” in his soothing voice as he carefully undid the part of the tether that still hung from around the cave cat’s neck.

Lost and sad, the cave cat turned to Tallis, who stroked along the creature’s jaw with a thumb. “This world has treated you sorely. Maybe you’re not ready to go home. Maybe you think you can’t.”

The cave cat chirped softly at him. Tallis sat so he could comfort it better.

“Why isn’t it leaving?” I asked quietly.

“ She ,” Tallis said absently, not looking away as he stroked a comforting hand over the feline face. “If that’s what you want, you’ll be welcome here. We’ll do what we can to make up for the wrongs done against you.” He dropped his hand. “But I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to reopen this door.” He turned to Chirp. “This might be your last chance.”

Chirp flopped into my lap, his weight nearly bowling me over. His choice appeared easily made.

The other cave cat took longer. But after a few long moments, she lay down, putting her head on Tallis’s leg, and sighed, eyes closing. Tallis put his hand on her head.

Something in the air snapped, a weight, a heaviness to the atmosphere that I hadn’t noticed until it left, evaporating in an instant. The symbols on the wall glowed with a powerful light, burning onto the backs of my eyelids, until they were too much to look at.

When my vision cleared, the symbols were gone, and Tallis was looking at the other cave cat with an expression I couldn’t read. He reached a hand out toward me as far as he could, holding it in the air.

I didn’t have to take his hand. I had a feeling that if I didn’t, Tallis would accept it, but it would hurt him somehow. It wasn’t a big thing, but there are moments in this world where it becomes a weighted action, that reaching out. The kind that can shift lifetimes, rattle the chains of existence, or fracture lives into so many pieces that they become irreconcilable.

A broken vase you cannot mend.

Or you can reach back, put your hand in theirs, and make right what had gone so terribly wrong.

This was one of those times. “Your people don’t want me around.”

Tallis made a tired sound. “You’re my people, too.”

My hand was bloodstained, my nails ragged. It was a hand that knew hard work, toil, and very little in the way of peace. It had been steeped in the blood of my enemies, which sounded a mite dramatic to my ear.

I reckoned I was a bit tired of blood.

And I’d lost so much already.

I ignored his offering, pushing myself up, wobbling slightly on my feet. Tallis dropped his hand, his jaw so tight that his scar stood out in relief. He watched with those fathomless eyes of his while I hobbled over, Chirp on my heels. Like a graceless puppet that had suddenly lost its strings, I collapsed next to him and slid an arm around his waist, careful not to jostle the other cave cat.

The faintest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, his eyes lightening once again. He wrapped an arm around me, kissing my temple, before he heaved a sigh into my hair. “I knew if I was patient, you’d eventually come to me, Little Fox.”

“It’s only because I’m bone-weary,” I mumbled, but we both knew I was lying. Tallis had worn me down—no, that wasn’t right. That brought to mind the way a bird will peck away at a tree until the bark frays and its prize is revealed. An action that rewards one and destroys the other.

Tallis would never tear me apart like that. He’d worn me down like a long spring rain hitting parched dust, relentless and inevitable, but soaking into the dirt, bringing forth green and budding things. Something that rearranged the very configuration of the soil at your feet, sowing the promise of growth and good harvest. In a way that didn’t diminish but expanded.

Exhaustion had made me poetic, it seemed.

Tallis sighed as if my response had been a blade he was expecting, which made me feel loutish.

I burrowed my head into his shoulder and grumbled, “Thank you.” He didn’t say anything in response, but his arm around me tightened.

We sat like that, the room quiet except for Obie’s snuffling sobs, and watched the opening dissolve.

A few minutes later, the tear closed.

It was done.

The rest of the night was such a hazy mess that I stumbled through like I was half gone on my Pops’s whiskey. I’m sure that, had I been left to my own devices, I would have slumped somewhere against a tree and left myself as carrion for the wild boars.

But I wasn’t alone. I was herded by Jesse, scolded into movement by Dai Lo. Nudged by Chirp. Mocked into action by Will’s dry comments. Half dragged by Tallis while the other cave cat watched us with solemn eyes. It was as if I were the smallest duckling in the brood and they were all harassing me into place.

I couldn’t explain why, but it made me feel warm, like my heart had stretched until it filled every bit of space under my skin.

My eyes kept closing of their own accord. Before long, I was being tucked into blankets near a fire, the gentle murmur of a collection of people around me. Heat banked me at both sides, and it was a feeling that was instantly familiar, though I shouldn’t be used to it already. Chirp was stretched along my front, Tallis at my back. His arm snaked around my waist, his hand splayed across my stomach.

I wasn’t used to being held so close. I would have thought that I’d hate it. Akin to being smothered or trapped. But that wasn’t how it felt. It felt like being held snug and tight. Like I was a cherished thing you wanted to clutch to you and not let go.

I had no idea what I mumbled, but Tallis’s response was clear as a newly minted bell, the words carved from the musical tones of the Rover tongue. “I will hold you as close as my own heart, always, if you’ll let me, Little Fox.”

I’m not sure what I would have said to that—what could you say to such a thing? I’m sure I didn’t know. But I was asleep a moment later, lulled by Tallis’s soft laugh in my ear and Chirp’s warm purr against my chest.

I woke up in the last place I expected—Tallis and Zara’s tent in the Rover camp. Zara sat across from me, a steaming tin mug in one hand, her posture loose, her gaze focused unapologetically on me.

From the slant of light gilding the tent flaps, the sun was well and truly up. My bones ached, my skin itched with the dry blood I’d been too tired to deal with—though I seemed to remember Tallis wiping off my face and hands at one point. My throat was a desert with no hope for rain. But since a Rover’s favorite watch was a broken one, I didn’t bother asking Zara what time it was.

I pushed myself up with a wince.

Zara snorted, set down her mug, and fetched the kettle that had been nestled above the coals. She poured the steaming water into a tin mug that had been hiding next to her on the floor. I took it carefully, everything in me aching and screaming out.

“You look like something that died, came back, and is thinking about dying again.”

I blew on the mug, my hopes for coffee dashed. Tea. I liked tea normally, but I had a powerful thirst for coffee this morning. I also suspected this tea was one of Anna’s creations, which meant it would be medicinal first, with flavor not a consideration whatsoever. And I was right.

“All of it,” Zara said without an ounce of sympathy. “Keeping you alive seems like a full-time job.”

“It’s no one’s job but my own,” I said, bristling.

Her cup paused at her lips as she stared at me, her brows winging up. “Do you honestly think that?”

“Be very careful how you answer that question, Faolan Kelly,” Dai Lo said as she stepped into the tent, her tone teacher-firm. Jesse stepped in behind her, a faintly amused expression on his face.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said automatically, sipping my tea. Ugh. Vile.

Dai Lo eyed me carefully, shaking her head at what she saw. “Sometimes I wonder at how you’re still alive with all your fingers and toes.” She fluttered her hand at me. “Finish your tea. Jesse has some clothes for you.”

“Before you ask, ‘What’s wrong with the clothes I have on?’ I would like to remind you that you are covered in blood and reek of evil workings,” Zara said dryly. “Your clothes need to be burned.”

“How do you do it?” I asked.

Zara tilted her head, a movement that reminded me so much of her brother. “Do what?”

“Know what I’m going to say.” I braced myself for another sip of tea, knowing full well I wasn’t leaving this tent until the cup was empty. “Your brother does it. I was starting to wonder if he could read minds.”

Mischief lit Zara’s eyes. “Wouldn’t that be a lovely power?”

I did not think so, but I didn’t say as much.

“Sadly,” Zara said, “we don’t have such a gift. You’re just incredibly easy to read.”

“Faolan?” Jesse asked, startled.

Zara waved a hand around her face. “Every thought, it’s right here for her.”

Jesse shook his head. “Maybe to you and yours, but the rest of us have a hell of a time.”

“I’m very mysterious,” I said, examining my shirt. “It’s not that bad, surely.”

“Remember when the skunk got you?” Zara asked.

“Yeah.”

“This is worse.” Zara never did mince words.

“I can’t smell anything,” I complained.

Zara motioned to my cup. “To the bottom, please. Then a bath.”

I downed several gulps, trying to muscle past the taste. “Where’s Chirp?”

Zara shrugged.

“Down by the river, I think,” Dai Lo said, nudging Jesse forward. “Clothes, Jesse.”

I traded my now-empty mug for the pile of clothes and fled the tent before Zara could make any more observations I didn’t want to hear.

The sun was bright and high in the sky, like the day had woken up and decided suddenly to be spring. It wasn’t hot, but the air lacked the frigid chill of winter that had been dogging my days.

A handful of people were down on the riverbank—folks fetching water and washing clothes, and a few youngins wading along under the watchful eyes of older children. I got several disinterested waves, despite the fact that I must have been a mite terrifying. I walked away from the busy shore, over to the place where Tallis had bathed the skunk off me.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, I spotted Tallis sprawled out on the grass. Both of the cave cats were spread out next to him, soaking up the sun. Chirp greeted me with a sleepy whistle, his tail flicking lazily among the clover.

Tallis gave me slitted eyes.

“I’m aware that I look a fright,” I gritted, feeling twice as itchy as I’d been in the tent. “Your sister already gave me an earful on the topic.”

Tallis shaded his eyes with one hand. “That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.” He levered himself to his feet, all easy grace and fluid movements. I could never figure out how Tallis made even the slightest gesture look like a dance.

“Oh,” I said, holding my clothes awkwardly. “What were you thinking, then?”

He answered with a smile, tight-lipped and curled at the ends like spring fiddleheads. “Let’s get you washed.”

I felt the flush come up from my toes.

Delight lit Tallis’s eyes. “Like a sunrise. I always wonder…” He stepped forward, hooked a finger into the waist of my trousers, and pulled until I was almost touching him. His next words hit my ears like a soft breath. “How far down that charming color goes.”

I squeaked.

He laughed softly, and he was so close I could feel each exhalation. “Should we find out?”

I had no idea how he could say such things, even now, when I was such a wretched creature. He was a flirt, that was why. Came as natural as breathing. Probably didn’t mean a single word. Just how he talked.

I didn’t like to think that. Gave me an unmoored feeling I didn’t care for. So it was with a stubborn chin that I looked up. Ready for a dustup if need be.

The naked wonder on his face made me freeze. How could anyone look at me like that—as if I was something worthy of a dragon’s hoard?

“What a miracle you are, Little Fox.” His arms slid around my waist, seemingly unaware that I was filthy.

“I am?” My brow furrowed. Couldn’t make heads or tails of Tallis sometimes. “Zara said—” I cut the words off with my teeth. I didn’t want to sound like I was setting my lure for sweet words.

He ducked down so our eyes were level. “What did my sister say?”

“Well,” I said slowly. “She said it was amazing that I was still kicking with all my toes, and she might have implied that I was a full-time job.”

Tallis hummed thoughtfully. “You’re a challenge. That’s the honest truth.”

I started to push away, but Tallis tightened his arms, keeping me in place with irritating ease.

“Quiet down, Little Fox. Be still.” Quick as a wink, he dipped forward and bit my ear. Not hard, just enough to catch my attention. “I like a challenge.”

“You do?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my words.

He nodded seriously. “With you, Little Fox, life will always be interesting, I think. You’re a gift. Trouble. I would like nothing more, I think, than for you to be my trouble.”

I looked at him in amazement. “Some people,” I said slowly, shaking my head, “have no sense.”

He laughed with his whole body, burying his face in my neck. “As you say, Little Fox. How about we get you cleaned up now?”

“I do stink,” I admitted.

“Like a gutted thing left out for the crows,” he said gently. “But you carry my heart, anyway.”

“Absolutely no sense.”