Page 51

CHAPTER

Fifty-One

A ND CAIN IS sleeping too, curled on a mattress on his balcony.

Naked. Why not? For the first year of his training, he never slept in the same place twice. The schedules of days and nights shifted, testing novices to their limits. Sleep must be snatched wherever it could be found. Two hours here, a quarter hour there. Some went mad and left within days. Others endured the torment until their bodies and minds adjusted. Cain barely noticed. He could nap anywhere, any time. What was all the fuss about?

Tonight, the balcony. He sleeps, and dreams his usual dream, the one he forgets the moment he opens his eyes again to the world. As he sleeps, his cracked ribs mend, his broken fingers heal, the damage to his liver and kidneys is quietly repaired. Dark bruises shrink and fade away. The cuts along his brow and lip remain, and the one above his ear—they have been seen and noted, and so must be kept. But when he wakes tomorrow, he will find they are not as deep as he’d thought, nor as painful.

Sol watches from his perch on the balcony wall, preening himself back into shape. We have spared you the disgusting part where he tore himself out of Neema’s back as she slept. (Exiting that way is even more horrible than from the front, you must trust us on this, the way the hooked beak clamps on to the spinal column and snaps it in two like a twig, the vile crunching, splintering sound, the gristle, the claws poking and scrabbling through the skin until it rents open, birthing a mangled semi-creature, half bird, half purple-black slurry, oozing and slurping like pus through the gaping wound between Neema’s shoulder blades before splatting to the ground.) We have skipped that revolting scene for your benefit.

We swoop down and land next to him on the wall, our much-loathed fragment, the useless thing.

Wretched one.

Worthless one.

What are you doing here?

Sol continues to preen himself. None of your business.

We fume.

It is literally our business.

We are you.

You are us.

We hop down to where Cain is sleeping, and circle him warily.

This one is dangerous.

This one is protected.

You know what will happen if you try to harm him.

Bad things. Bad things will happen.

We forbid you from meddling with him.

Leave him alone.

We flap back up to the balcony wall and give Sol a sharp snap with our beak. This usually works. He knows when he is not wanted. (He is never wanted.)

Go. Shoo.

Sol ignores us. We are livid . He does not ignore us, we ignore him. That is the order of things. We peck him again, pull out a puff of feathers.

Sol is undeterred. Harass away. The fact remains: your plan failed. It was not magnificent.

The flock reels. We are in danger of scattering. Never, never has a fragment dared…

I, the SOLITARY RAVEN (he opens his wings wide in that annoying habit of his) will save the world on my own. The Tiger warrior will be stopped, as the Dragon commanded—by ME. Neema shall win the throne, and I will sit VISIBLE on her shoulder, in my RESPLENDENT GLORY. (More wing stretching.) All the tiny bags of meat will fall to their knees and WORSHIP ME, and present me with SHINY THINGS.

He drops down, to land firmly on Cain’s bare chest.

But first, I must take out the competition.

Cain sat up and stretched, rubbed his face. He felt well, and rested, though he had only slept a few hours. He didn’t try to remember his dream, he’d learned long ago not to bother. He tested his ribs, pressing with his fingers. Nothing cracked, nothing broken. Not even a bruise. He chose not to think about how strange and miraculous that was.

The sky was dark, another hour at least until dawn. But he was awake now.

“Food,” he thought. “Food, food.”

Wrapping a sheet around his hips, he headed back inside and made coffee, and demolished a hamper his contingent had sent up the previous night. Astonishing, really, it had survived this long. He thought about Neema and smiled. The cut on his lip didn’t split, it wasn’t all that deep, now he probed it. He’d dodged those Hounds better than he thought, that was it.

Cain.

He stiffened, listening. Had someone called his name? He picked up a candlestick.

Cain.

Someone was calling him from his bedchamber, a male voice. Well, that certainly wouldn’t be the first time. But not last night, no (he thought back, double-checking) he definitely didn’t bring anyone home last night. Not even Neema. My love. Oh, Eight—he’d called her that out loud, hadn’t he? How excruciating. He tossed the candlestick and caught it, testing the weight. Crossed the room and kicked open the door.

No one there. His bed was made, pillows plumped.

And lying in the centre, a book.

He picked it up and read the title out loud. “ Tales of the Raven .” He turned it over, but the back was blank. The black leather cover felt warm to the touch, as if it had been lying in the sun. He caught a spicy, peppery smell.

A present from Neema, he decided, and sat down on the bed. As he moved to open the book he felt a flare of warning, a tiny nip to the soul. No, no, don’t read that. Put it down. Throw it away.

Ah yes, but he was a Fox. So he ignored the warning.

Something of an irony, that.

He opened the book, and flicked through its pages. Blank… blank… blank… A sudden flash of colour. He stopped. On the left-hand page was an illustration of a little red fox, surrounded by woodland. A sweet image, until you realised that the fox’s paw was caught in a steel trap. Was it… crying? Cain peered closer. The fox twitched its whiskers.

No. That didn’t happen.

He turned to the right-hand page. One of those ancient folk tales Neema loved. This must have come from her, she must want him to read it. He settled back against the pillow, and began.

How the Fox Crossed the Border

Before and beyond, in the space between things, a young girl dreamed her way into the Hidden Realm.

The girl had been running from a nightmare. She lay down in the long grass, flat on her back, and caught her breath. The trees rustled overhead, the clouds drifted by.

Something whimpered in the grass beside her.

She sat up, and listened closely.

There it was again. A sad, muffled whimper.

The girl crawled through the grass until she found a little red fox, lying at the base of a broad oak tree. It was the sweetest creature, with mellow gold eyes and soft copper fur. Its dainty paw was caught in a wicked steel trap.

“Oh, how cruel!” the girl exclaimed.

The fox shrank back, ears pressed to its head. “Have you come to eat me?”

“Of course not!” said the girl.

“Have you come to steal my fur?”

“No indeed.” The girl inched closer. “I have come to rescue you.”

“Oh,” said the little fox, nose twitching. “How kind. What a kind thing you are.”

The trap was heavy, with vicious metal teeth. The fox watched with interest as the girl prised it open. “Quick!” she said, panting with the effort. “Lift out your paw.”

The fox removed its mangled paw and gave it a feeble lick. Then it shuddered, from nose to tail. “Oh, dear. How shall I run from the monsters now?”

“Monsters?” The girl looked about her in alarm.

“Don’t worry, they do not eat little girls. Only foxes.” The fox shuddered again. “I was trying to cross the border to safety,” it said, lifting its nose towards the trees. “I shall never reach it now. I shall be eaten whole.” It started to cry.

The girl did not want her new friend to be eaten by monsters. “Don’t cry little fox, for I have an idea.”

“You do?” the fox sniffed, wiping a tear from its snout.

“You must come and live with me. No one ever eats foxes in my village.”

The fox opened its beautiful golden eyes very wide. “Is that so?”

Now the girl was being a touch devious here. It was true that the people in her village did not eat foxes, but they did hunt them, and kill them, and wear their fur. But she so wanted the little fox to come home with her, and to be her friend.

“Do you really want me to come and live with you?” asked the fox.

“Very much.”

“And do you promise I can stay?”

“I do.”

“And do you always keep your promises?”

“Of course.”

“Then I accept your invitation,” the fox declared, and sprang neatly into her arms.

The girl was so startled, she almost dropped it. But it felt so warm and soft, and it smelled of fresh gingerbread, which just happened to be her favourite smell in all the world. She hugged the darling little creature tight, and breathed in deep. Delicious.

The fox put its head over her shoulder and nuzzled her ear. “I hope you don’t mind carrying me, but my leg is so terribly sore.”

“Of course,” soothed the girl. “Do you know which way is home?”

“Well that’s a funny thing,” replied the fox. “It just happens to be right across that border.”

“What a coincidence,” the girl said, and the fox agreed that it was.

They had not been walking for long when the fox said, “Little girl, little girl—the monsters are coming!”

The girl looked back, but all she saw was a soft rippling in the long grass.

“Run!” cried the fox, and she did.

High above their heads, a wheeling raven shrieked, “Fox! Fox!”

The little fox grinned to hear its name. For it was indeed the Fox, the First Guardian, in its sweetest and most irresistible form. “Hello Raven!”

A tail swished through the long grass. Ears, teeth, tongue…

Tiger!

“Fox!” Tiger snarled, snapping at their heels. “What are you doing? You know you cannot cross the border. Dragon forbids it.”

The Fox smiled over the little girl’s shoulder. “But Tiger. I have been invited,” it said.

The Tiger skidded to a halt.

Cunning Fox!

For a thousand times a thousand years it had been trying to cross this border. Or a blink of an eye, depending on how you measure things. But it could not pass to the Other Side without an invitation. Not as its whole, marvellous self. No indeed.

As they reached the trees the Fox lifted its dear little paw, which was not injured, not at all, and waved cheerily. “Goodbye Tiger! Fare thee well!”

The Tiger roared in fury. “The next time I see you, Fox, I will eat you whole.”

The Fox grinned a very wide grin. “Ah—but you’ll have to catch me first,” it said, and vanished into the woods.

That was how the Fox left the Hidden Realm for the first time.

The next morning, the young girl woke in her bedroom. “What a strange dream,” she thought, and screamed.

Sitting at the bottom of her bed was a fox. Not the dainty creature she had carried in her arms, but a big, mangy old vixen, with matted fur and a missing eye, ripped from its socket in a fight.

“Ugh! Who are you?” cried the girl.

The Fox was offended. “Don’t you know me? I thought we were friends.”

“But why do you look so different?” The girl plugged her nose. “Why do you smell so different?”

The Fox sat up proudly, and cleared its throat. “I am the Fox. I am all the foxes that were, all the foxes that are, and all the foxes that will be.” It paused, and nibbled its fur with its rotten yellow teeth. “Fleas. Riddled with them.”

The girl’s skin itched. “Change back at once!”

The Fox gave her a stern look. “I shall be what I please, when I please.”

“Well, I don’t like you any more,” the girl said.

“How disappointingly shallow of you,” said the Fox.

She flapped her hand. “Go away! Shoo!”

“Little girl. Flap your hand at me again, and I will bite it off.” It snapped its jaws at her.

The girl threw her blanket over her head, and started to cry. “I hate you,” she declared, her voice muffled.

“May I remind you,” the Fox said, in an injured tone, “that you invited me to come and live with you? You promised you would never send me away.”

“But that was when you smelled of gingerbread,” said the lump under the blanket.

“Well then,” said the Fox, to the lump. “There is a lesson for you. Never trust things that smell of gingerbread.”

The girl peeped out from under her blanket. “That’s a stupid lesson.”

“Very stupid,” the Fox agreed.

They laughed.

“Dear Fox. I’m sorry we fought. I would stroke your fur again, if you weren’t covered in fleas, and… are those maggots?”

“Indeed they are,” the Fox was pleased to confirm. “I am glad we are friends again.”

“So am I. But you cannot stay here. If my mother sees you she will scream, and chase you from the house. And all the villagers will gather together and hunt you down with dogs. They will chase you until you can’t run any more. And then the dogs will snap your bones and tear you to pieces.”

“What, what, what?” cried the Fox. “You said no one ate foxes here. You promised!”

“We don’t eat foxes,” said the girl. “That would be disgusting. But we do hunt them, and kill them, and wear their fur.”

The Fox grew back its missing eye, so it could glare at her the better. “You tricked me!”

“I did. I’m sorry. Are you very cross?”

“Cross?” Not in the slightest. The First Guardian laughed so hard it rolled on its back, wheezing for air. It had never been tricked before. How splendid.

“Fox,” said the girl, when it had recovered. “Didn’t you say you were all foxes?”

“That is so. All the foxes that were. All the foxes that are—”

“But if that’s true, surely you must have known that foxes are hunted and killed, and worn as fur?”

“Little girl.” The Fox gave her a severe look. “Are you trying to pin me down with logic?”

“No, I’m just—”

“I will not be pinned.”

“But—”

“ I will not. Be pinned. ”

The little girl had heard this tone before from the Temple Servant, when she asked him questions he did not like. She gave up. “If you change back into the sweet little fox, I can pretend you are my pet. No one will hurt you then.”

“But that is only one fox. I am all foxes.”

“Well, whatever you decide, you had best hurry. For that is my mother on the stairs.”

The Fox twitched its ears. It did not want to be chased and killed by dogs, not particularly. But it could not be just one thing. If it were just one thing, it would not be Fox any more. And that it could not bear.

The door opened. The girl’s mother saw the filthy, tatty old vixen on her daughter’s bed and screamed.

The Fox leapt through the open window and ran off into the fields beyond.

Time passed, as it does on the Other Side. The Fox enjoyed itself tremendously. It learned about all sorts of interesting things like love and death and chickens. Sometimes it was a handsome vixen, nursing its cubs. Sometimes it was two foxes, mating in deep winter with death-curdling screams. Sometimes it was a tired old dog fox caught by the hounds, nothing left but blood and bone and scraps of fur.

Yes, it enjoyed itself—for a while. But the Fox is a restless creature. One day it found itself thinking of the Hidden Realm. It was not homesick, no, no. But it was curious to see what it had missed. I shall slip back across the border, it decided. Just poke my nose through. Nose and whiskers.

The Fox found a nice sunny spot, turned around three times and settled down on the ground, bushy tail wrapped over its lean body. In an instant it was fast asleep, dreaming in the warm sunshine.

The Fox dreamed and dreamed, but it could not cross the border. No matter how fast it ran, the treeline remained upon the horizon, out of reach. Panting with exhaustion, the Fox collapsed on the ground and gave a long, frustrated howl. The howl was so loud, it woke itself up.

“Oh dear,” said a voice. “You sound upset. What is the matter?”

The Fox lifted its head from under its tail.

There, perched on a rock, was a (magnificent) black bird, with a curved black beak and clever, beady eyes.

“Raven!” The Fox jumped up, pleased to see its old friend, the Second Guardian. “Which aspect are you?” it asked, squinting. “Are you Raven Rolling Joyfully in the Snow?”

“I am Raven Feasting on the Putrid Corpse of a Fox.”

“Ah.” The Fox swivelled its ears. It wasn’t quite so keen on that particular fragment. “Good afternoon.”

“Why were you howling, Fox?” The Raven cocked its head. “Not homesick, are we, by any chance?”

“Oh, no,” said the Fox, breezily. “But now you mention it, Raven, I am curious to see the Hidden Realm again. I thought I’d poke my nose in, you know. Nose and whiskers. Trouble is, old friend, I can’t seem to reach the border. Look.” It walked towards the trees again, shifting through many aspects. A snow fox with half its tail missing. A desert fox, big ears twitching. A new-born cub, stumbling blindly and mewling for its mother. It made no difference. The trees never came any closer.

The Raven watched, perched on its rock. “Fox. Do you remember when we first came to be?”

“I do remember!” the Fox exclaimed, pleased with itself. It had a terrible memory.

“Good. Do you remember how Dragon breathed us into being with its great, fiery breath?”

The Fox’s fur stood on end. It nuzzled it back down with its snout. “A vague bell is being rung,” it said, “distantly.”

“Do you remember the first rule it gave us?”

The Fox pretended to play with its tail, humming a tune to itself. La-da-dee…

“Never leave the Hidden Realm!” the Raven snapped, losing patience. Hopping down, it pecked the Fox sharply three times between its ears. “Never. Never. Never!”

“Ow! But we visit the Other Side all the time!” protested the Fox. “Monkey whispered in a poet’s ear last week. Ox stamped out a fire in a grain shed yesterday. No one’s pecking them in the head. How is that fair? Why must Fox be singled out for persecution?”

The Raven flapped back to its rock, irritated. Fox knew full well that the Eight could send aspects of themselves to the Other Side whenever they wished. What it had done was another matter. It had crossed the border as its whole self.

“Monkey was here last week,” the Raven repeated. “Ox came just yesterday. And you wished me a good afternoon. Time, Fox. That’s why you can’t come home. Time. You’re absolutely soaked in it.”

“Ugh!” the Fox groomed itself in a panic, licking its fur and nibbling its skin. “Where is it, Raven? Get it off me!”

“I can’t,” the Raven said. “You stayed too long, Fox. With time comes death—it is inevitable. Did you not learn this, on the Other Side?”

The Fox started to cry. “I was distracted,” it sobbed.

“The chickens?”

“The chickens. Oh, Raven.” The Fox collapsed in a despairing fit. “They were so stupid and delicious. And now they have their revenge.” It wept, covering its snout with its paw. “I don’t want to die for ever,” it wailed. “I want to come home.”

The Raven sighed. It was hard to stay angry with Fox for long. “There is one way you might escape…”

The Fox stopped crying. “There is?”

“Humans die all the time. They are born, and then they die.”

The Fox blinked. “Yes, Raven, I have seen this. Humans die, and other humans are born to replace them. It is the same with chickens, and possibly some other things, rabbits, for example. I have eaten so many rabbits, Raven, but they keep on coming. It is a very deep, mysterious magic.”

The Raven agreed; this was true. “If you were a human, you could die and be reborn as often as you pleased. Over and over. Live and die in an endless cycle. Do you see?”

The Fox was puzzled. “But I am the Fox. How can I also be a human?”

“ Because you are the Fox. Shifting, cunning, adaptable Fox. Explorer, adventurer. Seeker of mischief and opportunities. Eschewer of rules.”

The Fox liked this very much. It sat on its haunches, chest out. “That is me!”

“Imagine,” the Raven said, selling the idea. “Half-Fox, Half-Human. Neither one thing nor the other. Betwixt and between.”

“Betwixt and between,” the Fox said, moving its head dreamily from side to side. “How absurdly confusing. Oh yes—I should like that very much.” It stopped swaying. “But I’d still be trapped here, Raven. I couldn’t come home.”

“Yes you could, Fox! Humans visit the Hidden Realm all the time, in their dreams. And so can you, every night. Is this not a magnificent plan?”

“Oh, so this was your idea, Raven?”

The Second Guardian preened itself. “Naturally.” All the best ideas were, but it was far too modest to mention that. “Now all you have to do, Fox, is find a suitable host.”

The Fox sprang to its paws. “Don’t you worry about that,” it said, pissing on the nearest bush. “I know just the human.”

Many years had passed since the Fox last met his friend the little girl. She was now a middle-aged woman with a bad back and grey strands in her hair, and three children of her own. The Fox found these changes pleasing.

The woman was standing over the stove with her back to the door, stirring a pot of stew.

The Fox’s nose twitched. I will enjoy eating that, it thought. Then it jumped straight into the woman, turned around three times, and settled down inside her with a contented sigh.

The woman paused in her stirring. She had a queer taste in her mouth. Gingerbread, she thought. But the moment she thought of it, the taste was gone. She picked up her spoon again and carried on with her day.

That night, the Fox dreamed its way back to the Hidden Realm for the first time. It was not happy, not at all.

The Raven was bathing in a pond. The Fox snapped it by the neck and shook it, very hard, splashing drops of water like diamonds. “Trickster! Liar! I will pull your feathers out one by one.” And then it did so.

Have you ever seen a plucked raven? Oh dear. Poor Raven, with its pink-blue body all saggy and raw. It struggled from the pond, shivering and shaking. “We are not magnificent,” it said, sadly.

The Fox felt bad then, so it wrapped its tail around the Raven to keep it warm. The Raven looked as though it was wearing the Fox’s tail like a fur coat, with its bare, tufty head poking out the top. It was very funny, but the Fox did not laugh, to spare the Raven’s feelings. They were good friends, really, except when they were not.

“I know you are cross,” said the Raven. “But it was the only way to bring you home.”

Here was the problem. When the Fox jumped into the woman, it forgot itself. The woman cooked the stew, the Fox cooked the stew. The woman kissed her children, the Fox kissed her children. The woman visited her sister and drank four mugs of beer, and so did the Fox. It was only when the woman fell asleep, snoring from the beer, that the Fox awoke again to itself.

“You cannot both be awake at the same time,” the Raven cautioned. “You are all the foxes that were, all the foxes that are, all the foxes that will be. Your host would break if she knew she was carrying you inside her. When she is awake, you must sleep. When you are awake, she must sleep. That is how it must be. However.”

The Fox’s ears pricked. It liked howevers. There were opportunities to be made from howevers.

“Dragon says you may keep one eye half open.”

For that is how all foxes sleep.

“Will that do?” asked the Raven, emerging from the Fox’s tail. It had grown back its feathers, polished by the sun to a glossy blue-black.

“It will do very well.”

It is good when the Fox and the Raven agree.

Centuries passed. Millennia passed. Night into day, day into night. The Fox lived countless lives—some rich, some poor, some short, some long. Each night it crossed the borders to the Hidden Realm, and told the Raven stories of what it had seen. Many times, these stories helped the Raven prevent a Return. It did not mention this. If the Fox knew it had a purpose, it would be livid.

One day, having just been hanged for piracy in Fever Bay (a fascinating experience), the Fox found itself in need of a new host. Hankering for a change of scene, it trotted off to the opposite end of Orrun, over the north-eastern border to Scartown. The town’s unique status—half-in, half-out of the empire—suited it very well.

As soon as the Fox arrived it headed for its favourite spot: a vast, festering rubbish tip overlooking the barren waters of the Empty Sea. It had just caught a delicious fat rat when it heard a man’s voice, and then a woman’s, whispering in the dark. The Fox bit through the rat’s neck to silence its squeals, and lowered itself down to watch.

The couple clambered over the mountains of garbage, swearing and cursing. The woman was holding a lantern to light their way. The man was carrying a small bundle of rubbish in his arms. A small, wriggling bundle of rubbish.

Curious. The Fox shrank back, and waited.

The man set the bundle down. “Got some fight in it,” he said.

The woman lifted the lantern. “Live the night, and you’ll be a Scrapper,” she told the bundle. Then she struggled back down the heap, triggering an avalanche of rubbish. The man followed more carefully, watching his step.

When they were gone, the Fox slunk from its hiding place, limp rat dangling from its mouth. It circled the bundle, sniffing cautiously and pulling back, making sure it was not a trap.

A tiny pink fist emerged from the bundle, and then another.

The Fox dropped the rat. “Good evening, baby.”

The baby screamed, furious.

“My, my. What a marvellous set of lungs.” The Fox edged closer. The baby was just over a year old, with milk-white skin and wisps of dark red hair. It stared up at the Second Guardian with bright, clever green eyes.

The Fox smiled, and lolled its tongue.

The baby laughed.

“Adorable,” declared the Fox. “What adventures we might have together. But you heard the woman who dumped you here. First you must survive the night. And who am I to stand in the way of such malignant cruelty?”

The baby whimpered. It was a bitterly cold night, an ice wind blowing in from the sea, sharp as teeth. The whimper turned into a grizzle.

“No, no, that would be cheating, and I never cheat,” the Fox replied. “Except when I do.”

The baby began to cry, great heartbreaking sobs.

“Emotional manipulation,” said the Fox. “I respect that.”

It lay down in the rubbish and curled its bushy tail around the baby. It had not yet made a decision; it liked the baby—such verve!—but choosing a new host was a serious matter.

Halfway through the night the baby woke, wailing with hunger. The Fox fed it some chewed up pieces of rat—the best bits, it was feeling generous. When the baby had finished its supper, it wrapped its fists in the Fox’s fur and made sweet burbling noises.

“Enchanting,” said the Fox, tenderly licking the rat blood from the baby’s face. “Very well. I am persuaded.”

In the morning, the man and woman returned as promised, wrapped in scarves and breathing clouds from their lips. Snow had fallen in the night, coating the rubbish in a powdery white blanket. It gave the tip an ethereal quality, soft and silent and glittering.

A thin wail pierced the air.

The man and woman looked at each other in astonishment. Last night had been the coldest night in living memory. Surely, there was no chance…

The wail grew louder, more insistent.

They rushed towards it.

There, lying in the snow, they found the baby they had abandoned, alive and well, draped in the gory remains of a giant rat.

“Eight,” the man gasped. “Tough little fucker.”

The woman lifted the baby from the rubbish and held him up for inspection. “You’re a Scrapper now, boy. That’s for sure.”

“What shall we call him? Needs a new name.”

The woman studied the baby—red hair, white belly, white teeth. “Cain,” she said. “We’ll call him Cain.”

So ends the story of how the Fox crossed the border, and found a new home .

Cain dropped the book on to the bed. He felt sick, light-headed.

A trick, it had to be. One of his rivals trying to unsettle him.

So why did that last scene seem so familiar? Why could he remember the feel of warm fur on a freezing night? The smell of rubbish, and the taste of blood…

He rubbed his face. “A story. It’s just a story.”

At the bottom of the page, a purple-black stain bloomed through the paper like a bruise, and formed a question.

ARE YOU SURE?

Cain snatched up the book and slammed it closed. Something was thrumming inside him. Told you, told you. Get rid of it. Holding the book at arm’s length, he ran out to the balcony and flung it over the edge.

The book sailed into the grey, pre-dawn sky… and hung there. Covers stretched out like wings. And they were wings, changing before his eyes. The book was no longer a book, but a bird. A raven. It circled the Festival Square, calling him, mocking him. “Fox! Fox!”

Cain staggered back, horrified. When he looked again, the sky was empty.