Once upon a time in fair hills evergreen
there lived a lord Fox with magic
of a like that’d n’er been seen.

He did what Foxes did, and bridged all the lands,
and too he forged beyond earth and reason’s demands,
new realms opening at a wave of his hands

Yet no world to him was fairer than the face of his lady,
who became his only wife,
and gave him a baby.

But lady and child were hidden at the command of his king
who above famine and treason and all else feared one thing:
the power of the Fox and the change it could bring.

In his fury and sorrow something inside the lord broke.
He reached out and ripped the fabric of realms
and sleepers most dark and dazzling awoke.

The corrupted gates once fully opened wouldst n’er fade.
They could not be closed or destroyed
save by the shadowed Bone Blade

The lord conjured a portal and vanished to time
All that’s left of him here;
his house, his monsters, this rhyme.

Now the balance is broken, and the worlds are torn
The Seventh Spirit locked away
and all Foxes are scorned.

The sins of one Fox damned all the rest,
But one’s bravery would save them all too
should they choose to rise to the test.

 

For a long time after her first read-through, Beatrice just sat there, nothing but her eyes moving as they roved the words and the illustrations. The story read just like any other of Forsythe’s Fairy Tales, and the artwork was in exactly the same style. Had this been a part of the original manuscript, removed from later printings? And if it was, then did that mean that it—like most of the others—was inspired by true events? The church taught that Fox had been locked away because she was a dark and capricious spirit who granted unnatural powers which no human should possess. Beatrice supposed the two stories weren’t entirely contradictory.

“Is this true?” she asked, twisting to look at the crow on her shoulder. “Did this happen?”

Cocking its head, the bird cawed twice.

“How is it, I wonder, that the others have gone to speak with you, when you are right here? Do you share your name with another in the household?”

One caw.

Twisting her lips, she looked up to the Suit as she got to her feet.

“And I suppose with that sword, should another portal open…you, sir, can close it?”

The Suit’s armor creaked as it hesitated, and then it nodded. She dragged in a deep sigh of relief. Though she knew she hadn’t the energy to manifest another portal, it reassured her a bit to know her guardian was prepared for the event regardless. But until she learned more of her own powers and how to control them, she’d live forever in fear.

“Could any of the Suits wield it, and do as Darcy did?”

It shook its head. It was as Beatrice thought. There was something different about this thrall, though what it was she couldn’t quite be sure.

“I wonder why it is you cannot speak? That horse-thing could.”

To this, the Suit had either no answer or no means to give it. Beatrice sighed.

“A thousand and one questions, and not a single soul who would answer. If only there were a library or somewhere I mi—wait!” At the sudden turning of her head, the crow squawked and flapped up to perch atop the Suit’s helmet. If she’d found a forbidden history in the little study with its one paltry bookshelf, she wondered, what might an entire chamber of them yield?

“Surely, there must be a library. Would you show me the way?”

She looked from the Suit’s visor up to the crow and back. While the former hesitated, metal joints creaking, the latter ruffled his feathers and cawed twice. Launching from his perch, Sir Gray flew toward the door. The Suit, however, shuffled on the spot. Tucking A Tale of Two Foxes back into the book and sliding that beneath her bed, she straightened to face her hesitant guardian.

“Yes, I know. Darcy told me to stay here. But she also acknowledged she’d no right to give me orders earlier this very day, did she not? She forgets herself. Now, sir, if you’ll join us please? I’ll cause no trouble.”

Though it somehow managed to look doubtful, the Suit clanked dutifully along after her nonetheless.

 

~*~

 

Located at the opposite end of the manor as the greenhouse—the library, too, took the form of a tower. Beatrice gaped, craning her head back as they stepped out onto its first floor. The outer walls were the only fully enclosing ones, for each new level was a ring edged in and supported by wooden latticework, elaborately carved and polished to a gleam. The open central space was taken up by a luxurious lift, which Beatrice padded toward as voices filtered down from the top floor. The Suit, however, hung back.

Much of the sound was swallowed up by the books and the velvet padding on the ceilings, but she could identify some of those who spoke. There was Charles and Darcy—arguing yet again, from the sound of it. And here and there, Jemison chimed in, as well as fourth voice—one deeper than the other three, almost musical. Arron, perhaps? And, just then, there was a fifth one. It had the hard purr of a highland brogue, and it tugged at her heart to hear it. It was a sound of a home.

The crow cawed thrice, and all the voices went silent for a moment.

“Damn it Gray, did you lead her here?” This time the words—Darcy’s—were quite discernible, given their raised volume. Beatrice thought she heard a chuckle. Then Darcy was leaning over the top floor railing, leering down at her like a gargoyle from on high.

The low voice said something again, and the knight’s lip curled. She replied with what Beatrice thought might be “fine, so be it,” before turning again to shout directly down at her. “Join us, then. Quickly.”

Then Darcy added something that sounded like “as my orders mean nothing in this house,” and was gone from view.

Shooting an accusatory glance over at the crow—who merely fluffed its feathers defensively—Beatrice approached the lift with the Suit following after, closing the waist-high door once they were both inside. There were no latches or buttons as in the others, but she had a guess as to how the lifts in this manor did their work.

“Ah, top floor, if you please?” she requested, clearing her throat.

She hoped Darcy’s resident spirits were listening. And as it seemed, they were—for within a heartbeat the lift began to glide smoothly upward.

She scented him well before reaching the top, the source of the unknown voice. The second Wolf. It must be. A Wolf who smelled of sea salt and heather and parchment. When she reached the top, her gaze sought him out first and found him quickly. He sat upon a wheeled chair like a throne, a peaked stained glass window glowing with moonlight behind his head, the others gathered about him. At his back perched another crow, who at the sight of them made a soft cooing sound that Beatrice hadn’t known crows could make.

“Ms. Baraclough,” said Charles, stepping forward. “May I introduce Lord Gray Stagston; scholar, book-keeper, wolf mage, and esteemed packmate.”

Smiling slightly, the newest Lord Stagston to make her acquaintance inclined his head. He was golden of skin, his blue-black hair cut fashionably—short at the sides and somewhat longer at the top, with tapered sideburns. He wore a silvery porcelain mask that covered the upper half of his face, including the entirety of his eyes. His legs ended mid-calf.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Stagston.” said Beatrice, resisting the urge to stare as she curtsied. The man was as lovely as he was unusual. “And you, Lord Stagston,” she added, turning to Jemison and then to Arron. “And you as well, Lord Stagston. I regret that I was unable to say so before.”

A strained silence stretched between them, and Darcy made a sound that was at once a snarl and a sigh.

“Gray. Jemison. Arron. You are now allowed to speak to and in front of Ms. Baraclough. I rescind my earlier order. If, however, you proceed into an unending series of further formal introductions, I’ll un-rescind it at once. We all know who we all are. And so let us proceed with this.”

“Thank the spirits,” breathed Jemison at once before turning to Beatrice. “If you’re to insist on the titles, please at least use our first names with them. The repetition is so very tedious.”

“V-very well, Lord Jemison,” answered Beatrice, already losing grip on what little composure she’d managed to muster.

Arron shifted uncomfortabley, but kept his silence still.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance face to true face, Ms. Baraclough,” said Gray, lips quirking up to one side.

“So, it was you then,” blurted Beatrice, new information coming together into something she could make sense of. “You were watching through the crow.”

“And certainly not attempting to communicate with you in a way which didn’t violate Darcy’s order, yes, indeed it was,” said the wolf mage as the crow fluttered up to perch beside the other. “Braxis here is my eyes and ears throughout the manor and elsewhere, when I can’t be bothered to wheel myself about or call upon a Suit. And Abria, well—she’s my eyes everywhere.”

Beatrice had heard of wolf mages whose powers of empathy and control extended beyond mere emotions. Who could step into the senses of others and share in them—but they were unusual, supposedly, and she had never met one before, nor thought she would. Everything about the man shocked her, and for several moments she found herself without words.

“I…forgive me, sir. I’m quite overwhelmed,” she managed at last. “If it was you who lead me here, then forgive me, but why? Am I to be included in the deciding of my own fate?”

Gray’s smile broadened, flashing perfect teeth and rather prominent canines.

“You are now. Ms. Baraclough, the gentlemen and lady here have—against all odds—come to a mutual conclusion. Varied though their reasons may be. As it involves you, I thought perhaps you may wish to weigh in?”

At her mute nod, Gray turned his covered eyes in Darcy’s direction. The knight, of course, scowled.

“None of us expected you to be a mage, Ms. Baraclough,” began Darcy. “Even when Foxes were common, Fox mages were still exceedingly rare. And the mages capable of opening portals to other realms than this one, even rarer.” She drew in a long breath through her teeth, glaring at Beatrice as though she’d personally chosen her own predicament.

“There is a belief that the earlier a mage’s power manifests, the greater it is. Unfortunately, this has most often proved true. Which means you are not only a danger to yourself, but to others as well. The crown is already fully aware of your existence and have some idea as to your location. If they learn of your power, they will have the right to claim you, married or not, and will waste no time whatsoever in doing so.”

Beatrice wrung her hands together, doing her best to quell the trembling that had begun at her knees and spread all the way to her fingertips.

“What am I to do?” She managed at last, looking from one to the next of them. “Whatever can I do?”

“You can marry us.”

Charles stepped forward, catching Darcy’s glare briefly before fixing his gaze on Beatrice’s. “Even Darcy agrees, now. It’s the best course.”

All the breath gasped out of her, and for a moment she had a hard time catching it again.

“What? But however would that save me, if my marriage is of no concern to the crown with me a mage?” Turning from Charles to Darcy, she fought to meet the hateful gaze of the Hyena shifter. “Which of you offers to take me to wife? And, madame, how can you have changed your mind, especially after what I…after what has transpired?”

“It is exactly because of what has transpired that my hand is forced in offering to you, Ms. Baraclough. With power such as yours, we cannot release you to those without the strength to contain it, the means to conceal it, nor the will to resist its lures. To do so would invite disaster.“

Darcy took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“As you’ve seemingly observed, Gray is a mage of no little power. We have agreed that there is no other option but for him to remove my memory of your ability’s manifestation before I answer my summoning, else the Wolves of the Knight’s League will force it out of me.”

Beatrice’s eyes boggled at that. She knew of such procedures, of course, but they were as difficult as they were risky—which was to say, very—and so almost never performed.

“As to which of us shall take you, well,“ Darcy’s lip pulled upward, nose curling.“As a knight, I can offer you the greatest status, and through it—the most protection. But the more of us you marry directly, the more secure your place will be, particularly should anything happen to me. And so it is best one other, at least, take you to wife as well. It will be Charles of course, as he was first to make the offer.”

A marriage to one member of a pack secured ones place with all the rest—but multiple marriages between members of a pack were common. Rarely, however, did more than one happen at once. Beatrice felt faint at the thought.

“And so, that is the plan,” concluded Darcy, her tone making clear just how she felt for it. “You marry Charles and I before I leave for the capitol. Gray will wipe my memory of your little accidents. I will report to the League that you have married into my pack and have showed no signs whatsoever of power—truthfully, as far as I will know. And then they will force me to take a blood oath to watch you closely, and, should you ever show signs of magical ability, to kill you immediately.”

“P-pardon me?”

“It will be the one condition by which they will allow you to live on peacefully at all. That I can promise you.”

“But, a blood oath…will you not then be compelled, by your very life, to carry out what you have sworn to do?”

“I will,” said Darcy. “So you had better learn to suppress your abilities, Ms. Baraclough. And quickly.”