The Demon and the Fox Page 7

  Kip lay on the ground and stared, dazed, up at the stars. His ears ached with cold and his nose felt like ice, but his heart raced as though he’d just been running from Farley for hours. However he’d fallen, he didn’t remember it at all. But he could see in the starlit night, and he could smell Forrest and the distant dinner as well as the trees and earth. He was himself again.

  He’d heard the attack from down the hill, a place that now felt as remote as London from the fire and carnage that Forrest had witnessed. The terror he’d felt paled next to the wrenching the memory had left inside him from the loss of life, the devastating fire and the terror of the trees and whatever demon—demon?—had been gibbering in Forrest’s ear. Nikolon had been sobered by the remnants of the attack; perhaps any demon witnessing it would have been equally terrified.

  Slowly he pushed his elbows under him and sat up, reaching to rub life back into his ears. Forrest lay in the same position he had before. Kip had no idea how the young man could survive out here in the cold, but there was not much he could do to help.

  After a moment’s reflection, he stripped off his tunic and draped it over Forrest’s form. “Sorry,” he said, but Forrest didn’t stir.

  He barely noticed the absence of his tunic now that the evening wind had died down, but he hurried his steps back to the Tower, feeling a lack of more than physical warmth. At the door of the Tower, he caught the scent of several unfamiliar men on the outside of the door; they must have left while he was in the orchard.

  The low murmur of voices came from behind the great doors, and when he opened them he recognized Patris’s deep growl along with a less familiar voice. He hesitated, but they might have seen the doors open already, and anyway he didn’t want to hide out in the cold until they went away. Perhaps if he had Emily’s translocation ability he would one day be able to jump to the basement without encountering anyone, but for now he had to brave Patris.

  The two sorcerers stopped speaking when Kip stepped through the door, both Patris and Master Warrington, a sorcerer Malcolm had talked about as specializing in defensive magic but who had declined to take him on as an apprentice.

  Patris bore his usual expression of distaste. “There you are,” he said, and Kip’s hackles went up. If the headmaster had been looking for him, that was no good sign. “Back late from dinner? What happened to your shirt?”

  “I left it with Forrest.” Kip saw no reason to lie. “He’s sleeping out there in the orchard.”

  “In this weather?” Warrington exclaimed.

  “I tried to warm him with a fire, but he did not take well to that.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t.” Patris spoke as though Kip were a cub who’d tried to burn down his own house. “He loves the trees. How would you think he would feel about fire?”

  Kip bristled, as much because Patris was assuming he was stupid as because Patris was at least partially right, even though he’d been controlling the fire and it would never have harmed the trees. “I thought he was dying. I would have brought him back here, but…” He trailed off. He still could have fetched Forrest, but having been lifted and moved against his will, he didn’t want to subject anyone else to that, even for good reasons.

  “He’s survived out there this long,” Patris said. “If he’s happy, he’s welcome to stay.”

  “But surely,” Warrington began.

  Patris held up a hand. “Go talk to Jaeger if you’re worried. Forrest is his responsibility.” Kip walked past the fireplace toward the basement, but Patris took two steps in his direction and said, “A moment, Penfold.”

  Kip curled his tail against his leg and turned. “Yes, sir?”

  The old sorcerer’s lip curled. “Mr. Adams was desirous of speaking to you. I promised I would relay that message to you, and now I have.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And let me add one of my own.”

  Here it came. Kip stopped himself from protesting his disinterest in the independence movement and let Patris lecture him for several minutes on his duty to the College and the Empire. “Yes, sir,” he said when Patris had finished.

  The sorcerer squinted at him. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “What else should I say, sir?”

  Patris straightened the collar of his robe and then brushed imaginary dust from it. “Why was Mr. Adams interested in speaking to you? Have you been in communication with him?”

  “I have not. Did you not ask him that yourself, sir?”

  The old sorcerer scowled. “I have more important things to worry about.”

  Kip inferred that he had asked and had not received a satisfactory answer, and he liked Mr. Adams a little bit more. “I’m sorry I’m unable to shed any light on his request. I assure you I have no interest in acting against the College or the Empire.”

  “Go on with you.” Patris dismissed him with a wave and turned back to Warrington.

  Kip watched the two of them mount the stairs, and then allowed himself a smile as he hurried down to the basement.

  At the base of the stairs, in the dank shadows, the door wouldn’t open. The smell of Neddy came strongly through the door, obscuring any other scents, but Malcolm’s magic was as distinctive as the Irishman’s scent. Kip rapped sharply. “Hey,” he called. “It’s me.”

  A moment later, Malcolm opened the door. “Sorry! Was teaching Coppy to lock the door.”

  “Coppy did that?” Kip smiled at the beaming otter, who’d stood and tucked his spell book under one arm so he could hug the fox. “Excellently done.”

  “Malcolm says there’s ways to let certain people through the locks always,” Coppy said, “but even he can’t do that yet.”

  “Working on it, though.” Malcolm scratched his head. “Where were you at dinner? We missed you.”

  Emily sat with her spellbook open on her knees and had not got up to greet Kip, nor did she make any indication that she agreed with Malcolm. The fox took a seat near the edge of Neddy’s circle and crumpled a paper. “I was searching the ruins,” he said. “And then…” He tossed the paper to Neddy and watched the fire consume it. Not reddish like the fire that had destroyed the school, but a purer, cleaner fire, with white at the core of the yellow.

  Malcolm cleared his throat. “And then?”

  Emily was at least looking up now, and Coppy set aside his spellbook. Kip took a breath. “I went to see Forrest. I saw him moving around the orchard and I thought…I thought he might be cold.”

  Briefly, he told them what had happened, and saw the opportunity to use Forrest’s memory to impart Peter’s information. “The light at the top of the Tower went out right before the attack,” he said. “So it was someone in the Tower coordinating the attack.”

  “Really?” Emily sniffed. “Seems a large conclusion to jump to.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Coppy said. “Who else was awake just before the attack? Who’s on that floor?”

  They turned to Malcolm, who’d been on more of the upper floors than any of the rest of them. “Which was it, Kip? Six or seven?”

  Kip shook his head. “Don’t know. Seven is where that big meeting room is, but there might be another small room there. Six is more likely, I suppose.”

  “Jaeger’s on six,” Malcolm said. “I’m not sure who else is. Most everyone we know is on two through four.”

  “Who don’t we know? Barrett, Sharpe, Brown, Campbell, Waldo…”

  “I’d like it to be Sharpe.” Kip sighed.

  “He was the one who spoke against us getting in?” Coppy asked, and Kip nodded.

  “The others are mostly absorbed in their own research.” Malcolm sat amid the paper. “Which could as easily be ‘how to destroy the college’ as anything else, I fancy.”

  The room fell silent, and then Emily looked up from her book and met Kip’s eyes. “Was it horrible?” she asked softly.

  Kip walked over to his bedroll and picked up the loose glass bead. Rolling it between two fingers, he held it up. “I think…I thi
nk the demon consumed all the people and left only these pieces of glass behind.”

  Emily gasped, then stood and approached Kip. Coppy and Malcolm, too, came forward. None of them seemed inclined to touch the glass, but when Kip held it out in his paw, they all leaned in to look.

  “Hard to see in this light,” Malcolm said,

  “I can give you four seconds.” He called magic into his paws.

  “Don’t,” Coppy said, but Kip had already conjured a flame onto his other paw, holding it close for the length of time he could stand it.

  “I’ll have to learn eventually,” he said to Coppy’s drooping whiskers. “Master Odden said ten seconds.”

  “Maybe once you’ve burned all the skin off your paw,” the otter said.

  “That’s all that’s left of a person?” Emily was still staring at the glass bead. “Does it feel…?”

  Kip offered the bead to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. “It doesn’t feel like anything,” he said. “I think it gets warmer when it’s near a fire, but that could be…”

  “We get warmer when we’re near a fire as well.” Malcolm leaned over to look at the glass bead in Emily’s fingers.

  “Yes.” Kip held his paw out and Emily dropped the bead into it. He rolled it between his fingers, trying not to think of where it had come from. “There were hundreds of them. In Forrest’s memory, I—he felt them all die.”

  “What kind of monster could do that?” Coppy asked, eyes wide. “Could kill all those people with a thought?”

  Emily looked up at the ceiling. “One that is out there right now trying to figure out how to do it to the rest of us.”

  When Kip and Coppy lay down to sleep, Kip took the bottle out from under his bedroll and looked at the glass bead inside it. “You never met Saul,” he said softly to Coppy.

  The otter’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. He shook his head slowly.

  “He was my friend. He wasn’t the best, but he was a human and he was my friend.”

  “He didn’t protect you from Farley, though.”

  “No, no. He couldn’t, not all the time.” Kip tucked the bottle away. “He didn’t deserve to die that way. None of them did.”

  “Seems like it was quick, though. He wouldn’t have suffered.” After a long silence, Coppy said, “And if the attack hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here. Not that that makes it right, but…some small good came out of it. You don’t think Saul would’ve wanted his death to help you out if it could?”

  “I don’t know,” Kip said. “I hope so.”

  5

  Spiritual Holds

  Master Odden was quite interested in the glass bead. “I would like Master Cott to examine this,” he said. “This does not match the abilities or proclivities of any demon known to me, and I am the most well-versed in the names of demons in this college. We could talk to Florian perhaps…”

  “I would be happy to take it to Master Cott.” Kip seized on his chance.

  “You have only been studying here for a month.” Odden stroked his beard, looking amused. “And yet, it might be profitable. I will wait a week or so before making the request on your behalf, as Patris is in high dudgeon after Mr. Adams’ visit yesterday.”

  “He is not a fan of the independence movement,” Kip said. “That’s all right. Neither am I. I hoped that going to London might accomplish both removing me from his immediate presence and convincing him of my devotion to the Empire.”

  “Mm.” Odden examined the glass bead again and then set it in a small drawer in the front of his desk. “It may be difficult to convince Patris, but see that you do nothing to confirm his suspicions.”

  And with that routine unfairness, they continued their lesson. Kip worked on bounding his fire, shaping it so that he could control exactly where it burned. But his mind wasn’t on his lesson; it was on proving his worth to the Empire with fire magic.

  There were few records of great magical fires in history; mostly fire sorcerers became famous for helping armies win wars by burning camps and fields. In the French and Indian war, he recalled, a fire sorcerer had captured Fort Beauséjour. He couldn’t recall any stories of fire sorcerers outside of wars, but then, fire was inherently a destructive magic. From the destruction of the war often came new life; the Louisiana territory had come to Britain as a result of its victory in the Napoleonic wars, at least part of which had been thanks to the work of fire sorcery (perhaps Master Cott specifically?). Still. He would have to ask Master Windsor about the role of fire sorcery in history at the next opportunity.

  Even though everyone insisted the attack on the college had been a demon, thoughts of fire in war inevitably brought Kip back to the College. Peter’s simple statement that someone in the College had planned the attack had thrown Kip’s world into turmoil. A month ago he’d assumed he could trust any sorcerer at the college, at least with regards to the mystery of the attack, and now he could trust none.

  It had not escaped his attention that Master Odden, self-proclaimed “most well versed” in demon names in New Cambridge, could very well be lying about not recognizing this demon. The architect of the plot would be very interested in any evidence Kip found—perhaps not so eager for someone in London to see it, unless he knew that would yield nothing.

  He ended his lesson and returned to the basement to find that Emily was talking to him again. She, Coppy, Malcolm and Kip spent the afternoon practicing what magic they could; Kip cast fires into Neddy’s area to the delight of the phosphorus elemental, who jumped into and out of them like a cub playing in mud puddles. They discussed the list of Masters and weighed the pros and cons of each one as potential traitor and mass murderer without coming to any conclusions.

  Malcolm made his way up to the sixth floor, but reported that none of the four doors there were marked. He’d tried knocking on one but got no answer, and then a voice had told him to go back to the floors where he was allowed, so he’d hurried down the stairs. “Wish I could smell demons coming like you can, Kip,” he said. “Not that that would have helped, but at least I’d not have jumped half out of my skin.”

  “I suppose,” Kip said, “that I can ask Master Jaeger.”

  Early the next morning, before classes, he walked out of the Tower. More snow had fallen the night before and an inch of it covered the ground, even over the path; whatever magical spirit the masters used to clear the stone had not yet been called upon. Above him, clouds muted the sun’s light, but the air was warmer than it often was on clear days, without much of winter’s bite in it.

  Nobody else was about and no noises save the birds came even to Kip’s ears. He did look toward the orchard, but at this distance it vanished in a blur of white, and there was no way he could have seen Forrest unless the apprentice stood and jumped up and down between the trees.

  At the wall of the Tower facing the dining tent, he stopped and looked up. The temptation to place his paws to the stone and talk to Peter tugged at him, but Kip resisted; the spirit was nervous enough already without Kip making it worse. So he simply cast the spell that came so easily to him now and lifted himself from the ground, all the way up to the roof.

  Snow also lay on the crenellations in the parapet. He brushed a small area clear and sat there, keeping his spell active. “Good morning,” he called softly, looking to the left and the right.

  As if summoned, a raven wheeled around the corner of the Tower and alit near him. The others had warned him that Jaeger was a spiritual sorcerer and that he might do things to Kip’s mind, especially if he were the architect of the attack and he worried Kip was getting close. “I know,” Kip had said. “I have an idea.”

  Now, as the raven croaked a “Good morning,” his idea seemed foolish and reckless. What if Jaeger were the one who’d planned it all? Master Windsor had said once that he could summon Jaeger to get information out of Kip’s mind, and what if Kip were now delivering that information directly to him? But he forced his tail to still and his ears to stay up, and he sm
iled at the raven. “I heard you speaking to Forrest last month, when he stopped our fight in the dining tent, and Patris said he’s your responsibility. Is he your apprentice?”

  The raven gave the coughing laugh of an old man. “He is indeed. Has he been troubling you?”

  “Only my conscience.” Kip extended a paw in the direction of the orchard. “He sleeps outdoors in the cold of winter. I cannot see how he will survive December, let alone January.”

  “He is severely troubled,” the raven acknowledged. “But he also shares a bond with the trees, and his skin is not as weak as you might think, nor is he without help.”

  “I thought you would be aware of his situation. I wanted to ask you if there’s anything I can do to make it more comfortable. Would he welcome blankets?”

  “I believe he would accept them, though he does not believe he needs them.”

  Kip reached up to rub his ears against his head. “Master Jaeger, may I see you inside? It is rather cold out here.”

  The raven croaked and then said, “Follow Blacktalon around to the window. Can you translocate yet?”

  “No.”

  “Then reach in through the opening he uses and you should be able to unlatch the entire window. Please enter quickly; you will be in my study and I have but one phosphorus elemental to heat the place.”

  “Thank you.” Kip had hoped to be invited through more traditional means so he could investigate the rest of the floor, but he got to his feet and levitated himself to show that he was ready.

  The raven took off and plummeted down, then found an updraft and rose as it approached the corner of the Tower. It banked and disappeared behind the stone. Kip followed, wind searing the edges of his ears and nose with cold.

  Blacktalon perched outside a window, and when he saw Kip, he pushed at one pane with his beak. At this distance, it appeared identical to the others, but at the raven’s touch it swung open, a space of about a foot square that the bird hopped onto the sill of and then disappeared into. As he drew close to it, Kip saw dimly the study within and a ghostly figure standing in a white robe at the far end of the room. He pushed his arm through the opening and felt about for the latch. It took longer than he would have liked, but presently he found it and pulled the window open toward him.