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  Orfeus stepped forward and danced a step. She weaved light around her, as best she could. In her mind, she pictured the intended purpose: the illusion would cast light off. Cast suspicion off, though she doubted Blood could achieve anything quite that subtle. Still, intention was everything in magic as in music, and as Orfeus crept forward she thought of silence, and shadows, and nothingness. Unnoticeable and barely there. Just a whisper in the hallway. Nothing at all. Nothing to notice.

  She gripped a pipe and swung up it, putting her stocking feet into crannies of the wall. From there she could swing up into a crevice and push herself against it. Her illusion dropped during the climb, and she couldn’t really cue it up again from up here. Orfeus drew her cloak around her and ducked her head forward. Her skin wouldn’t show against the shadows, but the whites of her eyes would if she was fool enough to show them.

  She pressed her ear against the wall.

  Half an hour ago, she’d heard Faolan walking through the corridor as she crept about, and it seemed whatever conversation he was having hadn’t been interrupted. Hopefully and presumably, they hadn’t noticed her skulking.

  Orfeus congratulated herself on her stealth. The scent of lavender on her cloak, up against her nose, made her want to sneeze. Perhaps herbs weren’t the ideal excuse.

  Luga’s cool precise voice came through, and Orfeus concentrated hard, picking out words. He said, “You know I wanted to blood her.”

  Orfeus pressed her head to the wall, listening intensely. Faolan’s voice rumbled out. “It wasn’t time.” Orfeus rubbed her fingers together idly, waiting for more.

  Luga said, “You don’t get to decide when it is time, Wolf.”

  She could picture Faol, standing square-shouldered and stubborn-jawed, always convinced she was right. “She will kill when she’s ready,” the Wolf said.

  Orfeus put her hand over her mouth to keep from making any sound.

  The conversation resumed, but for a moment it was just voices, meaningless noise she couldn’t distinguish. Her mind spun. So to Faol it had been some act of charity, killing that man? So Orfeus wouldn’t have to, or did he just not think she was capable? What game was the Wolf playing?

  Focus. A clever fox didn’t get distracted.

  She pressed her ear to the wall and focused.

  “She healed Ocelot,” Luga said. Orfeus narrowed her eyes. Did they spend all the time they were in there talking about her? She should have spent more time eavesdropping, not grieving and lying in the dark like a fool. She didn’t hear Boarhound in there. Maybe ve was still asleep.

  “Yes,” Faolan said. He had no right sounding so possessively proud.

  “But on the mission, she didn’t heal you,” Luga said.

  There was a pause. “No,” Faol said, gruffer. Orfeus dropped her hand, blinking. She… hadn’t even thought to.

  Luga said, “You’re going to need to be better at making allies, if you are ever to be a Leader of the Wild.” Orfeus blinked again.

  Faolan was terse, tight-voiced. “We’ve spoken of this.” Whatever tension currently lay between them, he was used to speaking familiarly to the Leader.

  Orfeus imagined Luga sighed, though she couldn’t hear it. “It’s not unfair to expect the person you raised to continue to grow and exceed themselves, to one day exceed you.” He sounded petty and irritable, a disappointed parent.

  Faolan said stoutly, “I have no wish but to follow you, Leader.”

  This time Orfeus heard Luga sigh, and then he must have made some gesture of dismissal, for Faol’s footsteps sounded out. Orfeus ducked into her alcove and buried her head in her cloak.

  She waited, waited until she was sure the Wolf was gone and then for a while afterwards. She felt faintly nauseous.

  Orfeus ducked back to her room. In there, she reordered her dried items, taking inventory, getting ready for anything that might lie ahead.

  She trusted Faol even less now she knew he was Luga’s heir. The Wolf, her partner, her unwelcome shadow.

  He was terrifying. It was just that Luga was worse, so clearly a bad father, whatever type of Leader he was. Of course Faol was twisted from bearing all that weight. Orfeus’s mothers had only wanted her to live, but Luga raised his Wolf to kill.

  It was dangerous to pity Faol, who had so much blood on her hands. Orfeus wasn’t known for being wise, but she had to stay on guard. She couldn’t forget the feeling of those hands around her throat.

  Chapter Twelve

  I hear in Verdance they still practice the Iron Harvest, hunting through their once-poison woods for relics of a past age. It’s a festival like our harvest festival, but these buried relics are handled carefully for fear they bring old poisons. Sometimes even after sleeping for a thousand years, they shatter. It pays to be careful of dangers that lie sleeping, ma chérie. You never know when they’ll wake.

  - Basma of Hollyhock

  * * *

  Time passed in quiet talks and brutal battles and a life settling under her skin.

  Orfeus spent her days sparring, and practicing her magic: dancing out steps, weaving illusions until her foot itched and tingled and at last ached and she stopped for the day.

  She grew stronger. Faster. Meat each night and training each morning at the very least, sneaking into the room when no one else was there to practice going unseen, too. She made walls of illusion and arced out lightning from her hands.

  Flights on the bike, with the wind whipping at her ears. Several neat and slightly admonishing messages from Em that Orfeus largely ignored, as well as a parcel she removed from its packaging immediately to admire. The tall black baton was a little larger than the ones she trained with, with a sparkling taser-end that could be flipped out into a small, sharp, deadly little hook. She didn’t know what exactly Em expected her to do, but it felt sometimes, when her Blood sparked out just right or she hit the mannequins hard enough to rattle them, that she could do anything.

  She brewed and drank her teas, offered them to those in the Wild she was on friendly terms with, offered them out to trade afterwards: sat at the table, hawking her wares. “Sleepease,” she called as she held out the little parcels of lavender. “One for you, Wolf? Beauty sleep? You need it.”

  Faol strode past without acknowledging her. He seldom did. They talked briefly and tersely on missions and seldom ever else. Orfeus sparred with other people when she could, and understood now why Faol had wished her good luck: training sessions always ended with her beaten black and blue, and she was just lucky that so far she hadn’t lost any teeth, which her Blood wouldn’t be able to fix.

  At least the hunters weren’t all as vicious as the Wolf, outside of training. Some were even friendly, a rough-worn battle camaraderie. Luga was cryptic, mysterious, but Juana never did slide a knife into her back, at least not yet, and the Starfish built towers out of cards. Dormarch shared ver small flasks and bottles of contraband, and Orfeus shared them in turn, quick and easy: if she was to do this, she needed friends.

  Two weeks in, Orfeus got Galahad out from under her bed and tuned it carefully. Too long since she had played: the courses no longer sung in time with each other, let alone working together toward a song. She fixed them, so each of the four sets of doubled strings sung out the same note when she strummed them, and the top highest string sounded out true. She played a few chords, getting her fingers used to it.

  The Blood had healed her callouses in the time she’d been here. Without them, her fingers grew tender and pink in barely a minute. Well, she’d just have to get them back.

  At the feast that night, she carried her guitar in over her shoulder and settled in and chewed at her meat. In the moment of contentment after the meal, the moment of brief quiet, Orfeus pulled her guitar out and she played. A few notes, testing, and silence fell.

  She’d just been playing those notes to test the crowd, to see whether they’d laugh her away or jeer her into putting away the guitar, or whether she could play a song or two for this group of people who had
become not-really-friends. But she looked up to rapt faces. Everyone, even the Wolf. Boarhound lowered ver tankard to gawp.

  It made something in her heart curl and sting, a strange pang of sympathy. Always out on the hunt or up here all grim and colourless: no chance to drop in at a wayhouse to experience even an amateur level of talent, let alone a proper show.

  She’d just wanted to give a casual performance and she would, they deserved that, but she shifted her posture, straightening her back to have the full use of her lungs.

  She sang the basic songs, all her usual repertoire. The ones she’d painstakingly reconstructed from whatever scraps Eldergrove would allow her of the songs that used to exist, often just lyrics, a bare suggestion. A few minutes of a scraped-together version of “Tam Lin.” “Scarborough Fair,” which had the same melody it had millennia ago, as far as she knew. Many things persisted.

  She followed with some rowdier songs to make them sing along, and then eased out into one of her first ballads:

  “I remember what my mother told me

  There were giants on this green earth

  Towering spires and spreading cities

  Living now only in verse

  * * *

  Our world is smaller, wiser

  We know better than the folk from long ago

  Though I’d love a world that’s wider

  Honoured Earth needs room to grow …”

  She finished off. Silence in the room. Orfeus stood up and flourished her most ridiculous bow, and that broke the silence: they laughed, and applauded her, and Hyena who had grown all familiar grabbed her shoulder and jostled her and scolded her. “Why haven’t you sung for us before?” Hyena said, rowdy. “You have to do this every night. Gotta do something, when you can’t fight like the best of us yet!”

  Orfeus appreciated that yet. She appreciated the applause, sitting down with her cheeks flushed hot: a tiny crowd, but it mattered more when the people mattered to her, and Green help her but they did. It had been a long time since she played, let alone played as performance. She appreciated the companionship and the comfort. Even Faol was rapt, as she played. Even Luga. He had come in to watch, and now he departed, but she had seen them there.

  She could be herself here, even if she was changed. She could claw herself into being valued, even if that shouldn’t matter as much as it did.

  Orfeus smuggled more plants in when she could, filled her room and then left them casually on the benches like the opposite of a burglary. She left plants tucked into corners and, miraculously, they stayed. She hung embroidery up in her room.

  A month passed nearly without Orfeus noticing, and she gathered her allies about her. She found her footing in the organisation. She waited. She listened.

  After practice, Orfeus walked into the mess hall with her baton swinging from one hand. Good to have something that could lay people flat without killing them or using up Blood, though she hadn’t worked up the guts to use it in a sparring match yet. Electricity still bloody hurt.

  There were less people here at noon. A few hunters were clustered at tables eating together and the Starfish sat in one corner building a flimsy house of cards. Notably, Luga and Dormarch were here, and everyone gave their table a wide berth. Respect or fear? Same thing, with the Wild.

  Orfeus tapped her baton thoughtfully at her hip, then stowed it and strode toward their table instead of the kitchen.

  Dormarch looked ver usual self, sprawling on one chair with ver feet propped on another – Tai hated people putting their feet on the table. The Boarhound mask with its red-tipped ears was pushed back up ver forehead as ve nursed a drink.

  Luga sat at the rough-hewn bench like it was a throne. He reminded her of ice and winter, his colours all frost and frozen rivers. His hair was tied back loosely, his garments casual, but he sat upright and lordly, his eyes scanning the room as Dormarch talked. They were eating a simple meal, bread and meat and cheese.

  Orfeus bowed so low her nose brushed the ground, leg extended behind her for balance. “Honoured Boarhound!” she said, straightening. “And Leader.”

  Dormarch spat out wine as ve laughed. Luga sat still, watching Orfeus. His green eyes were icy cold. “Careful.”

  Orfeus shrugged and smiled. She was getting used to wearing a smile like a shield. “You haven’t killed me yet,” she said, sauntering a little closer.

  He tore off a piece of bread, then tore it into smaller pieces, then even smaller ones. From this close up, his withered fingertips weren’t the same black as the paint smeared fearsome across his face. The nails were white at the edges, his hands mottling from black to blue below the knuckle, darkest and charcoal-like at the fingertip. Usually he tried to hide his hands.

  Orfeus looked up; Luga was watching her watch him.

  “You grow comfortable here,” Luga commented. He dipped his bread in butter.

  She kept her back straight, her hand near her baton, still smiling. “Hardly comfortable,” Orfeus said. Dormarch lifted ver cup as if in a toast, and drank. She looked around the familiar room. “Perhaps accustomed.”

  Luga tore off a chunk of bread with his teeth and ate and swallowed, said with crumbs in his mouth, “You don’t miss your old friends, your old life?”

  “Of course not,” Orfeus said. Too smooth, too rich, too quickly. She crossed her arms over her chest and put more conviction into her voice. “The Order is my family now.”

  Dormarch smiled. Luga said, “Not yet.” He tore off a piece of meat, chewing at the gristle.

  Orfeus blurted, “Tai said—”

  Luga held up his hand; after a moment she silenced, curling her hands tight. Eventually Luga swallowed, and smiled. “And is the Shark the Leader of the Order of the Wild?” he said. He wiped his greasy hands clean on the bread. “What I say is law to us.”

  This place could be so much better, but it is not good yet.

  Orfeus put her hands on the table. “So I haven’t progressed enough that you’ll talk to me,” she said. Luga eyed her, eyed her posture, but stayed relaxed. Dormarch put ver cup down.

  Luga said, “You still need blooding.”

  She tensed, but shrugged like she didn’t know what he meant. “Haven’t I bled enough?” she said, touching her hand to her side.

  Now impatience glinted in Luga’s eyes. She was cracking through the ice. “You still need to kill,” he said. He picked up a knife, and she watched the motion carefully as he sawed through a tougher chunk of meat. “No one’s saying it’s easy.” He speared a piece, ate it, speared another. “But I need hunters who can do the harder thing.”

  She had already resolved to do this, hadn’t she? Be one of the monsters?

  Orfeus stepped back from the table.

  “Go talk to your partner,” Luga said, dismissively. He leaned across the table, knife in hand, and she did not flinch, she was sure she didn’t. He grabbed another haunch of meat, dropping it on his plate so it rattled. “My Wolf can teach you.”

  Dormarch snorted. “That whelp?” ve said, under ver breath, and took a swig of wine.

  Orfeus lifted her eyebrows. Luga did not move, his pale eyes still fixed on Orfeus. “My Wolf, and strong right hand,” he said. “As you know, Boarhound.”

  A reproof, or it seemed like one from how Dormarch dipped ver head. Ver mouth was pressed tight, ver eyes low, resentful. Interesting.

  Luga waved his hand, a clear dismissal. His fingertips trembled. “It’s past time to see what I can make of you, Fox,” he said, cutting into his meal. “My Wolf knows much of killing.”

  Orfeus bowed her head silently. She could only push insolence so far, especially where there were so many hunters to see it.

  She left the mess hall without eating anything. She found she’d lost her appetite.

  Orfeus walked down the halls, the rhythm of her footsteps ringing out on the metal a familiar clanging song. An obedient servant of the Wild, at least for now. What choice was there?

  She pushed back Em’s words, of ho
w seldom it worked to fix broken things from inside them.

  Luga was a puzzle, as ever, and there was more strain under the surface of this organisation than there first seemed. Dormarch was Luga’s second in command, he had said so, but Faolan was his strong right hand? And he never called them by their names. Luga bought into his own myth too much. Different people led the Wild Hunt in different versions of the tale, sometimes Woden, sometimes Herne. Either way, Luga put himself shoulder to shoulder with gods, and that never ended well.

  Orfeus slowed as she got closer, softening her footsteps. Through the thick walls she could hear strains of music coming from Faolan’s room. She walked slower, slower up to the door and stopped there. She didn’t push her ear to the wall, didn’t eavesdrop like she had so often done, but she still heard it, soft and melancholy.

  “After you left on the winding road

  Only thorns in my wild garden grow

  And the roses, my love

  Since you’re gone

  The roses do not grow…”

  Her words. Her voice. Her song.

  Orfeus stood, staring at the thick metal, as the closing chords of her rendition of “Lover’s Lay” played. Faol’s porter was of a high quality: she could recognise the show from the recording. That time she used Blood to help her leap down from the rafters in a grand entrance, guitar in hand.

  As the music faded, there was a heavy loud noise from much closer, like he punched the wall.

  Orfeus jerked back, coming to her senses. She slipped away, and danced a step as she did, throwing up a barrier of illusion around her even though her business had been perfectly legitimate.

  So Faolan knew to keep his enemies close, too.

  Orfeus kicked back her bike, slowing down. Faolan grudgingly stopped a moment later. They circled over the green wooded town below.

  Orfeus called, “This is Tinctora!”