Foxhunt Page 20

  Apparently no. As she tucked her cloak around Splodge carefully, trying to rig half a harness, he shrugged. “We’re partners,” Faol said. “Wolves aren’t meant to hunt alone.”

  Splodge was a warm, comforting presence, even if Orfeus would get extremely clawed on the flight up. “We’re not…” she said, and trailed off. She shook her head and adjusted the straps. Logically, she should use any weapon that would fit in her hand. If Faol’s honour inclined him towards Orfeus’s purpose, she should use him.

  It sat badly with her, all the same. Orfeus shook her head, shaking off the discomfort. She couldn’t afford to be precious about morals right now.

  “Fine,” Orfeus said like smoke in her mouth, “partner.”

  Faol kicked off, up into the sky. Orfeus followed, ducked down low over the handles, as fast as she dared with the cat tucked in close to her. Urgency tapped at her mind. Four weeks Linden had been gone. She was already late.

  Part Three

  The Fox

  Chapter Thirteen

  Come back to me on the winding road

  Though not because I mourn my missing beau

  It’s the roses, my love

  Since you’re gone

  The roses miss you so

  - Lover’s Lay

  * * *

  Orfeus trained in the room, and danced a smooth and careful step. Light sprung up as a shimmer around her. Through the hand mirror she’d propped up beside her, she saw … nothing, really. Just more of the room. Perhaps there was a shifting, vague suggestion of her in the air, but nothing noticeable unless you looked hard.

  Orfeus dropped the disguise, grinning with her teeth bared. She was short of breath and her foot ached with pain, but she’d done it.

  On her way out, she picked the mirror back up and tucked it into her cloak. Excellently, anyone who saw it would just think she was vain.

  She had no appointment nor invitation, and dawdled awkwardly outside of Luga’s little throne room. After a few minutes, Boarhound poked ver head out, hiccupped, and pulled back. A moment later ve came back out the door, looking serious and strict and not at all drunk. “The Fox,” ve called over ver shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Orfeus said, a little at a loss at being announced like an old-timey courtier

  Dormarch grinned at her and pulled open the doors, and Orfeus followed vem in. She glanced up at Luga, and waved at Dormarch. “The Boarhound!” she said.

  Dormarch chuckled. Luga stared down at Orfeus, his green eyes hooded, pale hair pulled back. Wearing his crown of twisted antlers, he looked like a demon or spirit from before the Industrial age, like at any moment he’d gush out a breath of frost and steam.

  Orfeus strode up to the base of his throne-pile and smiled winningly. “Do I get leave?” she said.

  His eyes were disconcertingly green. She wondered if Faolan had told him, reported everything, said she wasn’t to be trusted and that her allegiances were divided in more ways than they’d even predicted.

  Luga leaned back, stirring his finger to dismiss her. “Of course,” he said. “Hunters are above other folk, but we still need our rest.”

  Her skin crept and crawled. Lying. Luga struck her as far too controlling to simply let her come and go as she pleased without any conditions. She felt strongly he was lying or at least hiding something. No wonder Faolan hated being lied to so much: it felt like stepping on something slimy in the dark.

  Before anything else, she went back and fed Splodge. There were plenty of meat scraps to raid, and she left them in a bowl in her room by a bowl of water with a makeshift litterbox stowed in one corner. Splodge showed little interest in any of it. Her room was too small to keep an adult cat in, especially without any towers or toys, but Splodge hadn’t started trying to slink past her when she entered or exited yet either.

  Animals could get depressed same as people could, when they lost a loved one. A month was a long time for a cat. Keeping it in the same tiny space wouldn’t help.

  She didn’t want to lose Splodge in the guts of the base, though. Just a few more days, she silently promised.

  Orfeus sat thinking, the unresisting cat in her lap. There were too many ways for people to go missing, was the thing. Roving killers, maybe even hunters of the Wild if they were that bad at communicating. A one-off, someone preying on people in his family or someone from his past. Too many possibilities. She should investigate Tinctora first.

  The next problem was where to get information from landside. Who was left? She’d burned so many bridges down to ash.

  Normally her first choice in town to get rumours from was Linden himself. Em had no specific knowledge, and Orfeus had relied on her for too much already. Bright was hyper-focused and thus more or less useless for this.

  Orfeus flew down in early evening, in the hopes fewer people would notice the bike streaking across the sky. After landing, she arranged ferns over her bike, and then spent more time than was necessary arranging her own self. She smoothed her hair out and patted down her shirt, the best tunic she’d brought with her, robins and starlings embroidered at sleeve and hem. Light grey slacks she’d dyed herself. Thin, flimsy clothes, they had fared badly on the flight.

  Orfeus fussed and smoothed and fixed, then stood there, alone in the forest.

  Once the sun set, she pretended that was what she’d been waiting for, and strode to the western edge of town.

  Primrose and Bellan lived in a large house, Prim’s personal workshop appended to the back. Orfeus walked past the picketed rows of cabbages and shrubs to the door. She pushed her mask back so her face showed clearly, and knocked.

  Bellan opened the door. Orfeus should’ve been prepared for that, but she blinked at the sandy-haired, inoffensively handsome man like he was the one intruding.

  Obviously Bellan had never liked her, but the second he saw her his face went pale and he jerked back, hands coming up in front of him as if to shield himself. “We mean no harm!” he said. His voice wavered, but he positioned himself to block her way in. “We’re not coal-sellers or energy criminals, I swear it, we would never. This house is just my luxury – please—”

  Orfeus frowned. Taking off her mask had never crossed her mind, even once she landed and no longer needed protection from the wind. She pushed it further back, pointedly. “Calm down, Bellan.”

  The tension bled from him, and his face darkened. “Oh,” he said. “Orfeus.” She found it interesting to hear her name spat like a curse word. He half-closed the door, glowering out at her through the crack. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

  Orfeus resisted the urge to shove her boot into the space. She smiled her mildest and hopefully least adulterous smile, and said, “That’s fine. I’d rather she tell me herself, though.” Always better to get messages firsthand.

  Bellan nodded shortly and slammed the door. Orfeus was sure she felt the wind of it passing an inch from her nose. She waited placidly, showing no impatience or worry on her face: they had a peephole.

  Just when she had started to worry Bellan might have shoved his wife in a dye vat sometime in the month she was away, the door opened a reluctant inch.

  Primrose looked out from the crack. Her frown didn’t stop her face from taking Orfeus’s breath away. A stinging joy racketed through her heart, and Orfeus breathed in deep. She had missed her. Honoured Earth, she had missed her so much.

  Primrose looked her in the eye, brow wrinkling. She said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I just want information—” Orfeus started, but Primrose had already closed the door, in her face.

  Orfeus stood, feet like lead. That had undeniably been Primrose’s decision, not Bellan’s words in her mouth. She wasn’t one to tolerate people swaying her.

  Prim wouldn’t tolerate people disregarding her stated wishes, either. That was almost heartening. Orfeus had always fought and struggled to charm her, and now it was easy: to please Primrose most, she need merely stay far away.

  She left.

&nbs
p; Doors slammed as she walked down the street, and people hurried away from her. Hardly surprising, considering what had happened the first time hunters of the Wild showed up here. Still it felt sour and unexpectedly painful, like poking a forgotten bruise.

  Failing any personal connections left in this provincial place, the Hub was the best place to get information. Orfeus fixed her mask over her face and put her hood up. Maybe she wouldn’t be recognised.

  She strode in, and Threadgall Weaver looked up at her.

  They stood by their familiar device, everything the same as the last time she’d been here, before it all changed. Orfeus shifted her posture, standing a little taller than usual, jutting out her hip. More confident without being cocky, trying to lean into the look of the mask.

  She said crisply, “I need information on the person who went missing the night of the disaster.” She added, “Most especially, I need to know if anyone else is missing, and any suspected culprits.”

  “Certainly,” Threadgall said slowly. They didn’t touch their device. “Orfeus, are you going to hurt anyone?”

  Orfeus’s shoulders slackened. Threadgall was bright and innocent and cheery, gifted, driven. They were the last person Orfeus wanted to see like this. “No,” Orfeus said. “I’m not going to hurt anyone here.”

  Threadgall’s brows pinched together, their eyes drawing down in sorrow. The phrasing hadn’t escaped them.

  They shook their head, and turned to the device to tap quickly, brows drawn together. Threadgall was never normally this silent. After a minute, they sighed, short, terse, seeming older in that moment than Orfeus had thought of them before. They pulled a data seed from their device and laid it on the counter.

  “Nothing’s come of the investigation, except that there was a struggle,” Threadgall said, voice cool and professional. They took a step back from the counter, making full sure there was distance between them. Orfeus smiled coldly to hide her hurt. She picked up the data seed, tucking it into her pocket, the information dormant within. “Other settlements have also requested information about people who have gone missing in their area. So it’s not just us. No one’s found a pattern yet, but it’s all on there.”

  They stepped back with a nod, the grudging yet professional Hub administrator. Orfeus folded her cloak around herself and nodded.

  “I liked you better as a singer,” Threadgall said quietly, almost to themselves. “I was always so excited to go to your shows.”

  Orfeus looked away. This was starting to chafe at her. Had not she done her penance, and then some? She didn’t think she deserved to be this hated. Not quite this hated. “Thank you for your help, Weaver,” Orfeus said, and inclined her head. “You spin your threads, and I’ll spin mine.”

  While she was here, she gathered some flowers from her garden. It was starting to overgrow its boundaries, and well enough: halfway to a tiny patch of wild here in her garden, though once-tamed feral things did not truly count as wild.

  She left Tinctora once more. She wouldn’t come here again unless it was with Linden in tow to bring him safely home. Being here felt wrong now and rankling, a cloak that didn’t fit, prickling against her skin.

  At the base, she docked her bike to charge and went straight to her room. There was socialising to do in the mess hall, important ties to maintain and strengthen, but she had to put that on hold for now. Any progress she’d made in the Order was barely relevant except inasmuch as it could be used for leverage, now that there was a bigger goal than her survival and a bigger question than who had threatened it. More important, even, than whoever had taken her blood and why.

  The Archivist turned out to be easy to find once she started searching. Rivasoa was higher in Eldergrove society than Orfeus had thought, though not as important as Margaux or even Significance. Her role seemed almost spiritual: the keeper and recounter of tales, holding ancient facts in her hands.

  It was at least worth trying Rivasoa before Orfeus burned her way through any of the people who actually cared about her. Rivasoa had resources. It was the clever thing to do.

  Orfeus still sat on her bed frowning wrinkle-nosed at the portable Hub for nearly five minutes with Splodge asleep on her feet before she swiped across to compose a message.

  She went with the simplest things to start with. Hail, she sent. It’s Orfeus. I live still.

  And then she got up to water her plants. She was hardly halfway through watering her burgeoning collection, grapevine and mint but not yet the basil and carrot, when her porter pinged gently.

  Good Rivasoa sent back.

  Orfeus dried her hands and frowned at the single, enigmatic word. Rivasoa, always writing in her book, didn’t quite seem the kind to skip punctuation.

  A second later, the porter pinged with another message, so that in total it read:

  Good

  ?

  Orfeus threw back her head and laughed.

  To business, then, dear Archivist, she sent. I could use your knowledge in something I’m pursuing, an instance where I think our morals may align for once. Even if you’re not still meant to be shadowing me, I’m sure I can think of some other incentive to bargain with. Let me know.

  She finished watering her plants and chewed on some jerky. No response yet.

  Orfeus sat, turning it over in her head. What could she offer a long-lived, married woman with magic at her fingertips and access to a whole city full of libraries? What did she have that Rivasoa wanted?

  Nothing, but she was thinking about this the wrong way. They were very different people. Orfeus was driven by what she wanted. Rivasoa could not possibly want for anything. Rivasoa…Rivasoa, perhaps, was driven by questions.

  Orfeus sent, Is anyone in your town missing?

  And she went and ate a solid meal to put it from her mind, then sparred with the Wasp, from whom, Tide willing, Orfeus would greatly like to learn a vast many things involving knives and poison.

  When she came back, she smiled.

  Come meet me at Sycamore Coast in a day’s time, Rivasoa had sent. We can trade information.

  Yes, questions were the way of it.

  She’d acquired a goal for her leave, and that left her with plants which could survive at least a while without her there to water them, and a cat, which could not. And Splodge was alarmingly apathetic already. Orfeus tucked the porter into her cloak and sat looking at Splodge thoughtfully. The question was how much trouble was worth it for the sake of a cat.

  “I’ll see which of my allegiances here I can burn through,” Orfeus said resignedly, and knelt to pick up Splodge and heft it close to her chest, where it curled quietly, not purring. “And if no one’s willing, I suppose you and I are just going to have to journey together, my kit. Up we get.” She stood carefully and ventured out into the base with her feline burden.

  Out and around through the winding dark corridors, navigating more by feel than anything else, with the confidence that eventually she’d either find who she was looking for or someone who could help her find him. It would be a relief to be by the coast, to see sunlight on blue waters.

  Splodge sat unresistingly in her arms. She was really starting to worry. At this point she’d welcome a yowl and scratch across the nose.

  Orfeus looked up and stopped short as Faolan approached from the other direction. The cat shifted at last as Orfeus’s grip unconsciously tightened, and it let out a low griping growl.

  Faolan was dressed for combat, clad in his tough armour and equipped with glove and knife. The sweat on his skin and a certainty to his stride made her wonder if he was still sent on missions without her occasionally, regardless of what Luga had said.

  He stopped short when she did and met her gaze, his brown eyes doubtless full of the usual contempt. He stared in rather more bafflement at Splodge.

  “The missing man’s cat?” he said.

  “Splodge,” Orfeus said. Faolan stared at her.

  Faol took a step forward, then stopped. “Cats don’t need to be walked,”
she said, but just a little bit doubting: do they? It made Orfeus want to laugh.

  She loosened her grip enough Splodge wouldn’t feel threatened, though hopefully not enough it would wriggle free. “I’m off to the coast, to lounge in sunlight and evade my responsibilities for a few days,” she said. Faolan’s scowl darkened. Something about her poor opinion always made Orfeus want to act down to meet it. “So I need a catsitter, or at least a catfeeder.” The more Faol stared at her incredulously, the more she wished she’d just rigged up a timed-release food mechanism: worth the risk to save on the glares. “Uh, I was going to…ask the Shark…”

  “Tai needs antihistamines to able to come within twenty metres of any animal living or dead,” Faol stated.

  And the Hyena was right out, which left…maybe Em? Not the Ocelot: by all appearances she was friendly and kind, but there was always just the slightest chance she was waiting to slip a knife in her back. “Alright,” Orfeus said, and then rethought. “How do you know that?”

  Faolan frowned, weighty, judging, like Orfeus was the source of all the problems on Earth or at least all the ones that affected Faol personally. Then he nodded, some decision reached, and turned abruptly on his heel and strode away. After a few seconds he stopped to shoot her a black-browed look, beckoning.

  “You can’t always assume I’ll follow you,” Orfeus said, to her back: Faol had turned around again. Orfeus shrugged and tagged along.

  As they entered the room, Faolan hung his mask up on a hook, and the lupine face seemed to glare at her as Orfeus trailed uncertainly in.

  Faolan’s room was considerably larger than hers, and she couldn’t claim favouritism when most likely it was a matter of seniority. O’Hallow had said Faol might have been here since he was very young. Looking around, this certainly didn’t look like a room someone had grown up in. Surely Luga hadn’t started his protégé off in a cupboard like all the rest.

  But maybe.

  And if so, then Faol had earned this: space to prowl around in and to hang weapons on the walls. He seemed fond of all types of weapons as far as Orfeus could tell. There were two axes, one battered and old, another a blunt-curved handle that would glow with a sharplight edge when activated. A long staff ended in a feathered blade, not unlike Orfeus’s baton. Beside that was a….whip? Next to that were claws like those Faolan wore now, but made of what looked like pig-iron. If there was a bed, it was in the next room. Lucky Wolf, getting a den with more than one room. Orfeus certainly didn’t resent it in the least.