She looked at me, and I could see the fox in her eyes.
Changeling, I thought. Gentry-babe. Foxface. Skinslipper.
She looked at me with yellow eyes slitted with horizontal pupils. They saw everything, even those things I’d hoped to keep hidden: the opal on my finger, the locket at my throat, the cow hair on my skirt. All the songs my mam had ever sung me fisted in my throat.
She smiled at me, and I could not help but smile back, though the Prickster guard at my elbow jostled me into a bow.
“Your Grace,” he said, “we picked this one up at Feisty Wold. Her own father claimed, out loud and in the public house, that she spins straw into gold. As you know, such gifts are a trait of Gentry royalty. Her mother was a woodcutter’s daughter, so she claims. But the Veil Queen sometimes glamours herself as common raff and lives a spell in the mortal world. Could be this girl is her get.”
I snorted, very quietly. Surely any Veil Queen worth her antler crown would’ve chosen better for herself than Da. Even when young and sober and ruby-lipped with charm, he couldn’t have been much of a prize.
I felt the foxgirl look at me again, but did not dare meet her yellow eyes.
“Good afternoon, young lady,” said the Archabbot in a kindly way. He leaned forward on his great, curvy chair, hands on knees. I swear his nostrils flared.
“Morning, Your Grace.”
I looked at his face and read nothing but concern. Was this the face of the monster who drowned a man for keeping a dog and a cat under the same roof? Was this the highest authority of the red-capped woman who had insulted my mother and dragged me in chains from Feisty Wold?
I reminded myself to take care, to beware—no matter how syrupy and convincing the Archabbot’s voice when he asked:
“Are you Gentry then, child? Do not fear confession; it is not your fault if you are. Are we to be blamed for the indiscretions of our parents? If indeed you have a talent for ore-making, why, you are still half-mortal, little spinner, and may use it for the good of mortal kind.”
“Your Grace.” My voice echoed in that vast glass-paned hall. “I have no gift but for calming the cow Annat so she’ll stand for milking. Or for leading the bull Manu ’round a shadow on the ground he mistook for a snake. I’m a milkmaid, not a spinner, and my mam was a woodcutter’s daughter. She could whittle a face from a twig, but I did never see her vanish into the heart of a tree. We’re just plain folk. And Da’s a drunk fool, which is why he was tongue-wagging at Firshaw’s in the first place!”
The Archabbot nodded and sat back, idly stroking the foxgirl’s russet tail of hair. His eyes were lidded now, all that avid interest shuttered. Still with that curling smile, he asked the foxgirl, “Is she telling the truth, Candia?”
“That wench ain’t Gentry-born.” Her voice was rough and low, like a barmaid’s after decades of pipe smoke and gin. Her years could not have numbered more than twelve. Her voice was well at odds with her irregular, gawky features, her translucent skin. “There is something about her, though.” Her gaze flickered quickly to my ring, my locket, my narrowing eyes. With a shrug of her pointed shoulders, she finished, “She does look sly, don’t she? Shifty-eyed. Tricks up her sleeve. Up to just about anything. Your Grace, I’ve no doubt she could somehow manage to turn straw to gold if she wished!”
“I don’t wish it!” I flashed, angry at the lie. “Who would?”
The foxgirl, with a quick, sharp grin, seemed about to reply when the Archabbot tweaked her tail. The motion was short but vehement. Tears stood out in her eyes from the sting.
“Enough, Candia.”
The Archabbot’s hands bore no jewel but a thick, colorless seal. Cold iron. I was not close enough to make out the mold, but I felt the violence in it, as if the ring had smashed across a hundred faces, as if the memory of shattered bones and broken teeth hovered all about it. I wondered if the foxgirl felt the threat of iron every time he touched her. Doubtless.
“I am satisfied that this woman is not Gentry-born,” the Archabbot announced. “Have I not had it on authority of the Abbacy’s own house-trained Gentry-babe?” This while stroking the head of the novice. “Therefore, I deem that Miss—”
“Gordie,” I said.
“Gordenne Faircloth—” continued the Archabbot.
“Gordie Oakhewn.” But I only muttered it.
“—shall be retained at Winterbane as a . . . a guest until the confusion surrounding her alleged talent is resolved. After all, it is obvious she has a splendid power, one that princes will covet and alchemists envy. And if her power is not a curse of the Gentry, it may prove to be a gift of the gods. Candia, will you show her to her…”
But the words fell unfinished from his mouth. The Archabbot bounded to his feet, looking at something past my shoulder. The roses on his cheeks spread until even the crest of his skull glowed. No longer did he seem kind and concerned. Angry as a salamander in a snowstorm, more like. I shrank back. There was no cover for me, no escape.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” said a voice behind me. I shrank from that, too, for the sound sent sick ripples up and down my spine. I had no place left to go but inside myself and very still.
The Archabbot spat, “The Holy See does not recognize the petitions of pretenders!”
“I did not come to petition, Your Grace. I came to attain your little ore-maker here. My army has need of her services.”
I spun around then, hoping that the speaker—whoever he was—did not mean who I thought he meant. The tallest man I’d ever seen stared right down into my face. Me. He’d meant me.
“My dear,” said the tall man. “My fairest Gordenne Faircloth! I am your obedient servant. Allow me to make my bow!” He did, and the very jauntiness of the gesture mocked me. “Rumor has it you spin straw into gold.”
Whatever sauce I’d served to the Prickster woman had dried with my spit on the long ride to Winterbane. I could only shake my head, mute.
The man’s hair was like sunlight striking dew, his eyes so cold and bright and gray that they speared me where I stood. He laughed to see my look, casually swinging his red cloak off his shoulder to hand to his page.
The youth untangled the rich cloth and folded it over his arm. His movements were graceful, though he was a gangly thing. His face tugged at me, familiar and strange. Red hair. Slitted eyes. A face too triangular to be completely human.
It all came clear.
The tall man and his cruel mouth faded from the forefront of my mind. Even the Archabbot’s fury slipped away. My ears filled with silence, a roar, a twinned heartbeat. All I saw were two Gentry-babes staring at each other with whole other worlds widening their yellow eyes. If I could imagine words to fit what flared between them, they would go like this:
“Brother!”
“Sister!”
“You are unhurt?”
“Yes, unhurt. You? Unhappy?”
“Not unhappy. But unwhole.”
“How you have changed!”
“How I have missed you!”
“Say nothing.”
“Be still.”
“Look away.”
The lightning of their gazes sparked once, went dark. As if such shuttings off had been polished by practice. The foxgirl gave me a furtive look from under the bloody fringe of her lashes. I had only a dizzy countenance to show her. No time, however, to unmuzzle this mystery, for the tall man grabbed my right elbow, and the Archabbot darted down his dais to grab my left.