*
FOX’S WISH
There wasn’t much left in the world for a Crown Prince to
wish for. Brother Fox had only the one wish, and it wasn’t the sort of thing
that would fit in a package. Every year, when Longnight rolled around, he
accepted the clothes and toys—though the toys got less numerous every year—with
every appearance of joy and honest gratitude. He was grateful. But he thought he might be just as grateful for quite
a bit less, if only he could have the thing he truly wanted, the thing he
wished for late at night, alone in the dark of his bed.
There wasn’t much left for Fox to wish for, except this: he
would rather not be the Crown Prince of Shirith at all. He would rather be
anyone else in the world, he thought, as long as he had a different father.
Nobody got to choose his parents, but if he’d had the choice, out of all the
fathers in the world, he’d choose Falcon Eye.
Just today, out in the gardens making a snow cat with Fleet
Stag, he’d seen the slight huntsman crossing to his cottage all bulked up in
warm things, carrying firewood. Hadn’t Falcon Eye a heat-box? It concerned Fox
terribly that he mightn’t. He left Stag poking twigs into the snow cat’s face
for whiskers and cut across white beds to catch up, calling out.
Falcon Eye turned and came toward him, taking the paths, and
they met near the middle. “Your Highness,” the huntsman said, inclining his
head, and under cover of his fur hood: “What is it, Fox? Is everything all
right?”
“Yes—that’s not why—don’t you have a heat-box?” He gestured
toward Falcon Eye’s bundle of firewood.
“Of course. But you can’t toast marshmallows over a—” The
huntsman grunted. A soft halo of snow burst around his head. He dropped his
bundle, which exploded on the path. “Damned boy.” Falcon Eye stooped and
gathered a handful of snow, packing it into a tight ball. He wheeled, head
turning as he scanned the garden. “I know you’re there! Come out and save yourself
the trouble.”
Fox flinched. Hadn’t Father said just that to him, so often?
But, “You’ll have to catch me first!” called a young voice, and another
snowball sailed out of nowhere into Falcon Eye’s face. He let out a mild oath
and wiped snow off his brow.
“If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness? I need to deal with
this imp.”
“No!” Fox snatched at the huntsman’s arm. “I mean—don’t hurt
him,” he whispered thickly.
“He’ll get what he deserves. A face full of snow. Hear that,
Eagle?”
“Ha!” It echoed across the beds. Fox would swear it came
from a different place than before.
“I see you, Eagle Eye!”
Silence, trembling and taut, because I see you, Brother Fox rang in his mind’s ear. “Please!” he said,
voice small, but Falcon Eye must not have heard, because he went striding out
toward the edge of the garden. Three more snowballs hit him on the way.
The huntsman stopped under a bare birch with snow weighing
on its branches, menace in his bearing, tossing his snowball and catching it.
There was a little shadow up in the tree, but Falcon Eye peered around the
trunk. “Eagle! Oh, you’ll rue the day I taught you sneakery, you stealthy wee
devil.”
The birch shook and dumped its load of snow on Falcon Eye’s
head. He cursed, flailing, and the shadow streaked to the end of a low branch
and leapt lightly to the ground. It was Eagle Eye after all, the huntsman’s
son, younger than Fox, and small for his age. He was wont to tag after his
father, all but invisible, blending into the scenery like a snowshoe hare. Now,
though, he wore brown leather and fur, and he made a dark blot on the white as
he struggled through on his short legs.
Grinning.
Was it a game, then? If Fox had dared to flick the slightest
bit of anything on Father, there would’ve been pain. But here, Eagle Eye had done
this, and he was grinning like a fool. Falcon Eye lumbered out of the pile
under the birch and charged after his son, who made a sound somewhere between a
shriek and a child’s giggle and floundered onto the path. He dashed away then,
like a tiny garter snake, zipping a bow past Fox without even slowing. Stag
laughed, golden and sweet, and there stood Fox in the middle of all the
mirth—because when Falcon Eye passed, he was cackling too—with his arms clasped
tight around himself. Fear oozed away to be replaced by the thickest bitter
envy he’d ever known.
He envied Eagle Eye, now getting snow rubbed in his laughing
face. “Had enough?” Falcon Eye asked.
“Yes!” Eagle Eye gasped, limp in his father’s grasp. “Please
no more. Ha ha ha ha!” It made Fox swallow bile to hear.
Falcon Eye dropped his son into a drift and dusted off his
mittens. “So sorry about that, Your Highness.” But there was light in his gaze.
“You were asking about a heat-box, I think. Yes, we have one. It’s quite warm
in the cottage. But the concern was very kind.” He laid a hand on Fox’s
shoulder and said quietly, “You’re a good boy.” After a quick squeeze of the
hand, he turned away. “As for you, my lad, go and pick up that firewood you
made me drop.”
“Yes, Father,” Eagle Eye said, thrashing out of the drift.
Fox didn’t move even when the huntsman’s son came over and gathered the sticks
around his feet. After a moment, though, he bent his knees and helped.
“Thanks,” the younger boy said, when Fox handed over the
last stick.
“Take it in now, please.”
Eagle Eye nodded to his father and went on up the path,
across the little bridge and around the bend to the huntsman’s cottage.
“You don’t have to be hurt to come to my house, Fox,” said
Falcon Eye, and walked away, leaving Fox staring after with a hungry pit in his
chest.
He turned back to Stag. “That cat has the most whiskers,” he said, and his little
brother beamed. “Let’s make him stripy.”
*
Nothing went well after that. Supper was a frosty horror,
and the dessert worse. Stag upset his dish of lemon custard into the Duke of
Madoc’s lap, and when the Duke would have told Stag it was all right, Father
said how clumsy a son he was cursed with. It made Stag cry, and Fox couldn’t
bear it. He thought of Falcon Eye, and then he opened his mouth, and before he
could stop himself, out it flew. “Of course he’s clumsy! He’s only little, he
can’t help it!”
“Corridor,” Father said, wiping his mouth with terrible
calm.
Fox dragged in a shaky breath, but he rose and went out into
the corridor with Father dogging his heels, through the tall oak door. It
snapped quietly shut behind Father’s back, and the look he wore fell heavy on
Fox’s head, and then—well, it was true to form, more or less.
Afterward, when Fox lay gasping on the floor, clutching his
ribs as if he could hold himself together, Father said, “You’re an affront to
my eyes. Get out of my sight.”
“If it please Your Majesty,” said Falcon Eye, “I’ll take him
off your hands for a few days. I’d planned to take my son out of the Valley,
and it won’t be any trouble to take the Prince along, too. You won’t see hide
nor hair of His Highness.” How the huntsman had known to come, Fox couldn’t
say, but here he was.
“Do what you will,” said the High King. “But come with me
now, and fetch what I summoned you for.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Falcon Eye bowed deeply. “Go and
fetch your warmest things,” he told Fox over his shoulder, as he followed
Father up the corridor.
He did it as quickly as he could, but Falcon Eye was already
waiting in front of the door to the dining-room when he’d finished packing. The
huntsman had a polished wood box under his arm. On the way down to the cottage,
he felt a gaze on him from time to time, but whenever he looked up to catch it,
the huntsman had looked away, and the kind eyes were hard and angry. “I’m
sorry,” he tried.
“No, Fox.” And Falcon Eye would say no more, not until they
reached the cottage.
It was warm inside, made snug by the heat-box and the fire
in the hearth that halfway divided living space from kitchen. Eagle Eye sat
bootless in front of the fire, toasting a big, square marshmallow on a long
stick—nearly finished. It looked brown and crisp on the outside. Fox tried not
to stare at him, envious all over again. He would’ve given everything to be
snug in this house every night, eating good food and feeling safe.
“Brother Fox will stay with us for a few days,” Falcon Eye
said.
Eagle Eye frowned. “Are we still going out?”
“Yes, we’ll go.”
“Good then. Hi,” he added, to Fox.
“Hi,” Fox said, hugging the clothes he’d brought. His ribs
ached.
“Come and sit,” said Falcon Eye, waving at the window seat.
“I’ll be right there.” He disappeared into the bathing-room.
Fox went and sat among the piles of cushions there. It was
soft, and with the curtains drawn over all the glass in the bay window, warm.
“I could take your things,” Eagle Eye offered.
“Oh. All right.”
The huntsman’s son rose from in front of the tiny blaze,
cramming the sticky, crispy marshmallow into his mouth. Fox had just had supper,
but there had been stuffed dormice on the table, which always spoiled his
appetite. Looking at their tiny, glistening, butchered bodies made him ill. He
wanted a marshmallow or ten. Eagle Eye looked at the stick in his hand, coated
with gooey white remnants, and then at Fox.
“Trade you,” he said.
Fox held out his stack of clothing. Eagle Eye took it away,
leaving the stick with Fox, and opened the wardrobe cupboard built into the
larger cupboard of the bed. He stowed Fox’s clothes on a shelf like nothing. As
if they belonged there. Fox gazed at the stick in his fingers. He wanted to
nibble the sweet off it.
“Do you want one, Your Highness?”
“Could I?”
“I’ll make it for you, if you want.”
“Yes, please,” Fox said, tugging at the hem of his
cotehardie. There was a loose thread, and he panicked before he remembered
nobody would see it here. Eagle Eye took the stick and returned to the fire
just as his father came out of the bathing-room with a towel and the familiar
screw-top pot of all-heal.
“Right,” said Falcon Eye, “you know how this goes.”
Fox wanted to balk. Falcon Eye was the only one who saw what
Father left on him. He didn’t even go to the physician anymore, only the
huntsman; to let Eagle Eye see it felt wrong, but saying no was always more
trouble than it was worth. He undid the hooks down the front of his cotehardie
and let it fall off his shoulders. The tunic underneath was harder. Falcon Eye
helped with that, easing it up Fox’s back and over his head so he wouldn’t have
to raise his arms high. He sat there breathing hard while Falcon Eye laid the
tunic aside.
“What happened?” Eagle Eye said. Fox hadn’t even noticed his
approach. He had the most perfect toasted marshmallow on that stick.
“My father,” Fox blurted. “He happened.”
“I don’t understand.” Eagle Eye looked to his own father,
who frowned slightly and unscrewed the lid on the all-heal salve.
“He thrashed me.” Anger rose in Fox’s chest, threatening to
cut off what air he could get. How dare Eagle Eye not understand? How dare he
not know what it was? “He does it if I breathe wrong.”
“This is why you send me away when His Highness visits.”
Falcon Eye didn’t answer, only went to one knee and began to
spread all-heal on Fox’s ribs. Fox almost didn’t notice that strange greenish
scent anymore.
“Why don’t you stop him?” Eagle Eye burst out. “Father—”
“Don’t you think I would if I could?”
“You could,” the younger boy said. Pale eyes went
flint-hard. “You could kill—”
“Stop!” Falcon Eye
rose and wheeled on his son. “Don’t say another word. Not one more! You could
die for what you’ve already said. I know my place, Eagle Eye. I thought I’d
taught you yours.”
Eagle Eye folded thin arms, wearing a stony expression. “So
he’s allowed to do whatever he wants?”
“We are all at the High King’s pleasure.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Who said it had to be fair? This is how it is.”
“But—”
“Cloth-head!” Fox cried. Thank the God, his ribs felt
better, if a little itchy from the salve. “He doesn’t do—that—because of you!
Even if he managed the thing, he’d be executed before I took the crown.”
Eagle Eye gaped as if transfixed on a spear. Fox hunched,
letting his hair fall over his face.
After a long, silent moment, Eagle Eye said, “Is that so?”
“Go see to the dogs.”
“Father, I only just—”
“Go see to the blasted dogs.” Falcon Eye didn’t raise his
voice, but Eagle Eye flinched back from him all the same, and hurried over to
the door. The boy pulled on boots and coat and slammed out. The man pinched the
bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I’m sorry about that. We ought to have
gone into another room. I didn’t want Eagle—”
“He’s getting worse.”
“I have eyes.”
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know.” The huntsman put a rough hand on the side of
Fox’s neck. “I wish I had an answer for you. Some things… some things you can’t
fix.”
Fox looked down again, but he couldn’t see through the blurring
in his eyes. Falcon Eye rose and walked away so as not to watch him cry, but it
wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted arms around him, like not even Mother would do
any longer. He understood why—affection was dangerous in the High King’s
household—but he so badly wanted her to risk it.
Falcon Eye rummaged in the bed’s separate cupboard and
brought him an old flannel nightshirt, washed so many times it was a gray, soft
cloud in his hands. “Here,” said Falcon Eye. “It’s a little big, but Eagle’s
would be too small.”
Fox thanked him and took the nightshirt into the
bathing-room to change, avoiding the sight of himself in the mirror. He found
he liked the worn softness of the flannel on his skin, and the way it held the
heat from his body. While he changed he heard Eagle Eye come in from the cold,
and the huntsman saying a few gentle words to his son, which Fox couldn’t make
out. But in a moment Eagle Eye said, “Yes, Father,” albeit in a grudging tone.
Once there was quiet, Fox stepped out of the bathing-room. Falcon Eye had already
changed, but Eagle Eye was taking off his breeches. He seemed entirely
unashamed for Fox to see him without any clothes on. He had some bruises,
normal bruises, on his shins and knees, a scab on his elbow. Nothing to hide.
“What?” he demanded, scowling. Fox looked at the green-leaf
border on the rug. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring, hadn’t meant to stare.
“Eagle,” Falcon Eye said sharply, and Eagle Eye muttered
something that might’ve been an apology.
“Bedtime,” said Falcon Eye. “Come on, Fox.”
Fox paused at the open doors. Inside was the bed: more than
big enough for two boys and a small man, but still smaller than his own up in
the Great Hall. He trailed his finger down the carved pattern of columbine
along the edge of the door, a secret bit of beauty. Eagle Eye watched him, one
hazel eye visible over the huntsman’s legs.
He got in and lay down under the blankets. It was warm
already, the blankets wool, with the same worn softness as the nightshirt, and
he sighed. Falcon Eye leaned over him and shut them in, then settled down.
“Tell a story, Father,” Eagle Eye yawned.
Falcon Eye began to sing, gentle and low. He didn’t get far
enough for Fox to know what story it was before sleep came.
*
Light washed into the cupboard. Fox pulled the blanket over
his head, but then someone climbed across him. Falcon Eye. A tiny thrill
sparkled down to his toes when he saw the huntsman climb down the few steps to
the floor. No Father today. A pang of guilt clenched his stomach—Stag wouldn’t
be so lucky—but he pushed it aside.
Eagle Eye hopped over him and landed on the rug. Fox slid
his legs out from under the covers and stood. Already, the huntsman and his son
were dressing: whipping out of nightshirts and pulling on warm things. Fox went
to the open cupboard on the side of the bed and got out his own clothes. He
wished they were plainer, more like Falcon Eye’s—or Eagle Eye’s, just alike,
but on a smaller scale.
“Start breakfast, Eagle,” Falcon Eye said, putting on boots,
coat, and muffler. “Show Fox how to do it.”
“Yes, Father.” Eagle Eye went into the kitchen on stocking
feet, silent. Fox rushed into his breeches and followed.
“What’ll we fix?” he asked.
“Here, this goes on the stove, Your Highness.”
Fox took the big pot the other boy held out and set it on
the burner. “Just Fox. All right? Please?”
“If you like. You could call me Eagle.”
As if they were brothers. The idea delighted him. Eagle
handed over a skillet, and Fox laid that on the other burner. He’d seen Falcon
Eye’s little stove on plenty of occasions, but he’d never had occasion actually
to use it. Well, why would he have? But he was excited to learn cooking.
“What’ll we fix?”
“Bacon and eggs.” Eagle began to set things out on the tiny
counter, next to the basin. “Porridge. There’s grain in that drawer there.” He
pointed to the bottom drawer in the chest under the stove.
Fox opened it. There was the grain. What sort, he couldn’t
tell.
“Two—no, three scoops. How many eggs, then?”
There were eggs in porridge? That didn’t sound right, but
what did he know? He settled for a blank look at Eagle.
“For you. To eat. How many do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I don’t really—I mean—I don’t
get to decide ever. I just eat what’s
served.”
“I’ll give you three,” Eagle said. “Then if you don’t want
them all, I can finish them for you.”
“Oh—all right. Is this enough? It looks like hardly any,” Fox
said, tipping the porridge pot to show its contents.
He got the funny idea Eagle was trying not to laugh. “That’s
why you put water in. It gets squashy while you cook it.”
“Water! Of course!” As if he’d known all along. He felt his face
turning red. “Ah—”
“It’s two-to-one.” Eagle showed him a metal cup. “So two of
these for every one of the grain. D’you know how to use the tap?”
“Yes, I can use a tap,” Fox snapped. It seemed that was the
only thing he did know how to do.
Eagle merely nodded and squeezed past to the cold-box at the
very back of the kitchen.
Fox watched with a sick, thick sensation in his belly. “I’m
sorry I got angry,” he said.
“Well,” Eagle said, with his head in the wood-sided cold
box, “it was a pretty rude question.”
“I don’t know anything else, so why would I know that? You
didn’t mean it rudely.”
“Oh, I meant it rude.” He came up with a paper package under
his arm and a bowl of eggs in both hands, shut the door with his foot, and
returned. “Sorry. Only let’s get started. There’s a lot more I’m meant to do
after this.”
“Maybe I ought to watch instead,” Fox suggested, once he’d
counted six cups of water into the pot.
Eagle nodded. “It isn’t hard. Honest it isn’t. If you can do
magic…”
“Not very good at that either. Not good enough to
please—people,” he finished, though he meant Father. His tutors always said he
was doing well—and he’d learned all of his cantrips by now, even if he’d been a
couple of years late figuring out how to cleanse water properly, and could at
last move on in his studies—but Father never liked what they had to tell him.
Fox was assured of a weekly thrashing when they reported.
“This is easier than magic.” Eagle put a lid on the pot and
prodded at the stove until the round, flat burner glowed pink and gold with
heat. He did the same with the burner under the skillet. “Here, you can unwrap
the bacon.”
Fox did. Then he watched Eagle work: laying rashers in the
skillet and turning them with a small pair of tongs. He didn’t admit that he’d never
bothered to wonder how bacon was cooked. It simply appeared on his breakfast
plate. Eagle was offering him a rasher from the first batch when Falcon Eye
returned, bringing with him a great spray of snow and a rush of wind against
which he struggled to shut the door.
“I’m sorry, lads,” he said, leaning against it. “We won’t be
going out after all.” Fox’s heart dropped to his toes.
“Why not?” Eagle demanded.
“Didn’t you see? A blizzard’s whipping up. There’s no
way—why, Fox, what on earth are you doing?”
“Getting my things. Don’t I have to go home?”
“Well, I suppose if we hurry—”
“Much too dangerous,” Eagle said lightly. “Don’t you think?”
Falcon Eye said, “There’s a little time yet.”
“We shouldn’t take risks with the Crown Prince’s safety,
should we, Father?” As if butter wouldn’t melt on his tongue. Fox glanced over
at his so-serious face.
“When you put it that way,” Falcon Eye agreed, nodding
sagely, but a little bit of a smile chased across his features. “Of course you
ought to stay, Your Highness. Go on, put your things back for now.” Fox laid
his clothes back on the shelf and shut the cabinet. Eagle went into the back of
the kitchen; Falcon Eye took off his warm outerwear.
Breakfast was wonderful, as good as supper last night had
been bad. They sat quiet around the table, the three of them, but it wasn’t an
ugly silence lying over the meal. Fox relaxed into the stillness and ate crisp
bacon, fried eggs gone crunchy around the edges, and porridge sweetened with
the addition of apples and raisins. Most of it was gone by the time Falcon Eye
spoke. “What shall we do today, Eagle?” he asked, while wind rattled the
shutters outside.
“Let’s play Stones,” Eagle said.
Falcon Eye groaned. “I hate Stones. Maybe Fox will play with
you.”
“I’ll play! But why do you hate Stones?” Fox asked. He loved
the game and couldn’t imagine hating it, even though he wasn’t very good.
“Because Eagle never lets me win.” Falcon Eye shot him a
friendly grin, patted his stomach, and rose from the table, taking his dishes
with him into the kitchen. “I’ll wash up this morning, lads. Go on and play
when you’re ready.”
When they’d finished eating, Fox played Stones with Eagle,
and won once handily, the second time by the skin of his teeth. “Do you want to
switch colors?” he asked Eagle, when they set up the third game.
“No, you keep white,” Eagle said. Falcon Eye brought them big
mugs of hot, spiced milk, which Fox had never tasted. It was even more
delicious than the breakfast. The wind howled, but he felt cozy inside and out,
even if Eagle thrashed him soundly that third game, and every time after. He
couldn’t win again, but it didn’t matter at all. He just liked playing.
It was all like that.
Fox wanted to remember this or that moment, but it all flowed together into a
warm pool at the center of him. They were stuck for three days while the
blizzard wailed outside, and those were the best three days of Fox’s life.
Stories and games and food, and nobody lifted a hand to him, nobody even
shouted—except for Falcon Eye, a little, when Fox’s hair clogged the drain in
the shower and it flooded the bathing-room. Even then, he wasn’t shouting at
Fox, though it took a moment to realize. Other than that, Fox drank it all in
like sweet water.
He nearly forgot he would have to leave. But on the fourth
morning the weather had cleared, and Falcon Eye climbed out the bay window with
a small spade. Fox and Eagle watched him, later, out the same window; he had
gotten a shovel and he tossed white powder as if it weighed nothing, and Fox
realized it was so that he could go back up to the Palace.
When Falcon Eye returned through the front door, they had a
last dinner. To Fox, it tasted of ash. He didn’t even notice what it was,
although Falcon Eye made no mention of his going home all through dinner and
the washing-up, which he had learned to help with while he was here. It was
only when he dried his hands that the huntsman said, “Get your things, Fox.”
He obeyed. Everything was neatly stacked in the cupboard,
and before he knew it he had his fur coat and hat and his soft leather gloves
on. He was a Prince again, but he couldn’t drag his eyes off the floor. Then
Falcon Eye came close and put his hand on the side of Fox’s neck again, like he
had the first night.
Fox raised his eyes. They didn’t have far to go; he was
nearly as tall as the huntsman now.
“You’re stronger than you know,” Falcon Eye said. “You’ve
made it this far. And you’re still a good boy, Fox, don’t doubt it. All right?”
Fox only looked at him, and for a moment it seemed as if
there was more to say, but he let out a long breath and rubbed his thumb over
Fox’s cheek.
“You don’t have to be hurt to come here.” And he let go.
“Eagle, walk the Prince home now.”
“Yes, Father,” Eagle said, and put on his coat. He dawdled
over his boots and muffler, and once Falcon Eye opened his mouth, probably to
tell Eagle to hurry, but shut it again before anything came out. Eagle could
only move so slowly, though, and at last they went out the door into the winter
world of the garden.
The huntsman had shoveled a thin trail from his cabin to the
rear of the Palace, but Eagle ignored it and leapt into the deep snow, forging
off on his own. It looked like fun, and Fox followed with only one pang of
worry for his clothes and what Father would say afterward. He tried to make a
snowball, but it wouldn’t stick together, and when he threw it at Eagle it flew
apart in midair.
Eagle said, “It’s not very good snow, is it?”
“It was good when it was coming down.”
“True.”
“What’s it like?” Fox blurted.
A glistening blue fairy landed on the back of Eagle’s hand,
a naked little man with wings like faceted ice. He stroked down the tiny back
with a gloved fingertip, absorbed. “What’s what like?”
“Being his son. Falcon Eye’s.”
Eagle looked at him then, clear eyes cutting to the bone.
“It’s nice.”
“I wish I were.” He bowed his head. It would be awful if
Eagle saw him cry.
“I wouldn’t mind it,” Eagle said. By now Fox knew there were
no lies in him. Perhaps there was no room in his body for dishonesty. They
trudged through the garden, impeded further by snowdrifts, under a sky like
steel. But the bright blue and white and void-black fairies wouldn’t leave Eagle
alone.
“Why don’t you swat them? They’ll go away if you do,” Fox
told him.
“But I don’t want them to. I like them.” Eagle stopped,
thigh-deep in pure white, and held out his hand for one of the ebony fairies
that twinkled like a field of stars. “Look how pretty. And listen.”
Fox stood quiet for a moment. “I don’t hear—”
“Shh…”
The fairy drew herself up in Eagle’s small, gloved palm,
laid fingers gracefully on her chest, and sang out a sweet sparkle of sound
that plucked an answering chord in Fox’s chest. He listened with the afternoon
hanging frozen around them.
A wind kicked up, tossing snow, and a branch cracked under
the weight and fell to the ground. The fairy spread glass-clear wings and left
a trail of glittering dust in the air behind her when she flew. It drifted over
Eagle and settled onto his hood, on his face, on the muffler around his neck.
Fox thought to brush it off, but didn’t. Somehow it suited him.
Flurries drifted down from the hard gray sky, dancing on the
wind. “We’d better go,” Eagle said, almost apologetic.
They forged on through the drifts until they reached the
back doors to the Palace. Snow piled here and there on the white marble stairs,
making the risers look dirty with its purity. The ornate double portal loomed
above. “Well,” Fox said, “good-bye.”
“I’ll come to the door.”
“Oh—all right.” He wanted to make a clean break of it, but
he couldn’t bring himself to say no, either. They went carefully up the steps
so as not to slip. Fox opened the door and turned on the threshold. “Now, good-bye,” he managed.
“Bye, Fox,” Eagle said, darting his eyes around, and laid a
hand on Fox’s shoulder. Snake quickly, he stretched up and kissed Fox on the
cheek with chilly lips.
“What was that for?” Fox asked, blinking.
“Because.” He turned to go, but glanced back over his
shoulder and gave Fox the slightest wave and the tiniest hint of smile. Then he
bounded down the slippery steps and out into the snowy garden, a small dark
shape in a world of white. Fox watched him out of sight, down around the bend,
before carefully shutting the door.
It had been everything he could wish.
