Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Fox
We hear the rumbles of the factories and the groaning of the mines before we reach the main town.
Here, the snow and ice has melted, reducing the roadways to thick bogs of mud.
The smog hangs more densely in the air and everything is dirty and gray – from the windows of the buildings to the faces of the people out on the streets.
We hug the shadows, avoiding the few people that pass us on the road splashing through the puddles.
Then I see the house in the distance. I have no idea if my family still lives there.
I don’t even know if they’re still alive.
That dead muscle in my chest sinks to my stomach.
I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve avoided them for so long.
I’ve been a truly awful son to them both.
But I’m here now. And I have to do it. For Briony’s sake. For all our sakes.
“Wait here,” I tell them, leaving them lingering at the back of the house as I stride down the old alleyway that weaves between the different houses and up to the front door.
Even after all this time, it’s still so familiar.
Like the face of an old friend – a little older, a little more weather-beaten, yet the same.
I reach out my hand and rest my fingertips on the old wood.
The house is not as decrepit or basic as Briony’s.
But now I see how frail and poorly built it is.
How insubstantial. There were times when the snow fell so heavily out here in Slate Quarter that my father would worry the roof would cave in.
There were times when the wind howled so brutally that it would seep in through the cobbled-together brickwork and we’d shiver around the fire, unable to get warm.
There were times when the water through the pipes would groan and creak and splutter brown, dirty and undrinkable.
I bow my head, thinking of the relative luxury I’ve lived in these last few years while they continued to struggle.
And I never helped them, never reached out to them.
I deserve to be shunned, and not just for what I’ve become but how I’ve behaved.
If they turn me away now, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if they turned us in to the authorities.
I take another deep inhale – force of habit; I don’t really need the air – and then I lift my fist and let it hang in front of the wood.
There’s more color in my skin. It’s not as icy pale or as ivory as it once was.
I don’t understand it, but I don’t have time to consider it.
I force myself to knock against the door.
Nothing happens for a long moment. There’s silence within, and I wonder if perhaps they are dead or gone, the house now empty. Then I hear shuffling in the hallway, shuffling behind the front door. It creaks open.
I expect my father. I’m ready for my father.
Ready for stern words and retributions, ones I utterly deserve.
Instead I’m greeted by the face of my mother.
So much older than before. Her once jet-black hair streaked with silver strands, her skin loose and creased, and her posture more stooped than it once was.
She squints up toward me, the stark outside light making her blink.
She’s probably struggling to see my face.
“Hi Mom,” I say, my voice croaking as I collapse against the doorframe, my whole body racked with sobs.
She takes a step closer, tilts her head back, squints up at my face. And then recognition swims through her blue eyes.
“Fox!” she gasps. “Fox, is that you?”
“Yes, Mom, it is. It’s me.”
And before I know what’s happening, I’m embraced, her arms encasing me. She clings to me, squeezing me tight as I sob onto her shoulder.
“Oh, Fox. My lovely boy,” she says, cradling my head, kissing my crown. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She pulls me inside, shutting the door behind me, pulling me into the front room of the house.
There are the old sofas, the sooty fireplace, the battered side board – nothing much has changed.
Behind this is the room with the stove and the larder and the stairs that lead to the two bedrooms upstairs.
There’s no bathroom inside, just an outhouse outside the back.
She leads me to the fire, standing me in front of it and taking a step back, surveying my face, my clothes, all of me.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says. “You didn’t tell me. Where’s Mervin, he’ll want to know you’re here.”
“Wait, Mom,” I say, “for just a moment.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks, freezing as I do so, peering down at the wetness on my fingers.
Vampires can’t cry. But I don’t have a chance to ponder that either, because my mother is firing questions at me.
And she is ignoring my instructions, calling for my father.
“He’s okay then?” I say. “You’re okay? You’re both okay? Healthy, I mean.”
My mother turns away from the staircase and smiles at me. A smile that’s been haunting me all these years. A smile I always loved as a child. I’d do anything when I was a kid to make her smile like that.
“We’re older, Fox Box,” she says. “A few more aches and pains. Your father has trouble with his knee, but nothing much has changed here. But you, tell me about you.” She strides back toward me and takes my hands in hers, squeezing them.
If she notices how cold my skin is, she doesn’t say anything. “We never heard from you,” she says.
“I know,” I say. It’s not exactly unusual.
Some kids from Slate go to the academy, they do well in the trials and they’re sent to a different Quarter – Iron or Granite, never Onyx.
Some take their families with them. Most don’t.
Most families never hear from those kids again.
I’m not so awful. And yet, I know that I am.
I open my mouth to tell her everything. Then I hear creaking on the staircase. It’s my dad. It takes him some time to negotiate the stairs. When he steps into the room, hobbling, I see my mom has downplayed the problem with his knee. Walking is difficult for him.
“What is it, Irene?” he begins, then halts when he sees me lurking by the fire. “Who’s this?”
My mother laughs. “It’s Fox, Mervin.”
“Fox?” my father says, taking a hobbled pace forward. “Fox!”
“Yes, Fox.”
“My Fox? My boy?”
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to–”
My father dismisses my words with a swish of his hands and wraps me in a tight embrace, hugging me to his frame.
I hug him back, fighting back more tears.
“You’ve had things to do, Fox. We know how it is.
We heard you’d been chosen to teach at the academy.
” He releases me and smiles – a smile full of pride.
Pride I’m going to have to smash now by telling them the truth.
“Things have been complicated and difficult,” I tell them. “I made some bad choices – some very bad choices – and I was too ashamed to come home and admit them to you.”
“Bad choices?” my dad says, frowning. “What bad choices?”
“I’m no longer human,” I tell them, because there’s no use skirting around the issue. “I’m a vampire now, with shadow-weaving abilities. It’s why they chose me to teach at the academy.”
My parents are both silent. I can see the horror and the shock in their faces.
I knew it would be like this. It’s what I imagined so many times before.
And I’m tempted to spin around and march straight to the door.
This was a mistake. Better I had left them with an image – with the memories of that golden boy who left for the academy all those years before – rather than crush their illusions.
“Oh,” my mom says finally. “Well… okay.”
“Okay?”
My father’s still frowning. “You said this was a bad choice, Fox. It’s something you regret now?”
“Very much so,” I say. “I was stupid, greedy, foolish. I wished for my life to be different. So I traded my soul to become what I am now. And I’ve regretted it ever since.”
“Can it be reversed?” my mother asks, and I think her distress is more for me than herself.
“No,” I say. “It is a decision I will have to live with.”
“We all make bad choices, Fox,” my dad says. “Ones we often have to live with. The main thing is that we recognize they were bad and we try to make amends.”
“I am,” I say. “I am trying to make amends. It’s the reason I’m here.”
They glance at each other, then back at me.
“There’s someone I need you to meet,” I tell them both.
“You brought someone with you?” my mom asks. Her gaze immediately darts around the room, inspecting imaginary mess and dirt.
“Mom, the house is fine. And actually, it’s more than one person.”
“Where are they?” she says.
“Waiting outside.”
Horror skates over her face. “Don’t leave them out in the cold, Fox! Bring them in! Bring them in!” And then she’s scurrying away to the kitchen and I can hear the stove already being lit.
I turn to my father.
“I have to be honest with you, Dad,” I say. “All of us have been declared traitors by the Empress. Being here puts you and Mom in danger.”
“Traitors?” my father says. “What have you done?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you?” he asks me. “Traitors?”
I shake my head. “Can I bring them in and we can explain?”
“Yes,” he says. “Bring them in.”
I stride to the door, down the alleyway, and find them all huddled by the backyard. Dray has a few words to tell me about leaving them in the cold. Beaufort has his arms around Briony, attempting to keep her warm.
Again, I consider if I’m doing the right thing. Briony means everything to me. But I have a responsibility to my family too, one I have severely neglected over these last few years. And doing this puts their lives in danger.
Then I hear my dad say, “Bring them in, Fox, quickly before they all freeze to death.”
I have them follow me inside. And then we’re all crowding in the small front room – Briony, the Princes, Briony’s friends, and her old dog.
The room looks substantially smaller with all of us in it.
My mom fusses around us all, insisting we take the sofas and the armchairs, finding a couple of wooden stools from the kitchen, plucking out an old bone from the garbage for the dog, and then passing around hot tea and homemade muffins.
The flour is poor. The butter, watery. But no one says anything. We’re all grateful.
And as the others eat and the dog chews greedily on the bone lying out by Briony’s feet, I explain everything to my parents, who, to their credit, take it all calmly.
“A lumomancer,” my mom says when I finish the story, her eyes lingering on Briony with a certain degree of awe.
“Yes,” I say. “And my fated mate.”
“Fated mate?” My mother nearly drops the teacup in her hand. “Fated mate? Really? I didn’t think any such things existed. I thought that was fairy tales.”
“Magic is a funny thing,” Beaufort says. “And it can tie us to the people that fate has determined are ours.”
“Ours?” my mother says next.
“We’re all tied together by fate, Mom,” I explain. “We’re all Briony’s mates.”
“All of you?” she gasps.
“Not me,” Fly points out, raising his hand.
“Or me,” Clare adds.
My mother waits to see if anyone else is going to speak. And when they don’t, she asks, “But the rest of you, all of you?”
“Yes,” we all say together.
“Oh, you poor child,” my mom says.
“Oh, she’s not a poor child,” Fly tells her. “She’s a very happy girl. Very, very happy.”
“Well,” my mom says, straightening her teacup. “Each to their own. I find one husband is more than enough.” She smiles at my dad, who smiles back warmly.
I see the love radiating between them and my mind flicks back to that hovel of Briony’s, and I realize just how damn lucky I was growing up here with them.
“And why have you come to Slate Quarter?” my dad asks next.
“To talk to the people,” Briony says, reaching down to tickle the dog’s head. “I think there might be other lumomancers among us, and if there are…” She trails off.
“And if there are?” my dad repeats. “What are you hoping will happen?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Briony says, “but I don’t think the system is fair. I don’t think the academy is either. Or the Quarters, or all of it. And then there are the demons. I think we, together, can destroy them forever.”
My dad whistles. “That’s an awful lot for one young woman to take on.” His eyes stray to mine. “It’s a lot to unravel.”
“It is,” Dray says, helping himself to another of my mom’s cakes. “But if anyone can do it, it’s Little Kitten.”
“‘Little Kitten’?” my mom says. I roll my eyes. “Well,” my mom rises to her feet and collects up all the teacups, “I don’t think any of that will be happening tonight. So why don’t I make us all some supper?”
“You want us to stay?” I ask.
“Of course,” my mom says, surprised by my question.
“It might not be safe,” I tell her.
She looks me square in the eyes. “All the more reason to stay, then, Fox.”