CHAPTER 20 #2
“We’ve not had a new fox maiden for decades. We’re a tight little clan, the House of Foxes. Just eight of us, if you’ll believe, but we make it work. You’ll fit right in. Saskia,” Nancy called back. “Come meet the new girl.” And, in an undertone Emma suspected was not meant for her: “Be nice.”
The other fox maiden straightened from helping the Librarian into a seat and stalked over. Her trousers bristled with buckles and ended in well-worn combat boots. She leaned back on one hip, arms crossed. The look she gave Emma was ambivalent in the extreme.
“Hi,” she said eventually.
Saskia’s hair was an explosion of spikes, standing straight out in jet-black glory. She’d shaved the sides, leaving a layer of soft stubble. Within a ring of eyeliner, her eyes were fiercely, deeply blue. Emma took in the high cheekbones and diamond jawline, the layers of leather and studs.
She looked Emma over. “You were trapped as a fox? Brutal.”
“That didn’t happen to you?”
Nancy squeezed her arm. “Night above, no.”
Emma’s breath came faster. “So what happens next?”
Saskia winced and pulled at her silver choker. It was cutting into her skin. The closer Emma looked, the less it looked like a necklace. There was no clasp, no way to unfasten it. It was more like a collar.
The Sister sighed. “Where to begin? Easier to start with the basics, perhaps. The Night City is a power, girl. Intelligent, ingrained in the earth around us. It has always existed in this stretch of land, if the records do not lie. Our hidden world grew around it. Ancient mortals worshipped it. Later ones built their town and their University on top of it. Mortals have been calling on the power of the City for centuries, most without even knowing. The inspirations and discoveries that make the University famous? All drawn from the City’s power—for a price.
And the mortals do pay, little though they know it.
You follow, girl? Over centuries, more mortals came, and the City’s power grew.
It surrounded itself with its Court, laid down its laws.
As citizens, we live under its protection.
In return, we must pledge our loyalty. The Oath is the rite that binds you to the City, so its power can live in you. ”
“Will it hurt? Is it—dangerous?”
The Librarian’s hand was on her arm, gentle as a landing dove. “We will be with you, child.”
The little servant was at the door. “Mistress? The tailors’ve sent word. Her things’re ready. Should we have the Boars come to guard her?”
“No, please. I can do all that is necessary.” The Sister drew out the silver chain Emma had seen earlier. “Your wrist, Emma?” She lowered her voice. “You trust I will not harm you, girl?”
The silver chain snaked around Emma’s wrists like a living thing, sealing itself in a shining circle. The Sister held the other end and tugged her forward.
Emma tried not to imagine her progress through the corridors as a walk to the scaffold.
She looked around, determined on distraction.
This part of the servants’ halls was busier.
She saw a flurry of white-aproned maids, whose feet peeped from under their hems in an unexpected variety of hoofs, talons, and paws.
Sweating footmen hefted platters, four men to a dish, that held strange confections: a spun-sugar swan with a golden beak; an improbably tall tower of tomatoes that hummed with a chorus of small voices; and a meat roast they had dressed to look like a winged dragon.
The roast bent its head to spit a shower of sparks onto the nearest footman.
He patted frantically at the singed patches on his moss-colored wig and livery.
Emma slowed to stare, but the Librarian nudged her onward.
“It would be well not to show your surprise, child. The Court has a liking for tender meat. Let them not find it in you.”
Emma shivered and schooled her face to stillness.
The tailor’s chambers were vast: at least nine dressing platforms, and rack upon rack of dresses and doublets. All in plain, sturdy cloth and sensible colors. Servant’s colors.
Emma stood with arms stretched on her dressing platform, as a seamstress tugged a dull brown gown into place. She peered to the side. The Sister, the Librarian, and the fox maidens were huddled in conference at the door, out of earshot.
Emma kept her voice low. “Make the bodice loose and the hem shorter. No, even shorter than that. Above the boot.”
The seamstress grunted and knelt. She made quick work of the seam, even with one hand shaped like an eagle’s talon. Emma twisted and found she could move freely. Now this was a dress she could run in.
“Turn,” the seamstress croaked, and Emma obeyed.
A voice rang across the room.
“I am sent for the fox maiden. All is prepared for the Oath.”
At the sight of a green tunic, her heart leapt. But it was not her messenger. It was another, who looked her over with a bored expression. Emma clenched her hands and found them slick with sweat. It was time.
The seamstress twitched a last seam into place. “All done. Just needs the final touch. This.” She held out a charming little shell on a chain. Her eyes gleamed.
“With your dark hair—oh, it would be the Night’s own beauty on you. If you had this, you’d look so pretty, no one’d hear a word you say.”
Emma looked at the shell dangling from her claw. She had never seen a necklace so delicate. She could almost feel how it would warm against her skin.
“I think only my gown is paid for.”
The seamstress’s laugh was a caw. “No need for coin. Something from me to you. Go on, take it.”
Emma stretched out her hand. Steps sounded behind her, and her wrist was knocked aside.
The Sister stood there, gray hair in snarls around her shoulders. “Be off,” she growled at the seamstress.
The creature scuttled away, with a nasty smile for Emma. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
Emma’s arm dropped to her side. “What was that?”
“That, girl, was you being a mortal-addled fool. Everything has a price in the Night City. Remember that.”
The Sister’s good eye was steady and clear. “City dwellers do not give, as a rule. Almost always, a gift they offer will be a bargain in disguise. And the worse for it. You’re lucky I overheard, before that harpy tricked you into giving your voice away for a bauble.”
“My voice?” Emma’s hands flew to her throat.
“Oh, it was cleverly worded. All the better to hide the trap. Words are weapons here, girl. Be on your guard.”
Emma rewound the seamstress’s words as she was marched from the tailor’s, her wrists bound by the Sister’s silver chain. If you had this, you’d look so pretty, no one’d hear a word you say. Cleverly worded indeed.
The messenger had been the same. There was a trick to this world, she realized.
The precise words chosen. The ones left unsaid.
Every sentence a web to catch the unwary.
And she would not survive if she stayed the person she had been.
So trusting, so happy to follow. Whatever the ordeal to come, she would have to match cunning with cunning.
To lay out words like hunters’ snares. And if the thought of it clawed at her like grief, what then?
She would not be their prey. So she would have to be their equal.
The Sister flicked the silver chain. It uncoiled from Emma’s wrists and slithered back to the Sister’s purse. They had halted before a wood-paneled chamber. Inside, figures in robes and fluffy green wigs flurried around. Wax seals and gavels lay strewn across desks.
The messenger led them to a corner. The sheep-faced clerk there glanced up with such boredom, Emma’s racing heart slowed.
This was hardly the look of someone expecting to lead a dark ceremony.
There were no burning brands on the desk, no goblets of blood.
Just a pile of papers. The clerk pushed a stack over to Emma.
“Say this.”
Emma bent over the parchment. The top sheet had a few lines written in large script. But underneath were many more pages, packed with tiny text.
“What about the rest?”
“That is merely the details of the contract. The only piece you need to say is here.”
“No, I want to read it. The whole thing.”
The clerk spluttered. “You have the right, but—”
Emma ignored them and stooped over the contract.
The language was almost impenetrable, but flashes of meaning gleamed out between clauses.
She blessed her diligent, determined law lecturers.
Despite her best efforts, they seemed to have taught her something.
She managed to decipher some terms of her service.
She was swearing loyalty to the Night City and obedience to its laws.
She must abide within the City and never leave.
In return she was to receive her rights as a citizen, and a new life as a fox maiden.
She read that fox maidens earned their wages as huntresses for the Night City.
She would have a wage, then. That was a relief, knowing she might have something of her own to trade with, or perhaps to bribe her way out.
It was difficult to tell what form those earnings would take, and what the hunting duties entailed.
The language became obscure, laced with complex references to payment and debt.
Emma let the last sheet fall. The terms bound her to the Night City and to the House of Foxes, on pain of death. The word “eternity” had appeared several times.
Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She had to choose a path.
She’d never done it when she was mortal, when it should have been easy.
She had lived where her mother had taken her and moved when she was told.
She had changed her degree at the University at her father’s insistence and stayed on a course she hated, too afraid to choose for herself.
Now she had a decision. Under her hand, the words that would seal an eternity of service.
Outside, a life of running from monsters in the shadows, never safe enough to rest.
She could crumble, or she could decide. That whatever she chose, she would have the strength to find her way back to her mortal life.
The contract in front of her was only words, after all.
And words were malleable things. She could spin them to her advantage, just as the creatures here did.
It was a strange feeling, the certainty that coursed through her.
She had never thought anyone would believe in her—least of all, herself.
Emma picked up the parchment. She got the first line out with only a slight waver.
“I pledge myself to the service of the Night City.”
The clerk rose, a tab of silver in their hands. They pressed it to Emma’s neck, and the metal slid around it, a molten snake. The pain was instant. Light flared from her throat.
“I—I pledge myself to the House of Foxes,” she continued.
She had to force the words. The collar was a vise.
Agony seared her skin, until she could no longer tell which part of her screamed at its touch.
Colors danced before her eyes. She would die of it, she was sure.
She struggled upright, fighting her spine’s cries to curl in on itself. She spat the final phrase.
“I am Emma Curran.
“By my will
“This contract is sealed.”
As quick as it had arrived, it was gone. The pain, the screaming in her blood. The collar lay around her neck, quiet and cool to the touch.
The doors to the chamber crashed open, hard enough to splinter. Four boar-men shoved through the entryway. With them was the tailor. Pointing at Emma.
“That’s her.”
Emma’s lips had peeled from her teeth. A hissing came from her throat.
The Boars were knocking clerks aside, gavels and quills flying, clearing a path to her.
She leapt for the nearest desk, papers scattering beneath her scrabbling limbs.
But unseen hands dragged her back, legs flailing, arms scratching at anything she could find.
bite them claw them kill they will kill
“Unhand her.” The Sister’s voice cut through the hubbub. “What is the meaning of this?”
A growl burst from Emma’s throat, rising to a screech. Two Boars had her, one on either side.
trapped
hurt them bite
blood on claws and jaws
“She is being taken to trial,” said the tailor.
“Trial?” the Sister growled. “For what? By whose order?”
“The Judge decides her fate.” The tailor cackled.
The Librarian stood stricken. Behind him, Saskia and Nancy scrabbled through their pockets.
“We don’t have enough.” Saskia sprang into motion. “I’ll run back to the House of Foxes. Enough coin there for a bribe—to keep her from the cells, at least.”
The Boars almost had Emma to the door. Close up, a stink rolled off them: sweat-grimed leather, the undertone of old blood. The fox’s voice was a shriek in her mind.
hunters
they will kill
they will kill
“Emma!” The Sister was jogging alongside. “Say nothing. We will follow to the courtroom. But you must not—”
Emma could not hear the rest. The Boars shoved the Sister against the chamber door and dragged Emma backward. She bucked against their hold. No matter how she kicked, her feet only slithered across the smooth stone floor. On they went, through corridors hushed as a mausoleum.
Above her, the ceiling became dark, jagged rock.
Twisted shapes cavorted among the cracks, carvings of trees and beasts warped by time.
She recognized none of it, and knew she had no idea where they had brought her.
If they released her, she would not even know which way to run.
The growl in her throat died to a whine.
The Boars pulled her on, deep into the underbelly of the Court.