Chapter 20
The tiger was faded, its orange-and-black fur a dusty gray. When it moved, it dragged the shadows behind it like a cape. Its furious blue eyes burned as it stalked toward them.
“It could be made of silk, like Smudge was,” Mouse offered weakly.
“Yes, but I am just as unequipped against a silk tiger as I am against a fur one,” Thornwood replied. The tiger’s claws glinted. They were long, and the tips looked sharp. “Besides, those do not seem like silk.”
They both backed away slowly.
“Did your uncle ever tell you what to do if you saw a tiger in the wild?”
“Shoot it,” Mouse said. “Cruel advice, but sound, I suppose, if you have a bloody gun.”
“Perfect,” he said.
A rumbling growl billowed from behind the creature’s jaws. Mouse took a step back, and Thornwood did as well, holding her around the hips to steady them both.
“Do not look away,” Mouse said. “I know you should not look away.”
The tiger’s eyes bored into hers. She felt she could see into the creature’s soul; in return, it could see straight through into hers.
Under its gaze she was a child at the V&A, her face pressed to the glass as she looked in on “Tipu’s Tiger.
” It was an automaton of a tiger crouched on top of the figure of a European soldier, its teeth at his neck.
When turned on, the instrument wailed in an imitation of the man’s cries.
Mouse had been both terrified and fascinated by it, and here, she finally understood what it would be like to be the soldier, rather than the tiger.
Thornwood trod on a twig. It snapped. The cat’s gaze shot downward, its pupils widening.
Mouse could feel its next move seconds before it sprang, and she threw herself at Thornwood just as it pounced.
As it flew past them, its form shifted midair into that of a wolf.
The wolf was large, with a head as big as a washtub.
It prowled up the path, matching the tiger’s stance with its teeth bared and head low.
Even in its new form, its eyes remained the same, shockingly human and blue.
“Another of your uncle’s trophies?” Thornwood asked.
“Yes. It’s from my uncle’s bedroom. He killed it while he was in Prussia.”
“Any other animals we should keep in mind?”
“He mostly hunted deer on the estate before the war.”
“No elephants, then?”
“He never made it to Africa.”
“Good. I would not want to fight an angry stag, but it would be much less difficult than an elephant or a lion.”
As he spoke, the wolf’s features began to change. Its snout shortened, and Mouse gasped in horror.
“There is a polar bear,” she said. “In the attic.”
Before the words completely left her lips, the creature had transformed into a great bear.
Its fur was dark with dust, but it was at least three times the size of the wolf and twice the size of the tiger.
Lumbering, it rose onto its back legs. Its jaws opened, and the sound that emerged shriveled Mouse’s remaining calm.
“Thornwood,” she whimpered.
Lightning arced out from his palm, striking the bear squarely on the nose. The magic sparked out, like a blown electrical circuit, then faded into nothing.
“I cannot summon any stronger magic,” he groaned.
The bear huffed out what sounded almost like a laugh, then dropped to its feet. Clouds of gray smoke rose around it and licked the sides of the trees.
Mouse clutched at her clothes, trying to tether her will to walking slowly backward, even as all her senses urged her to run.
Thornwood skirted around her, maneuvering so he was between her and the bear before mirroring her movements.
They finally made it back to the main path.
Mouse clung to the childish hope that the creature would disappear once it touched the trail.
The bear stalked them, its dinner-plate paws disfiguring the dirt. Mouse could see the hole where the bullet went through its chest, high up near the base of its neck.
A hunting horn blew from somewhere in the distance. The bear reared back as if struck, then darted away into the trees. Neither Mouse nor Thornwood moved. Mouse held her breath, waiting for the bear to tear back to them, but it did not. Instead, the horn blew again, closer this time.
“We need to get off the path,” Mouse said, fear sliding like ice down her throat. Whatever had the horn was powerful enough to scare away that bear, and Mouse did not want to stand in its way.
“But what about what happened to you when you left the path?” Thornwood asked.
“The tingling did not start until I was a few feet away from it. Stay close, and we should be fine.”
The desperation in Mouse’s voice was enough to convince Thornwood to follow her into the shelter of low-hanging trees. Nettles bit through Mouse’s clothes as she crawled into the hiding place, pricking her arms and legs.
The nettles sprang out of the way to avoid Thornwood. Mouse glared.
“There has to be some benefit to being a Faerie lord,” he said. “Power over nettles is useless outside of this moment. I’m not even doing it on purpose.”
The hoofbeats of many hooves on stone drifted up the path.
Then, they came into view: a hunt, like the one in the tapestry, shining gold as the sun.
A troop of at least fifty men paraded down the trail.
Some were on horses, while others rode in carriages or marched on foot.
Long ribbons drifted from the spears they held aloft, and the muzzles of their guns dug into their legs.
The sight was so arresting that it was only when Mouse looked down to rest her eyes that she saw the entire host was floating three inches above the ground.
The horses’ hooves clattered against the open air.
The men who ran alongside them had no feet, their legs ending just above the ankle, and the carriages floated.
She recognized the faces of some of the men. Their portraits populated the walls of Thistlemarsh Hall, glaring down at Mouse whenever she passed beneath their painted noses.
The man at the front blew the horn again. The sound rattled in Mouse’s head. Then the group was past them and out of sight.
“We were right to hide,” Thornwood said. “Those were spirits. I do not think they can differentiate between the animal they hunt and us.”
“The animal is already dead.”
“That hardly matters to a spirit. The only thing they know is that they must hunt, and if the trophy creature is their prey, they will keep hunting it.”
“They’re all trapped, then, the hunters and the creature.”
“Yes, although only the creature is smart enough to recognize it.”
“You speak as if you have seen an enchantment like this before,” Mouse said.
“Now that I know what it is, I can recognize it. It’s a Tapestry Hunt, one of the Faerie King’s favorite spells. He would usually trap living humans rather than dead ones, but the spellwork here is much the same.”
“What was the spell’s purpose when the Faerie King used it?”
“Entertainment, mostly.” Thornwood closed his eyes, pressing his hand into his forehead as he thought. “It’s been at least two centuries since I have seen one. They fell out of fashion just before I was born, although the King kept a few to roll out on special occasions.”
“Any information at all might help.”
“I am trying. I have never been inside one so old, and even then, I only ever attended as a guest.”
“A guest?”
“Yes, these spells are designed so the King and any observers he should wish to bring along could view the hunt from inside.”
Mouse thought of the tapestry in Thistlemarsh’s entry hall, and the Faerie faces leering at the oblivious hunters. She was always fond of them, despite their malicious oddness. Now, she felt sick.
“Where would you watch, as a guest?” she asked.
“The Tapestry Hunts I attended were more elaborate than this. We would usually have silk chairs and tents.”
The horn blew again. An anguished yowl pieced the air, freezing Mouse’s blood. Then the forest went silent.
“They caught the creature,” Thornwood said. Pity studded his words. “We must go. Who knows if it will resurrect close by?”
Mouse followed him back onto the path. They traced their steps, quickly finding the hidden fork in the road. Although she was afraid of the creature, she was more afraid of the hunters. With every step, she strained to hear the horn.
They turned the final bend, and Mouse screamed.
The bear lay across the path in a pool of dark blood. The hole in its chest oozed from where the bullet hit it in life. Its eyes stared outward, blank and unseeing.
She tiptoed to the creature, ignoring Thornwood’s protest. Its fur flattened beneath her hands, and its skin was cold.
More than one wound marked its body. A long cut followed the curve of its hind leg, and a matching one slashed its shoulder. Another bullet wound pierced the back of its head, just above the ear.
Thornwood’s hand closed around Mouse’s arm, and she jerked back onto her feet.
“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “That creature might resurrect any moment.”
“I think we are on the guest part of the tapestry right now,” she said.
He stared at her blankly. “It seems as though this part is meant to be separate from the track the hunters are on. I think that originally, those trapped in the spell were not meant to find this area. It was meant for observing Faeries.”
He nodded. His face scrunched as though he was still trying to catch up with her reasoning. “It is possible.”
“And that’s why we could walk off the path in that section of the tapestry—the enchanter would not want their guests hurt.”
Thornwood nodded. “It does make sense in many ways, but if that is the case, it should not have been that easy for us to find it.”
“Unless the magic is overgrown.” Mouse gestured to the path. “You said magic becomes unpredictable with age. What if this Tapestry Hunt is unpredictable and the magic keeping the guest path separate from the rest of the spell has eroded? Could that explain why we can see it?”