“Duck.”
“Duck,” I repeated, “in some sort of sweet sauce, and roasted carrots and potatoes . . . Hey, didn’t you steal a roast duck from the baker’s windowsill once?”
He glanced rudely at me, the first time he’d looked at me since I’d entered. He was bare chested except for the bandage around his wound. He was trying really hard to make me feel like I was unwanted, I’d give him that, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t given him the same look a hundred times when he was a fox.
It was strange, but I think I missed him.
“C’mon, here’s a fork. You need to eat,” I said, offering him the utensil.
Finally, begrudgingly, he took the fork.
I ate a bit of duck and tried the roasted carrots. “It’s good to see you awake. Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah. Briath said you came to visit me a few times while I was asleep.”
“I didn’t want to wake you, so I left.” And when you weren’t asleep, I know you pretended to be, I thought, spearing another carrot. His hands looked strange without claws, and he kept running his tongue over his teeth, as if he expected to find sharp canines, but they weren’t there anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying.
He poked at the duck with the prongs of his fork. “For what?”
“For not being able to protect myself in the wood. If I’d just fought back against Wen, you probably wouldn’t have gotten cursed. I just . . . froze.” I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, Fox.”
I waited for him to agree that it was my fault, that I was weak and stupid, that all the trouble he’d been in was because of me, but . . . those words never came. Instead, he sighed and put his hand on my head, like my father used to when I was younger, a soft touch of affection. He said softly, “I would do it again to save you, Daisy.”
I pursed my lips tightly, trying not to cry. Again.
I ate the rest of the plate in silence.
Later that night, I came back Fox’s room to find him leaning against the window. He was looking out to something in the city. The sun had already set, bringing with it blue-and-black skies. He didn’t notice I was there until I almost tripped over my own feet, and then he turned around and smiled at me.
“Fancy seeing you again,” he greeted me. He was dressed in a simple dark shirt and trousers that were a little too big for him. His hair was tied back into a ponytail with a ribbon—one that I’d seen Briath wearing around earlier.
Oh, I’m glad he’s made a friend, I thought as I set down a tray full of food from the kitchens again—some sort of vegetable concoction that looked much less appetizing than the duck we’d eaten earlier.
Fox was clearly not interested. He made a face as soon as he bit into a leek. “Oh, that’s gross.”
“Not a fan?”
He eyed the food as if it were about to turn on him. “Nothing tastes like I remember it.”
I poked at what looked like a carrot, but I couldn’t be sure. “Does it taste that bad?”
“Most things, no. This? Yes.”
“Huh. I just thought you’d lost your appetite when you turned human.”
“Lost my appetite?” He leaned forward. “Daisy, I love food—there’s hardly a thing I love more. If I could marry a meat pie, I would—why are you laughing?”
“I’m just trying to picture the sort of meat pie who would marry someone like you.”
“I’d make a nice meat pie quite happy, thank you,” he replied haughtily, taking a knife from the tray, and cut off a slice of eggplant. He held the utensils like Wen did, I noticed, his forefingers along the backs of the fork and knife. The proper way had been drilled into her by her etiquette instructor. The same woman who scolded her every time she muddied the hem of her dress.
He took two bites before he noticed me staring. “Is there something wrong?”
“Oh no. Just . . . I have a lot on my mind.”
He moved the food around on the plate, like I did with green peas I didn’t want to eat, to try to trick Papa into thinking I did. “I guess you’ve asked the leader here in Voryn for help already.”
“I did—the day you awoke.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I replied with a sigh, and told him what had happened at the meeting while we pushed this horrible vegetable concoction around on our plates. I ended up pouring myself a cup of tea and calling that my dinner for the night.
“Well,” he said, sniffing at what looked like a tree of broccoli, “it seems like things got a whole lot more complicated, Daisy.”
I scoffed. “You think? I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to go.” I frowned into my tea. “I thought this would be it, but Voryn is no more able to deal with the curse of the wood than we are. I just don’t understand it, Fox. In all the stories we have of Voryn, they live free of the curse. The Lady protects them against it. But where’s the Lady? The Grandmaster isn’t telling us something. I can feel it—about the woodcurse.”
“Technically, you can cure it,” he pointed out.
“Sure, if I had enough blood for every person in Aloriya,” I said, and then fell silent.
“There has to be another way.”
“And if there’s not?”
“There is,” he replied, so surely that I almost believed him. “Didn’t you say that Grandmaster or whatever told you that she’d act if we got proof that the woodcurse had grown stronger? I don’t know what kind of help she’d give us, but it’s gotta be better than us going back to the wood alone.”
“And how are we going to get that before they kick us out of the city now that we’re almost healed? We don’t have the crown, we don’t have any way out of the city—”
“Well, it’s a good thing I have an idea, then,” Fox said.
I was a little afraid to ask, but I did anyway. “What . . . sort of idea?”
He grinned, all white teeth and trouble. “How opposed are you to stealing?”
Oh. Oh no.
“Fox, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m sure the guards will be all over us if we go anywhere. We’re Aloriyans in Voryn, and as far as I can tell, all the stories I’ve heard are wrong. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust me either if I came here with magical blood and a crown—”
“That’s why we need to throw them off our scent,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows, and pushed himself off the bed.
I put the covers back on the plates and set the tray on the floor. “What do you mean?”
“There are lights down in the city. It looks like a market. I’d say we should start by going and finding some actual food.”
“What, you didn’t have your fill of the vegetable surprise?”
“Daisy, it tastes like old shoes.”
“I’ve seen you chew on an old shoe, so I believe you.”
He rolled his eyes and outstretched his arm for me to take.
“Well, Daisy? Are you gonna come with me, or do I have to do this all by myself?”
Then he grinned. And oh, what a dangerous look that was, trouble tucked into the corners of his mouth like sin. I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure what taking his arm would mean. We were supposed to stay in the building, and stay out of trouble, and leave the city.