Foxheart by Claire Legrand Page A

eye. You follow that, and you’ll go north, because that’s where all the snow bears live, in the Far North.” He sighed. “It’s funny. I don’t think I believed her, until now. Anastazia? I thought she’d spelled us into some odd witch land that only looked like home but wasn’t really home. But seeing these stars, stars I’ve seen all my life . . . I don’t think even witches could make stars look that real. And besides, if I squint really hard when I look at her, I can see you in her face.”
    Quicksilver harrumphed. “Her nose isn’t the same. It’s all swollen and crooked.”
    â€œI suppose she must have gotten hurt a lot, fighting the Wolf King.”
    The Wolf King. Yes, Anastazia had spent a lot of time fighting the Wolf King, or so she said, and now she wanted Quicksilver to do the same—though Quicksilver couldn’t fathom how, or even why , she would do such a thing. So far the only witch Quicksilver cared about was herself—her selves —and she didn’t see why they had to bother helping anyone else.
    As long as she and Anastazia stayed away from the Wolf King, what did it matter what happened to the other witches? If they were stupid enough to get themselves hunted, then why did it fall to Quicksilver to help them?
    No one had ever helped her .
    She glared up at the sky. She hadn’t thought of her parents once since arriving here, in this new time, but now that things were calm enough to think, her thoughts wandered to them. As she so often had when she was younger, she tried to remember their faces—perhaps her mother had gray hair too. Perhaps her father had a squashed nose. A crooked smile. A dimple or two.
    She turned over on the hard ground, trying to shrink theache in her heart through sheer force of will. Out of everything she could do, she was best at that, maybe even better than she was at stealing—bearing down on the little hurts inside her to keep them from getting bigger and swallowing her whole.
    â€œAre you nervous?” Sly Boots asked. His voice was soft, but it still startled Quicksilver.
    â€œNo,” she said. She paused. “Nervous about what?”
    â€œAbout fighting the Wolf King.”
    â€œOh, him?” Quicksilver let out a breezy laugh. “To be honest, I haven’t thought much about him.”
    â€œ I’d be nervous.”
    â€œWell, that’s you, isn’t it? I’m not afraid of anything. You can’t be afraid of anything, if you want to be a good thief.”
    â€œYou’re lucky,” Sly Boots said with a sigh. “I’m afraid of everything. Always have been.”
    Quicksilver turned over to look at him. In the moonslight, Sly Boots seemed rather unlike himself—more freckled, but not so sad and hopeless, and with a serious, grown-up sort of look in his eyes that made Quicksilver feel as though she had never seen him before. She wished he would spit out that stupid piece of grass. Her head buzzed from working with Fox all afternoon, and the grass was distracting her. Every sound seemed magnified; her limbs ached.
    â€œSly Boots?”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œI’m sorry about your parents. You must feel awful.” As soon as she spoke, Quicksilver flushed. Who was she to be sorry? She hadn’t hurt his parents. She didn’t have parents at all. She pounded the ground with her fist. “You know. For not being able to help them, and not being able to steal anything for them, and for mucking up that job in the first place.”
    â€œI do feel awful,” said Sly Boots. “But thank you for being sorry. I don’t usually have anyone to say they’re sorry for me.”
    â€œMe, neither. I like being alone, though. When you’re alone, people can’t hurt you.” Quicksilver dug her fingers into the dirt. She really needed to go to sleep and stop saying such things. Her pounding head was turning her