Foxheart by Claire Legrand Page B

into a babbling fool.
    â€œI suppose that’s true.”
    â€œI really will get you back to them, as soon as I know how.”
    â€œI know you will.”
    â€œIt shouldn’t take us long. Fox and I are already pretty good at this magic stuff.”
    Sly Boots smiled. “I noticed. So did the back of my head.”
    â€œWell, if you hadn’t been picking your nose . . . and you know, Fox gave me the idea, at least part of it—”
    â€œReally, it’s fine.”
    Quicksilver fell silent. It seemed wise to do so. She couldn’t seem to stop tripping over her own tongue. She stared up at the stars, her mouth in a hard line, until sleep had nearly taken her. Then an idea came to her. She shook Sly Boots’s arm.
    â€œI’m awake, you know,” he said.
    â€œI have an idea. Witches are alive in this time, right?”
    â€œYes . . .”
    â€œSo I reckon there are lots of witchy medicines and healing what-do-you-call-its all around the Star Lands. I’ll find out which ones we need—I’ll say, ‘Oh, Anastazia, please teach me about witchy what-do-you-call-its,’ and she’ll say, ‘Oh, of course, my brilliant and talented student,’ and she’ll tell me everything because she’ll want to show off—and then Fox and I’ll steal whatever we can find, and when we send you back to your parents, you’ll absolutely be able to make them better!” Quicksilver grinned at him. “You get your medicine, and I get to steal things. It’s the perfect plan.”
    Sly Boots stared at her. “You’d do that for me?”
    â€œNo, I’d do it for me , because stealing is fun. But it’d work out nicely for you too. Conveniently.”
    Sly Boots continued staring.
    Quicksilver shoved him. “What? Stop it.”
    Before Quicksilver could stop him, Sly Boots drew Quicksilver into a tight hug and then let her go at once. “Good night, Quicksilver,” he said, with a shy smile. “You’re a good friend.”
    â€œI’m not your friend.”
    â€œWell, all right. I suppose we haven’t known each other that long. But you will be. We will be, I think.”
    Then Sly Boots rolled over, and Quicksilver was left fuming until she fell hard into a dreamless sleep.

.16.
AC OOPERATIVE W ITCHLING

    F or the next day, and the day after that, Quicksilver and Fox spent their time learning how to be witch and monster, while Anastazia lounged on a rock in the sun, sometimes giving instructions and sometimes falling asleep in the middle of lunch.
    â€œAgain,” barked Anastazia, after Quicksilver and Fox’s fourth failed attempt at producing a successful glamour—a magical disguise that changed her face to look like someone else.
    â€œBut I’m tired,” whined Fox, collapsing dramatically in the middle of the clearing that had become their home. The thick stretch of oak trees that hid them from the road rustled lazily inthe warm breeze. “Can’t we work on this later? Perhaps we could be on our way to find the bones and practice as we go?”
    Quicksilver shot him a look. I don’t want to go yet!
    Ah, but I do, Fox replied. Magic practiced in a safe, quiet clearing doesn’t really count. We need to test ourselves! He paused, cocking his head to look at her. Are you frightened of leaving?
    All right, now you’re just being mean. Of course I’m not frightened. I just like it here, that’s all. But Quicksilver avoided Fox’s keen gaze, hoping he couldn’t sense the truth—that she was, in fact, the tiniest bit frightened of this unfamiliar, long-ago world.
    And that she worried that hunting for bones would rather get in the way of thieving.
    â€œOh, yes, Fox, what a grand idea,” said Anastazia, with an enormous roll of her eyes. “And what if we were to encounter the Wolf King on the road, with Quicksilver still getting worn out after only