Legacy of the Claw (23 page)

BAILEY WALKED QUICKLY OVER the rocks and mossy crags, out again into the woods. His breath stung in his lungs and he felt a sharp chill as the light faded. He hadn't bothered to bring a lamp with him, but he felt reassured by the mysterious claw he clutched deep in his pocket. The snow clouds he'd seen over campus had released their hold, and flakes of white danced in the air around him.

Somewhere overhead a bird cried and Bailey was reminded of the vulture, its wing damaged and bloody. He began to run, both scared and exhilarated as he vaulted himself off of the tops of the rocks. He had no inclination to stick to the dirt road that the teachers used to get into the woods—his urgency drove him into the trees. He was farther from the school than he'd ever been, and he felt stronger now—or more reckless—after his outing in the woods just a few hours prior.

He knew this was dangerous, but he had no other choice now that he'd lost the Glass and the book. Getting answers about his Animas seemed worth the risk.

As Bailey hurried on, the rocks grew larger and slick with wet leaves. Finally, he found an open grove just past the curve of the stream. This was the spot on the map in the mysterious note. He charged down the slope and stopped at the edge of the trees. The grove was empty, and his heart beat so quickly it felt like a creature all its own. He could feel the cold in his fingertips.

But something else besides the cold made Bailey pause. A slender woman in a tailored coat stepped into the grove. A lumbering herd of bears and wolves followed her into the clearing, then stood at attention. The woman pulled back the hood of her coat, and Bailey saw the shiny blond bob of Ms. Sucrette.

A harsh wind sounded above, and an entire kettle of vultures careened into the clearing. They settled onto the branches and gazed down, cold and knowing. A young vulture with piercing black eyes flew down and onto Ms. Sucrette's slim shoulder. Bailey realized her customary bluebirds were nowhere to be seen.

“Ms. Sucrette?” he said. “Why are
you
here?”

Ms. Sucrette reached into the pocket of her overcoat and drew out a gleaming knife.

“So, Mr. Walker,” she said, her voice light and airy even then. “You received my note.”

IF ANYONE WITH A keen eye had happened to glance out the window of the now-empty Latin classroom, they might have seen four suspicious-looking figures darting through the falling snow. This person might have thought nothing of the gaunt professor and three worried students hurrying out toward the teachers' quarters. But in Tremelo's mind, the windows of the classroom buildings were full of closely watching eyes. The destruction of Sucrette's office had lodged a stone of worry in him that would not be shaken loose. He couldn't piece it all together yet, but he knew two things: first, that he had to find Bailey before any harm came to him, and second, that it was very likely to be a deadly night.

He rushed up the narrow staircase to his quarters. Hal, Tori, and Phi followed behind him, nearly breathless. The floor of his apartment in the carriage house was covered in angrily strewn papers, and the books he'd overturned lay opened with bent pages. He left the students in his sitting room and threw open the door to a cramped closet. He grabbed his spring-loaded bow and the quiver of arrows he'd stashed there the night Tori and Bailey had been attacked by a wolf, as well as a handful of other objects. The two girls waited together next to the armchair, watching his every move. Hal stood, stiff and alert, by the door.

“I have my own ideas about where our friend might be,” Tremelo said, looking carefully at each of the students' faces. “But if any of you know of a particular place
besides
the woods, then do speak up.”

As he'd expected, no one said anything to the contrary.

He placed the bow and quiver down and handed Hal a bag of objects that looked very similar to stony, chipped marbles.

“You'll be able to make good use of these with your hearing,” he said. “They're stunners. If anything approaches you in the dark, launch one of these. Once they collide with something, they'll explode, and a flashing light will stun your opponent. Just don't let them get set off within five feet of yourself, or you'll be blind for a good ten seconds—blinder than you already are, that is. Got it?”

Hal weighed the bag in his hand. “Got it,” he said.

Tremelo turned to the girls. “We'll have to find something for you two as well,” he said. But just then, he felt a tug of awareness— Fennel had caught Bailey's scent in the woods.

It was difficult to channel Fennel's experiences when he was this anxious, though this was when his concentration mattered the most. Tremelo took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He saw a green light begin to glow, like a photograph being slowly developed. He felt the wet grass beneath Fennel's paws and tracked Bailey's scent, in a way that no human nose ever could. But where was Fennel running?

A sharp knock on the door yanked Tremelo out of his concentration. Phi and Hal looked wide-eyed toward the entrance; Tremelo noticed that Tori didn't look scared, but determined.

“Did you see anything?” she asked him in a whisper.

Before he could answer, Headmaster Finch walked in. His brow was tightly knit as he cast a glance over the room. Tremelo realized he was still holding an assortment of weapons, and that his bow and arrows were leaning on the wall behind him. Hal slowly pulled the bag of stunners behind his back.

“I require an immediate explanation from you, Tremelo,” Finch said as he pushed up his wire-frame glasses. “Just what is going on here?”

“An explanation  …  of course,” said Tremelo. His hands shook. Somewhere, Bailey was in grave danger. “Perhaps over a pint of Dust Plains moonshine? I believe we have mutual acquaintances in the Gray who could procure such a thing.”

“I don't partake in prohibited behavior, and I'm sure I have no idea what you're referring to—” He would've likely continued, but a girl poked her head in from the hallway. She was about thirteen, Tremelo guessed—with bright red, cropped hair.

“I'm so sorry to interrupt,” she said. She squeezed her way into the crowded room and looked around, pausing on Tremelo. “Is this the professor?” she asked Finch.

“It is,” Finch replied. “Tremelo, you have visitors who demanded to see you at once. She and the gentleman have just arrived on a rigi from Parliament.” Finch gestured to an old man who appeared at the doorway, just behind the girl. He looked frail, but he stood tall and walked on his own.

“I'm Elder Finn,” said the old man, “and this is my apprentice, Gwen.”

“I have other things to attend to and will leave you to your guests,” Finch said. “But we
will
discuss why these students are here with so many dangerous objects at their disposal.” He muttered to himself as he exited down the stairs, and left the strangers at the entrance of Tremelo's sitting room.

Before the old man could speak, Tremelo grabbed the bow from where he'd put it down. Tori and Phi moved toward the door.

“I'm sorry to delay the satisfaction of my
immense
curiosity,” Tremelo said, flexing the bow to check its tension, “but these students and I have a very urgent appointment, so if you don't mind—”

“I am a friend of your father's,” the old man interrupted. “And what I have to say is most important. And sensitive  … ” He paused, casting a sidelong glance at the students in the room.

“Say it quickly, then. And don't worry about these three. They know how to keep a secret.”

“This belongs to you?” the Elder gestured to the girl, Gwen. She reached into her coat pocket and brought out the gold charm that Tremelo had given Bailey so many weeks before. It was the familiar letters of his name and the shape of the sleeping fox.

“How do you have that?” he asked.

“It was a mistake,” said the girl.

The Elder stepped forward. “Your confusion is understandable, but forgive me—the more pressing question is how
you
came to have it. This is where you got your name, yes?”

“It
is
my name, always has been,” said Tremelo. “Just as I've always had that.”

The Elder smiled. He leaned on Gwen's arm, and for a moment Tremelo thought the old man would faint.

“Are you all right?” Tremelo asked.

“I'm more than all right.” The old man cleared his throat; Tremelo saw his eyes were bright with tears. “I knew the man you call your father, Thelonious Loren, long before he became known as the Loon. He was childless. He had no son.”

“Then you knew him before I was born.”

The Elder shook his head and placed a hand on Tremelo's arm. “You have no memory of the first five years of your life, do you?” he asked.

Tremelo's stomach tightened reflexively. “Many people don't.”

“And perhaps it's best that you never did. It would've been difficult to know at such a young age  … ” The Elder lifted the pendant from Gwen's hand. “He must have rescued you from the palace, just as I rescued your sister before she was taken from me. He knew your true identity and kept it a secret. But he left you clues, so that you would find your destiny when the time was right. His prophecies—they were true all along, because he knew that he was protecting the true king.”

The Elder lay the pendant flat in his own hand, and pointed a bony finger to the widely spaced letters on it:
TRE MELO
.

“I know this pendant. I remember fetching it from the jeweler on the night you were born. Your father somehow knew that you'd be Animas Fox, like him. But some of the letters have worn off—very likely in the fire that caused us all to flee the palace that terrible night. Look.”

The Elder ran his fingers along the letters again, pausing between the existing ones.

“Trent Melore.” The Elder raised his eyes to meet Tremelo's. “The sleeping fox, awake at last.”

Tremelo backed away from the Elder. What the man was saying was madness. But before he could speak, the Elder sank down to one knee.

“What are you doing?” Tremelo felt that the air in the room had grown thin.

“My dear, lost boy,” the Elder said. “I was taught to always bow before a king.”

AN ASSORTMENT OF BEARS, wolves, coyotes, and badgers stood in a semicircle behind Sucrette. Bailey's head spun with fear and confusion. How was she doing this? It was clear now that the bluebirds had never been her real kin—but how had she controlled them, or any of these animals? Behind him, Bailey heard low growls from the direction he'd just come from.

“Wh-why are they acting like this?” Bailey stuttered, eyeing the tree line for an escape.

“They obey me because I am better than they are,” Sucrette said matter-of-factly. “Silly Bailey. You were much easier to catch than I'd even imagined! Your hunger for an Animas makes you weak.”

“What do you want?” Bailey asked. His throat felt dry. The surrounding animals horrified him. They stared at him with empty eyes, cut off from their own will. This couldn't be the Animas bond as Tremelo described it. He knew in his bones that this was something different, something evil.

“I have what I want,” Sucrette said. She revealed Tremelo's book from beneath her coat, and pulled the Glass out of her pocket.

“No,” Bailey said, despite himself. “What do you want them for?”

The vulture on Sucrette's shoulder opened its beak and hissed. Bailey was almost sure that it too was laughing at him.

“It's not
I
who wanted them, but Viviana, the rightful heir to the throne. Do you think I like teaching Latin? I've spent months here, following around your dear Tremelo, trying to find a way to steal this book, and finally you do it
for
me! My queen will have everything she wants.”

“You  …  you're with the Dominae,” he said, breathless. He remembered the fearful whispers in The White Tiger pub. “And I helped you.”

He looked around at the array of animals, ready to strike at Sucrette's command. The bartender's words about Viviana echoed in his mind.
Twisting the Animas bond to her own means.
So this was what they'd meant. Dominance. The beasts stood like machines instead of flesh-and-blood animals. His knees wobbled, and he felt dizzy. In their midst, Sucrette stood still and powerful, holding her blade steady.

“It's funny, really!” Sucrette chirruped. “Because the book and the Glass led me to a much bigger prize  … 
you.
”

Bailey backed away instinctively. He stopped when he heard a twig snap, and another growl only a few paces behind him.

“What do you mean?”

She stepped forward and fixed her eyes on his face, as though she was looking for something.

“The boy with the lost Animas—you're what the Seers called the Child of War, the boy who would lead an army and herald the new king. It's my job to stop that. There can be no new king—the son of Melore died in the ashes of the palace, and his daughter survived.
She
will become
queen
.”

He didn't understand. He was to herald a new king, just like the RATS had hoped  …  but he felt no hope now, as the mocking look in Sucrette's eyes froze him through with fear. And what did she mean by a “lost Animas”? Not that he could ask; Sucrette looked in no mood to answer his question as she inched closer with the handle of the blade clutched in her hand.

“I've never killed a child before,” she murmured. “I suppose it's no different than tucking you into bed, except your sleep will be eternal. Though I regret, little Bailey, I have no talent for singing lullabies”—one of the vultures flying above let out a piercing, broken screech, and Sucrette laughed—“as you can see.”

And in a flash, Bailey remembered. The lullaby that his mother had sung to him, the one he'd tried to remember when Tremelo had first told him the riddle—he could almost hear her singing it now:

It seemed to Bailey that the many parts of the riddle were dancing together in his mind: a lullaby about a sleeping fox, a brother and sister rising from the ashes, the Loon, the line about locusts from Melore's speech, the “King's Children” growing on the gnarled tree  …  Snowflakes swirled in the air around him and settled silently onto his coat and hair.

All at once, the riddle's clues formed together and became clear: The riddle had led him to “King's Children”—but they weren't Nature's children, as he'd thought in the opera house. They were the Melorian brother and sister. They'd both survived the palace fire, and the sun wasn't calling to the loon. It was backward—and
sun
meant
son
! The Loon was calling to the Son, Melore's son, who was alive, who had
not
died in the ashes!

Bailey ducked, as one of Sucrette's vultures swooped at him. It snapped its beak at his hair, and he instinctively swung his arm up to knock it away. The vulture circled above him as Sucrette laughed, relishing his fear.

But it wasn't only fear that he felt—his mind was humming with information, strands of prophecy and song weaving themselves together.
Locusts turn Men from Treachery  … 

He focused on the words Locusts, Men, Treachery—Treachery, Locusts, Men  … 

Treachery turns Men into Locusts. Bailey repeated it in his mind, and something else began to form.

Tre. Me. Lo. The Loon calls to the son who rose from the palace's ashes—Tremelo.

The riddle wasn't about Awakening—it was about the lost king, the sleeping fox who would wake again. The sleeping fox. Just like on Tremelo's necklace.

“Tremelo is the sleeping fox,” Bailey whispered
.
No wonder the Loon had repeated the riddle to Tremelo as a child.
He's Melore's son.

“What was that?” snapped Sucrette. Bailey tried to stay calm despite his sudden realization. Was he the only one who knew?

“Why kill me?” he asked, stalling. “I don't care about the Dominae movement. I'm  …  I'm just a kid.”

“Don't play dumb, Bailey. I know Tremelo was grooming you to be another one of his spies.”

“What do you mean?”

Sucrette paused. Her usually neat blond hair was tousled, her blue eyes narrowed and menacing.

“Your oddball tutor was using you, Bailey. I watched him closely.”

“That's not true,” said Bailey.

“Oh, it is,” Sucrette said. “He's a political radical—and you were merely his pawn. You ran around spying for him and found my map, which I
don't
appreciate. But now I've read this—the Loon's prophecies about the return of the True King.” She gestured to the book. “And I plan to finish what the Jackal began.”

She lunged and he sidestepped her, but Sucrette snapped her fingers and a roar tore through the air. On her command, he was thrown hard onto the ground by a huge wolf with snarled fur. It leapt away, but paced before him, ready to attack again.

“But why me?” asked Bailey. “What does it say about the Child of War? About my Animas?” His body ached and he could barely pull himself up to sit. The woods around him spun. Warm blood began to pool at the back of his head, and every exposed part of his skin burned from the cold.

Sucrette advanced slowly this time, her knife at the ready. Bailey crept his hand into his coat pocket and closed a tight fist around the sharpened claw.

“The book says you have an Animas after all, Bailey Walker,” Sucrette cooed. “Take comfort in that before you die.”

She lunged. At the same time, he drew the claw from his pocket and slashed at Sucrette, barely skimming her cheek. She deflected him with the blade of her knife. Pain ripped through his arm and Bailey cried out, dropping the claw. The wolf bared its teeth and snapped its jaws an inch from his face.

“Congratulations, Bailey. I didn't think you had it in you.” She staggered back a few feet, clutching her bleeding cheek with one hand, grinning. She kneeled and picked up the claw. “Oh, how
perfect
. The irony! An A-plus for imagination, Bailey.”

Still clutching her cheek, she kneeled over him. A drop of her blood spattered onto his face. When he tried to turn away, the wolf pinned him with a heavy paw.

“A fitting end,” she said, as she raised the claw high in the chill winter air, “for the Child of War.”

Bailey closed his eyes as she brought the claw whistling down toward his chest. But the blow didn't fall. Instead, he heard Sucrette let out a mangled scream.

He opened his eyes just in time to see an animal pounce from the rocks behind him—its massive snow-white body at full extension as it flew through the air.