not one word could I be sure came from his true heart. The magic of the fox-people is such that we ensorcel you with our glamour whether we wish to or not. Now he knows my nature and when he comes back from this war, I will know his true feelings. In any case this siege is about to end, and there’s no need for further trickery. He will blast the enemy.”
“What if, when he returns, he doesn’t love you?” asked one of the advisers.
“Then,” she replied with bowed head, “I shall be no different from you.”
She directed the soldiers to arrest the two spies she had identified. If there were more than that, she knew they would now flee for their lives.
She left the advisers and retired to the tower to await her husband’s return and his answer. The execution of spies would come later. The guilt of those men meant far less to the fox-empress than the true heart of her husband.
The kitsune let the image of her in her tower hover in the air a great long time before he drew another breath and relaxed, so that his audience knew the story had ended.
“And what did he say?” asked Diverus. “What did her husband decide?”
The fox glanced at Leodora, who was beaming. “That,” she answered, “is another tale.”
“Just so,” the fox agreed, and bowed his head.
“Beautifully told,” she said. “I know no one who could tell it better.”
“Ma’am.” He bowed still deeper, his mouth curved in that slight smile that foxes wear. “We, all of us, have tales we could share with you if you care to hear them.”
“I do,” she replied. “Truly. But it’s evening now, and we were advised not to be out after the sun set.”
The fox shared a look with his fellows, and they all burst out laughing. But he said to her, “Quite right, you don’t want to be caught out.” More tittering accompanied the comment, though she couldn’t see what they found so amusing. “I think it’s best that you allow us to accompany you back to your accommodations, wherever they are. As a precaution against whatever it is you’re fearful of.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s nothing. We can’t very well sit here playing once the sun goes down, and it’s just about to set, as you say.”
She stood with the fox, Diverus at her side. The rest of the group folded around them like a shield, and they began to walk back through the park. “And what is the name of your abode?”
“I think it’s called Eat This and Have a Cup of Tea.”
“Ah, know it well, know it very well.” He glanced at some of the others of the group with another meaningful look.
Leodora turned to the man beside her, intending to ask him…whatever it was, the question fell from her mind as she saw him. He was changing as they walked, no longer human. He had a great curling nose now, and his chin hung down as a beard might have on someone else. The man behind him was more grotesque still. His head had become part of his shoulders, flat-topped, and his torso funneled down into skinny legs and long-taloned feet, as if he were the child of a bird that had mated with a parsnip. He blinked back at her with round, inhuman eyes. The eyes all around her had changed: Some bulged, others had turned hard and black. Noses had reshaped, distorted, or vanished altogether. Likewise hair, which had disappeared or else sprouted in odd places, or transformed into feathers, reeds, seaweed. Only the fox, transformed before she’d met him, remained the same, although in the dark and among this company he looked more sinister and rapacious than before.
As they all walked down the seemingly deserted thoroughfare, more shapes emerged from the shadows or rose up through the pavement to double their numbers.
Diverus clutched her arm, all of his terror in his grip. He was staring behind them so intently that she looked back, too. A crowd had amassed, walking behind them, some thin and stalky, others squat and elvish, some slick and others furry. Two of the squat creatures held lanterns on long flexible poles and ran along the edges of the crowd to keep up. Behind the lights there were even more creatures, but in shadow, only now and then glimpsed between other bodies and in cast light. If anything they looked more grotesque than those nearby. It was a parade of monsters,