Lyr Thornwright's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

Lyr wound the cut snare cord around her fist and walked into the market. The fox rode against her chest, still shaking. Bright fabric hung over the wagons and benches. She had never liked this place. Too many soft, smiling people who whispered when she passed. Now she needed them. One of them had set the trap. She held up the cord to a woman selling ribbons. "Who sells this in town? Snare cord, this weave." The woman shrank back from the fox and pointed down the row. Lyr moved from bench to bench. Each seller looked at the cord, then looked away. No one wanted her stare. But no one lied, either. They all pointed the same way. Finn found her near the last wagon. He had followed on foot, breathing hard. "You'll accuse the wrong person," he said. He rarely pushed her. He pushed now. "Half the trappers use that weave. You point at one, the real one keeps his snares out." He touched the fox's ear. The animal calmed under his hand. Lyr hated that he was right. "Then tell me how to know," she said. Finn took the cord and turned it in the light. He ran his thumb along the cut end. "This wasn't chewed loose. Look. Someone sliced it, then reset it wrong." He held the frayed knot close to her face. "A real trapper ties it tight. This one wanted the fox caught but alive. He's using it as bait. He wants what follows the fox at night." Lyr went cold. Only one man in town had a reason to want the fox alive and watched. A man whose wife had died chasing it through the dark for its magic. A man who dealt in weapons, like her, and did not fear her at all. "Cade," she said. Finn nodded once. His sunny face stayed grim. "He asked me last week what the fox brings you. I didn't tell him." Lyr looked at the cord, at the clean slice, at the clumsy reset knot. It fit. Cade did not want the fox dead. He wanted to follow it, the way his wife had. He would keep the fox alive and trailed until it led him to the willow tree in the desert. She closed her hand over the cord. Her fingers trembled, and it was not the curse this time. She knew the trapper now. But knowing changed everything. If she confronted him, he would learn the fox still came to her, still carried willowlight. He would follow it straight to the tree, and to her only source of wood. "I can't scare him off," she said. "He'll just follow it quieter." She pressed the fox against her chest. "I have to keep it here. Away from him. Away from the tree." Finn met her eyes for once. "Then he'll come looking for it," he said. "Here."