Marigold Thistledown's Arc

Chapter 10 of 15

The handler now knew a traitor sat inside Marigold's walls. She stood at the carved post below the watchtower, still holding the true page, when Fennrick's head snapped up. He'd heard it before she had. A hound, baying somewhere down the road. Low, then closer. Fennrick was the Guild hunter who had lied to his own masters to protect her. He crouched and pressed his hand to the frost. "Tracker hound," he said. "On a fresh trail. The handler's own scent." He looked at the signal station with the arched door. "Leading here. To the station." Marigold's stomach dropped. The twin was locked inside that station. If the hound reached it, the handler would find his witness free and talking. Everything the twin knew would spill straight back to the Guild. "We can't outrun a hound," Marigold said. "No." Fennrick's mouth went flat. "You bend it. Give it a truer trail than the true one." Mara Thornshield came fast down the ladder. She'd heard the baying too. "The fox and the fairy fooled the last one," she said. "But the fox is spent and the fairy's shape is stolen. We have nothing to lay a false scent with." Marigold's hand closed on the charm at her belt. Two faces, dark and light, warped together on a warm disc. A trickster mark, left behind by Nyx. She didn't fully understand it. But she understood what a hound followed. "It doesn't need a fox," she said. "It needs to believe." She held the charm out to Fennrick. "You track. You know how a hound reads a trail. Lay this scent wrong on purpose. Take the handler's own smell and drag it past the far gully." Fennrick took the charm. His fingers stilled. "This isn't a lure. It's a switch." He almost smiled. "Confuse the nose. Make it doubt what it smells." "Then go," Mara said. "We hold the station door." Fennrick ran. He cut across the frost toward the road, dragging the charm low against the grooves the caravans had worn for years. The baying rose sharp, then broke, then wandered. Marigold and Mara set their backs to the arched door and waited. The hound crested the road. It stopped. It circled, nose to the ground, whining. It caught the crossed scent and turned. Then it ran the wrong way, hard, toward the far gully, dragging its handler after it. The baying faded down the mountain. Marigold slid to the frozen ground. The twin was still locked inside. The trail was bent, not broken. Fennrick came back at dusk, breathing hard, the charm gone from his hand. "Buried it in the gully," he said. "The hound will keep circling that ground for days." He met her eyes. "But the handler saw me lay it." Marigold went cold. She had saved her witness. And she had shown the handler exactly which traitor sat inside her walls.