Nell Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 12 of 23

Nell went to the window and listened. The wind had changed. Under it, faint and wrong, came a sound like wet cloth dragged over bark. The fox flattened her ears and pressed against his shin. They were closer than he'd thought. He turned back to the room. Lena knelt beside Moss with the cloth rabbit between them. The boy's bare feet were caked with pine sap and blood. That was the trail. Fae didn't need scent the way dogs did. They followed what a body left behind — skin oil, breath, the salt in a footprint. Moss had walked half the ridge into this house. Nell crossed to the hearth and picked up his knife. "What are you doing," Lena said. "Buying time." He pushed his sleeve up and set the blade against the inside of his forearm. His blood was older and louder than the boy's. If he laid a line of it into the woods, they would turn. They would follow him first. "Nell." "They know the boy. They don't know me yet." He drew the blade across his arm. Blood welled dark. "Once they smell this, they'll know me for the rest of my life. Every time I set foot past the ridge." Her face went still. "Then don't." "Your sister is in that ring. We can't run and carry him and reach her by dawn." He wrapped his fist in a rag and let the blood soak through. "I lay a trail east. Long loop. Cross the stream twice. Come back along the roof line where they can't track. You bar the door behind me." She didn't argue. She stood and took the fox by the scruff and set her at the threshold. The chipmunk in its stitched jacket watched from the mantel with round black eyes. "Two hours," Nell said. "If I'm not back, take Moss out the cellar door and go down the slope." "Two hours," Lena said. He went out into the dark. The old manor's gargoyles watched him from their stone perches. He squeezed the rag and let the first drops fall on the porch boards. Then he ran. He ran east through the birches, dragging his hand along trunks, pressing his bloody palm to roots. Halfway to the stream he heard them turn. High, thin voices, hungry, and no longer moving toward the house. He crossed the water, doubled back over stone, and climbed onto the low roof of the woodshed to reach the manor from above. He dropped down at the kitchen door bleeding and cold. Lena unbarred it and pulled him in. The fox's ears were up but flat forward now, not back. The sound in the woods was moving away east. "They took the trail," he said. "For how long." "Till sunrise. Maybe." He met her eyes. "They have my scent now. Whatever comes after this, they'll come for me too."