Her front paws scrabbled for a hold at the sides of the hole, scraping at the earth. The catacomb stretched below her, twice as wide as she was tall and black as ink as it plummeted down. She wondered if the fall would kill her instantly or whether, once the chain was released from the tree, it would snare on some jutting root further down, leaving her to hang in misery and starve to death. She prayed for the former.
Oberon stopped just short of the clearing with the first catacomb. Tanya reached out, a warning hand on his collar, but remained hidden behind a large oak tree. From her position, she saw Eldritch and Rowan within the railings. His cruel words carried to them and, as he kicked Rowan into the depths of the catacomb, she bit down on her hand to prevent herself from screaming.
“H-he’s going to let her drop!” Fabian stuttered his words in fear. “How are we going to get her out of there?”
“There’s no time,” Tanya answered. “And there’s no one else to help us. We’ve got to act, quickly.”
“Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Before we left the library—you called the fairies. If they come—”
“It was a bluff—I was just trying to buy us time.”
“But you threw the feather and the leaf into the fire….”
“Yes, but I was missing something,” she told him. “Don’t you remember? Last year when we called upon Raven and Gredin, there was something else we threw into the flames.”
Fabian looked blank.
“Four-leaf clovers.”
The hope in Fabian’s eyes faded.
“So unless they turn up of their own accord, we’re on our own.”
Tanya spotted a gap in the railings where one of the posts was missing. “The only way we’re going to save Rowan is by getting through there and tackling Eldritch. I think I can squeeze through the gap, just.”
“I can’t let you do that—”
“It’s our only chance. I need you to catch him off guard. We’re both protected—he’ll have to physically attack us to harm us. So just don’t let him catch you.” She edged out from behind the tree. Eldritch leaned over the catacomb, his back to them. Then he started to walk to the tree—the only thing that prevented Rowan from tumbling into the cavern below.
“Go!” Tanya mouthed. “Now, go!”
Fabian shot out from behind the tree and crashed through the clearing, approaching the railings from the opposite direction.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Let her go!”
Eldritch leaped back from the edge of the cavern. A low growl escaped him.
Fabian turned back to face the way he had come, and bellowed into the depths of the forest to an imaginary companion. “She’s here! I’ve found her, come quick!”
Eldritch’s head snapped from side to side, craning into the woods.
Tanya crept toward the gap in the railings, the sound of her blood pulsing in her ears. Gripping the sides, she slipped through it and screwed up every ounce of her strength and anger, using it to charge at Eldritch. Her feet skidded over loose earth and sent pebbles scattering, alerting him to her presence.
He turned the moment she made contact with him, his mouth agape in surprise. Her outstretched arms hit him square in chest, and he tumbled backwards, teetering on the edge of the catacomb. His arms flailed in the air, and it was all Tanya could do to stop the momentum of her run from taking her over the edge too. She lost her balance and fell, her feet skidding across the ground until she felt the nothingness of the hole beneath. With a yell she flung her arm out, grabbing the first thing she could find—the chain tethered to the tree. She clung on, heaving herself away from the catacomb and glancing over her shoulder in terror.
Somehow Eldritch had managed to regain his balance. With a mad grin he stepped toward her… then grunted as a large stone came out of nowhere, striking him on the temple. He swayed dangerously. Blood spurted in a line down his face, and with a defeated howl he toppled into the catacomb.
Tanya crawled, sobbing, to the edge of the denehole, her face streaked with tears and dirt. She was aware of Fabian dancing around the perimeter of the railings, yelling at her to pull Rowan out, and she was aware that Oberon was at her side, having squeezed through the hole after her. Peering over the edge, she saw Rowan, muzzled and dangling by one bloody paw. There was no way to get her out other than to pull on the chain attached to the steel trap. Gritting her teeth, she started to haul, trying to block out the muffled whimpers from Rowan as each tug yanked at her tendons. Her mind raced with possible ideas to lessen Rowan’s obvious distress, and an idea came to her from something she had once read.
She scrambled closer to the tree and wound her legs around the exposed roots, hooking her feet into place. Secure, she leaned headfirst into the catacomb, one hand still straining to grasp the chain and the other reaching for her friend. Her legs quickly started to burn under the weight. With another short pull on the chain her fingers brushed the fox’s tail. She wrapped her hand around the tail and heaved, finally mustering the last of her strength to throw Rowan, and the trap, clear.
She sagged with relief, allowing a moment to gather a last burst of strength to heave herself out of the hole. Aboveground, she could hear Rowan breathing in trembling gasps.
Eldritch’s stump came out of nowhere, skimming her hand from below. Tanya screamed, yanking her hand out of the way and pulling herself backward. Once she was free, she stood up and staggered past Rowan to the opposite side of the catacomb, where the angle provided a more telling view.
Beneath a slight overhang of damp earth, Eldritch clung to a root with his one good hand. The other swung about uselessly, trying—and failing—to find something to hook onto. He twisted his head to look over his shoulder at her. Already she could see that he was weak. He wouldn’t last much longer.
“Please,” he begged, his eyes wide with terror. “Don’t let me fall. Don’t let me die.”
“Leave him!” Fabian yelled, trying without success to squeeze through the gap in the railings. “He’s a murderer!”
“I know,” Tanya whispered—but the sight haunted her. She had not thought through her plan, and instead had acted on impulse in the moment of rage when she had intended for Eldritch to fall into the hole. But now, with him hanging on to his life by a thread, she wondered if she would be able to live with herself if he fell. Unable to hold back, she drew closer to him. His face was beaded with sweat and covered in blood from the stone Fabian had thrown.
A sudden breeze whipped up around her, dotting her with errant rain droplets from above and showering the clearing with leaves. They swirled and swooped, as though with a life of their own, to form a figure at the center of the maelstrom. Only when the figure spoke did she recognize it.
“Get away from there. And don’t allow any pity in your heart for him.”
“Gredin?” Tanya whispered as the leaves flew wildly about her, stinging her eyes and her skin. “You’re really here? Even after all the things I said—”
“It doesn’t matter what was said. I have a duty to you.”
Her guardian stepped closer to the catacomb, his yellow stare fixed and unforgiving. The flurry of leaves followed him, whirling frenziedly, and from within the catacomb she heard Eldritch coughing and choking as they engulfed him.
Gredin raised his hands, and with them, the leaves flew into the air. She saw Eldritch twisting and clawing, saw his fingers slowly unfurl from the root. He vanished at the same moment Gredin flung his arms down, and the sea of leaves poured forth into the catacomb.
Tanya ran to Rowan’s side and fumbled with the muzzle, pulling it from her face. Her hair flew around her head in a dark cloud, tangling with the leaves, and she saw Fabian pressed against the railings, shouting through them with his own bushy hair whipped up around him. For the first time she noticed a large black bird circling the catacomb with the whirlwind of leaves. It was Raven.
Gently, she released the lever on the trap and eased the crushed paw from it, grimaci
ng as Rowan cursed and yelled. She tugged the trap free from the tree, gathered up the chain, and flung it into the swirling pit of leaves after Eldritch.
Rowan was trying to tell her something, but with the howl of the wind Tanya could not hear. She leaned closer to the fox’s jaws.
“… Can’t take it off… I’m sewn into it.”
With horror she finally saw the spidertwine stitches, neatly tacked down the front of the coat. “The scissors…”
She pulled them from her pocket and began cutting the stitches one by one. Soon the last stitch was severed, but Rowan made no move to take it off.
“I need to keep it on,” she yelled. “I won’t fit through the gap otherwise—plus I can run three-legged as a fox.”
Already Gredin was pulling at them, drawing them away to the gap in the railings. With a jolt, Tanya felt the earth shift beneath her. A cloud of dust flew up from the catacomb.
“The denehole!” she yelled. “It’s caving in—we’ve got to get away from it!” She shoved Rowan and Oberon through the space to the other side and clambered through after them. Gredin vanished in a swirl of leaves, then materialized on the other side of the railings, where Raven joined him.
Tanya looked back and saw the tree by the side of the denehole—the one she had used to wind her legs around—vanish into the cavern as the ground around it collapsed. A section of the railing had fallen forward.
“Out of the woods!” Gredin roared.
They raced ahead, with Gredin in the lead and Oberon and Rowan bounding along side by side, her injured paw held aloft. Above them, Raven circled in the sky, navigating the way out. Swirls of dirt and dust from the shifting earth chased them, close at their heels.
They reached the edge of the forest, gasping and trembling. The rain had slowed to a drizzle now, and they viewed the manor through a gray haze.
“Everyone’s in there,” Tanya said softly. “We’ve got to help them. Victor’s already dead—Suki could have killed again by now.”
“But we’ll be attacked before we even make it to the house,” said Fabian. “The garvern are guarding the grounds—they’ll see us coming from the roof!”
“Not if we use the tunnel,” said Rowan. “I left something wedged into the doorway so it wouldn’t latch properly. We can get back in and stop Suki.” Her face twisted into a mask of hate. “She’ll be expecting Eldritch to return after finishing me off. Instead, she’ll get us.”
“With reinforcements,” Gredin finished.
The musky scent of the tunnel mingled with the tang of Rowan’s blood. She loped along, second in line behind Gredin, who led the way.
“Sparrow?” she yelled. Her voice rasped. She was already exhausted and still trembling from fear and shock. There was no reply to her call. She shouted Sparrow’s name again, only to be met by silence. “He must be down here somewhere,” she mumbled tearfully, taking great sniffs of air, trying to catch his scent.
“He could be anywhere,” Tanya said gently. “If Eldritch attacked him he could have run off into the tunnels, or even got out through the grave—”
“No.” Rowan cut across her. “He’s here somewhere, I know it. The way Eldritch spoke… he was confident, sure that Sparrow was going nowhere.”
The tunnel opened out into the main cavern where the other tunnels looped away from the house. The pebble tied with string sat in the center. As Rowan neared it, she remembered the terror that had swept over her on her way out of the tunnel and halted. Only now did she understand it. Her human senses had picked up on the faintest strains of a smell. Now her fox senses screamed an alarm. The smell was blood.
“What is it?” Tanya asked.
“He’s near!” She circled the stone frantically. “Sparrow’s near!” She pawed the stone over. Something dark and faintly wet glistened on its underside.
“Over here.” Fabian’s flashlight was aimed at the ground in front of the second tunnel. Another dark smear vanished into the blackness. “Is it…?”
“Blood,” Tanya croaked. “It’s leading into the tunnel.”
Rowan squeezed her eyes shut. Suddenly there was not enough air. Her eyes flew open again as Gredin led the way into the passage, guided by Fabian’s flashlight. Its beam fell upon great chunks of fallen stone and earth.
“It’s one of the tunnels that collapsed,” Fabian said. “Be careful.” His voice bounced off the walls, too loudly.
Gredin stopped. “There’s someone in here.”
At the foot of the rubble a dark shape slumped, unmoving.
“Sparrow!” Rowan cried, pushing past Gredin to arrive at the body’s side. Sparrow lay facedown, his dirty blond hair matted with blood on one side. She threw off the fox-skin coat and placed her hands on him. He was a deadweight—motionless.
“He’s been hit. Someone help me!”
Fabian rushed to kneel beside her, and together they rolled Sparrow’s prone body so that he lay on his back. Rowan brushed a strand of hair away from his face. Her fingertips came away sticky. Her eyes blurred with tears, and she leaned over him, laying her fingers against the skin of his neck. It was clammy and cool, but underneath she thought she felt something—the faintest beat of life.
“He’s alive,” she sobbed, shaking him gently. “Sparrow, please wake up. Please be all right!” She pressed her face against his chest, hot tears leaking from her eyes and soaking into the fabric of his shirt. His heart thudded dully, slowly, pulsing against her cheek. Then a groan escaped his lips.
“Red? Is that… you?”
“Yes! I’m here.” She lifted her head and threw her arms around him. He was now shivering, as well as groaning. His lips drew back over his teeth in a grimace. “I’m cold, Red. I’m so c-cold. My head—”
“Shh,” she told him, holding his hand and smoothing his hair. “I know. But you’re going to be all right now.” She pressed her lips against his brow, her tears running onto his face.
“Here,” said Fabian, pulling off his jacket. “Let me put this around him.”
Rowan stood back, biting her lip against the pain as she put weight on her injured foot, and allowed Fabian and Gredin to tend to Sparrow. Together they lifted him to his feet, supporting him as he swayed. His face was ghastly white, his lips blue with cold.
“Get inside the house.” Raven circled their heads. “Quickly, now. He needs to be warm.”
“And I need to stop Suki,” Rowan growled, wiping the last of her tears away. She limped out of the way as Gredin and Fabian edged past her, Sparrow between them, to the foot of the steps.
Gredin led the way up the narrow staircase. The stone tunnel was flooded with light and warm air as he pushed the secret doorway open, motioning for caution as they came through one by one. Rowan kicked the book of matches out of the base of the doorframe, then moved aside for Tanya and Oberon, and finally Raven, who had shed her bird form to become a woman. The doorway to the tunnel closed, leaving them standing in the stifling room. The fire still danced in the grate as it was tended to by the hearthfay. She squeaked as they came nearer, and vanished from the room.
“Put him by the fire,” Rowan said anxiously. Fabian and Gredin eased Sparrow into the armchair by the hearthside. She tucked Fabian’s jacket, inside out, around Sparrow’s shoulders, then threw the fox-skin coat around her own and fastened the catch. She shrank back into a fox and turned away from the fire. “Let’s finish this.”
“Most of the windows are camouflaged or protected with salt,” Tanya whispered to Gredin. “You won’t be able to pass them.”
“How do we get through the door?” asked Fabian, but Gredin had already moved to it. With a flick of his fingers they heard a low click as the door unlocked, and then he reached out and quietly opened it.
Rowan stood by Tanya, fury overriding the throbbing of her injured paw. She saw Fabian grab a sturdy wooden candlestick from the desk and noticed that Tanya held the magical scissors aloft. They were ready.
They stepped into the cool, dark hallway—and met
with an awful sight.
Victor’s lifeless body lay below the window, his sword to one side of him, covered in blood. Samson clung to his body, racked with silent sobs. He did not look up as they approached, but lay there, utterly defeated. A short way from them, the dead garvern was sprawled, one of Victor’s knives jutting from its corpse. Another one, injured but alive, was in a cage of iron under the watchful eyes of Brunswick and the tea caddy brownie, who sat nearby. For the first time the brownie was without his walking stick, but then Rowan spied it. It was embedded in the imprisoned garvern’s neck.
Looking over the scene was Tino, his swarthy face contorted with horror. A long cut sliced the side of his face from the edge of his eye to the corner of his mouth. He looked up sharply, raising his knife as they approached and eyeing Gredin and Raven with suspicion.
“They’re with us,” Rowan said. “Tino, I can explain everything, but you’ve got to listen to me—”
“Rowan?” Rose’s voice echoed from above. “Is that you?”
All hell broke loose upstairs as a scramble of footsteps fled across the landing. Florence’s face appeared, haggard and drawn, as she called out for Tanya and Fabian.
“They’re safe,” Gredin yelled. “Stay where you are!”
Warwick thundered down the stairs to join them at the same time as Suki skidded into the hallway, blanching as she took in the new arrivals.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to see us again, were you?” Rowan spat.
Suki glanced at Tino wildly. “I just saw Crooks. He left through the back, covered in blood—he must have hidden after he attacked Victor and then escaped!”
“Liar!” Rowan shrieked, springing at Suki, but her injured back paw jarred as she leapt, throwing her off balance. She hit the girl clumsily, snapping and snarling, aiming for her throat, but Suki was fast. She caught Rowan in a headlock, lifting her off the ground and shaking her until her teeth rattled. A second later, a sharp blade was pressed to her throat.