The Golden Yarn (Mirrorworld 3)

Fox shook off the Goyl by shape-shifting behind a flower stall. Before he realized the woman he’d been shadowing had shifted, the vixen was long gone.

***

The church where Orlando was expecting to meet Fox looked rather plain compared with the gold-encrusted churches around the Tzar’s palace. And Orlando himself also looked much more sensible and harmless in his gray suit than he had in his black tailcoat. But the eyes still gave him away. Fox could almost hear those eyes filing their report: dress from a Lotharainian tailor, not cheap but well worn...hair naturally red...two rings, one probably magical...concealed knife in coat sleeve...

She still liked the Barsoi. Maybe she liked him even better in gray.

Like so many churches she’d seen on her way to Moskva, this church was built of wood. The view from its tower was worth all the steps she’d had to climb for it. The roofs of Moskva surrounded her like a landscape of shingles, towers, and mythical stone creatures. But Orlando hadn’t asked her here to admire the view.

The eagle sitting on the tower’s balustrade had two heads, like the one on Varangia’s crest. On his back sat a Bolysoj. Apart from the hat and the tiny deer-leather coat, the only thing distinguishing him from the Thumblings of Austry was the color of his hair. He wore a gold tooth on a cord around his neck, and he accepted an Albian coin as payment. Even before Orlando had translated the tiny spy’s words, his face had told Fox they weren’t getting much for their money. There were just the usual rumors: The Dark One was on her way to Moskva in the shape of a black horse; she was already there and had fluttered into the Kremlin as a moth; she was in the Tzar’s palace and was conjuring an army of bears...

Fox could see that

Orlando didn’t believe a word of it, and so could the Bolysoj, who quickly flew off on his eagle before Orlando could ask for his money back.

“I hope my next source is a little more productive,” Orlando said as he flagged down a taxi in front of the church. “Ludmilla Akhmatova is one of the best spies in Moskva. We’re meeting at my apartment. There were some other things she was looking into for me, but I will also ask her about the Dark Fairy. Do you want to be there, or shall I ask the driver to drop you at Baryatinsky’s?”

Fox hesitated. It was still early, and she’d just be sitting in Baryatinsky’s salon waiting for Jacob and listening to Sylvain and Chanute debate whether wine or potato liquor gave you the better buzz.

“I’d like to be there,” she said.

Orlando tried to hide how much her answer pleased him.

Fox enjoyed his company very much, but when he opened the taxi door, her mind was flooded with the memory of a different face, one so beautiful that it could hide all the darkness of the world. She felt ashamed for her racing heart as she stepped away from the taxi, but those memories were so much stronger than anything her mind could set against them. The last man (were Bluebeards really men?) she’d followed home had filled a carafe with her fear.

Orlando signaled the driver to drive on without them.

“Why don’t we walk?” he said. “It’s such a beautiful day, and those are so much rarer here than in Metagirta.”

Fox was grateful to him for pretending nothing had happened. They walked in silence for a while, past houses and palaces, churches and shops. Even silence was easy with Orlando.

“How often do you shift shape?”

The question came so out of the blue that Fox was unsure whether she should answer it truthfully. She never talked with Jacob about how often she missed the fur. It felt like treason to be talking about it with someone else. But something in her wanted to answer, to give voice to her yearning to be both.

“Not often enough.” She’d expected her answer to trigger curiosity, the flood of questions every shape-shifter knew so well, the lack of understanding, the fear, all too often mixed with disgust or disdain.

Orlando’s face showed none of these.

“It’s never enough, is it?” he said, pulling a comb from his pocket. At first glance, it looked like one of those ivory combs for which elephants or saber-toothed tigers had to give their lives, but the decorations on the handle indicated this comb had been carved by a Witch from human bones.

Orlando ran his thumb over the fine teeth. “I found this on the forbidden market in Din Eidyn. Cost me a whole year’s earnings, but it has proven very useful in my line of work. Though I admit that was just the pretext under which I bought it.”

Fox hadn’t met many other shape-shifters who, like her, had been born as ordinary humans. She avoided those who made a spectacle of themselves, and the others kept their double life as hidden as she did.

“Does the comb make you age faster?”

“I don’t know. Do birds age faster than humans? Do foxes?” His smile was gleeful, like that of a boy. And he did look like a boy, though he was older than Jacob.

Jacob once had a Witch’s comb. He said he’d stolen it from a gingerbread house when he was a boy, but Fox knew he’d never used it. Jacob didn’t want to be anyone or anything else; the very idea scared him. He’d later traded the comb for a horse.

Orlando cast a quick glance into the next archway and then pulled Fox through with him. Just like Baryatinsky’s yard, the backyard they entered belied the fact they were in a large city. An old beech stood among beds of vegetables and pens for livestock. The tree’s branches hid them from any curious eyes. Orlando looked around cautiously before he pulled the comb through his white-blond hair. Then he took off his jacket and pushed up his shirtsleeves. Feathers were sprouting from his arms like grass.

Fox touched the sharp quills. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

The feathers were as gray as a winter morning.