Page 64 of Skulk of Foxes
Squaring my shoulders, and adding an extra sway to my hips to suggest that everything was going exactly as I’d planned, I headed out. When I saw Lunaria standing in the middle of the next street looking somewhat lost, I took a deep breath and strolled up to her.
‘Hi, Mads,’ she said, as if we’d just bumped into each other while out for a jaunt. Her head swung from side to side. ‘I can hear them. Can you hear them?’
I peered at her. Despite her nonchalant tone, she didn’t look well. Her face was pinched and drawn and her eyes were almost ghoulishly large. ‘Uh,’ I said, hesitating, ‘do you mean the wolves?’
‘They’re everywhere,’ she whispered. ‘All around us.’
I cocked my head and listened. Admittedly, it did sound rather intimidating. Heavy breathing and rapid heartbeats sounded from all corners. It sounded as if we’d stumbled into some sort of bizarre alfresco porn scene. Instead, it was a bunch of werewolves who dripped machismo and attitude but were utterly terrified about what was going to happen next now that they’d met Rubus in person. I had no doubt that they were fully prepared to take out Lunaria if she so much as twitched. They probably felt the same way about me too; after all, I’d brought the locusts down on their furry heads. Literally.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ I said briskly. ‘Let’s focus on you. Were you back there with Rubus? Did you get hurt?’
Lunaria seemed confused for a moment. Her forehead creased then she shook her head. ‘No. I stayed back. I was watching, though.’ She clutched my arm. ‘Rubus is okay. He didn’t get hurt. I’m so worried though, Mads,’ she said. She started scratching her arms, her long nails raking her skin and leaving behind painful red weals. ‘Things aren’t right here. He’s still not right.’
That was the understatement of the year. I took her hands in mine to stop her from doing herself real damage. ‘What’s happened to you?’ I asked. ‘You were struggling before but now it seems like you’re barely clinging on.’
‘It took me a long time to realise but we’re not supposed to be here,’ she said, gazing into the distance. ‘We’re screwing up this demesne and it’s screwing us up.’ She blinked and looked at me again. ‘I mean, look at what it’s done to you.’
Compared to her, I was pretty darned awesome but I suspected this wasn’t the time to point it out. ‘Mmmm,’ I said non-commitally. ‘But you do realise what will happen if we use the sphere to go back to Mag Mell? We’ve spoken about it many times. This entire city – this entireworld– will be destroyed.’
Lunaria touched her chest with her fingertips. ‘It hurts. It hurts so bad.’
I knew what she was talking about. The homesickness we felt for Mag Mell was as much about physical as emotional pain. Thanks to my amnesia I didn’t feel it as acutely as the other Fey but I still understood it.
I felt a twist of guilt. A couple of days ago, I’d manipulated Lunaria into taking some pixie dust. There was a good chance that she was pining so badly for home because of that. Another thing to blame myself for.
I sighed. ‘Making ourselves feel better isn’t right if it will kill everyone else.’
‘I don’t want anyone to die.’ Lunaria’s voice was slow and languorous, as if it were an effort to get the words out. She pulled her hands away from me and turned her head. Then her mood changed without warning. ‘Rubus is in trouble. We have to help him. He’s going to hurt himself. He’s going to do something he’ll regret. You’ve got to help me help him! You have to do it, Mads!’
Er… ‘I’m trying to help him,’ I said reasonably, trying to think of a logical way out of this. The trouble was that any semblance of logic appeared to have long since left Lunaria’s frazzled brain.
‘He’s very fragile, Mads,’ Lunaria said, earnestly. ‘If everyone in this demesne dies as a result of his actions, I’m not sure he’ll be able to live with himself.’
I just managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes. The solution was simple: all he had to do wasnotkill everyone and all would be well. ‘How do we stop him, Looney?’ I asked softly, praying she might have an insight into Rubus’s psyche that the rest of us had missed. Not that I agreed with her assessment of him as fragile; an arsebadgering matriarchal buffalo was more fragile than Rubus.
She wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know. I tried to talk to him but he just yelled at me. I used to think he shouted because he didn’t like me but now I know that he acts like that because he’s too afraid of the truth. He’s too afraid to let all of us down. He doesn’t want to hurt any one of us and he’s suffering so badly for it.’
Poor baby. I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought of Rubus. That’s when I spotted the bruise snaking out from under her collar. I stared at it. No locust caused that. ‘Lunaria,’ I said quietly. ‘Has Rubus hurt you?’
Her hand went to the purple mark. ‘He’s wrestling with demons. I have to help him with that.’
Gasbudlikins. I gritted my teeth. ‘You have to get away from him. As you’ve said, he’s not in a good frame of mind. He’s already killed other Fey. If he hit you—’
‘He didn’t hit me.’ She didn’t sound in the slightest bit convincing.
‘Lunaria…’
She rounded me, her eyes suddenly blazing. ‘You’re so focused on Morgan that you can’t see what really counts! Rubus needs us! He’s in pain and I don’t know how to help him!’
I swallowed. ‘Is that why you came looking for me? Because I have to say, I’m not sure that I can—’
‘No.’ She turned her face away and her shoulders slumped, as if she’d finally realised that I wasn’t going to be Rubus’s saviour. Neither was she. The arsebadger was completely irredeemable. All we could do was save ourselves from him.
Lunaria continued. ‘I came here to tell you that he sent people to sort out your friend. He likes her and he doesn’t want to hurt her, so if something happens and she ends up dying, he’ll feel even worse. I have to help him. I can’t let him hurt himself any more.’
The blood in my veins ran ice cold. ‘He’s sent people to sort out my friend?’ There was something so chilling about that phrase that I found myself barely able to speak. ‘You mean Julie?’
‘I don’t like her,’ Lunaria said, her lip curling. ‘I don’t care what happens to her. But if she does end up getting hurt then Rubus—’
