“Unbelievable!” he murmured when Dog fell silent. “Strange events in strange times. . . .” He shivered suddenly. “I can’t find the trail for you, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I might know someone who can, and I think I can help your friend.” He nodded at Five.

“Really?” Six gasped. Twelve’s heart leaped. Five wasn’t even speaking anymore. Whenever Six tried to feed him, he bared his teeth.

“Yes,” Foxpaw said slowly. “We call your cliffcrawlers by another name, but I’m sure they’re the same thing. Their venom is powerful. It devours its victims from the inside out until there’s nothing left.”

His words chilled Twelve to her core. “Can you reverse it?” she asked. Widge saw her concern and bounded back to her, his familiar warmth a comfort.

Foxpaw stood up, looking determined as Five growled at him. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Chapter

Thirty

Foxpaw returned a short while later, wrestling with a length of strangler vine.

“It used to be hard to find,” he panted as Twelve helped unwind it from around his waist. “Now it’s everywhere.”

“Strangler vine is going to help?” Six asked doubtfully. While Foxpaw was gone, they’d pulled Five off Surefoot with difficulty. He now sat on a fur, hands still bound, hissing at anyone who came too close.

“I hope so,” Foxpaw said, pulling a bowl from his pocket and stripping the twitching fronds into it. “The magic in its leaves can be a powerful antidote if prepared correctly.” He took an amber stone from another pocket and began to pound the leaves into a paste, adding woundwort and a few drops of a fragrant oil as he worked.

Moxies were healers too? Twelve stared at his crouched form, fascinated. How was it that the Hunters knew so little of these creatures?

“I think I’ll need your help,” he said to her a minute later, eyeing Five’s bared teeth apprehensively.

Together, Twelve and Six tried to pin Five’s arms. He thrashed furiously beneath them, writhing like an eel, foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth. With a sudden, vicious twist, he kicked Twelve hard in the side, throwing her back into the snow. Her yell was half pain, half surprise.

“Enough,” Dog said, leaping forward to place a paw firmly on Five’s chest. “Let the moxie do his work.” He looked back at Twelve scrambling painfully to her knees. “Are you all right?”

She swallowed a curse and nodded grimly. Widge’s claws dug hard into her shoulder as she grabbed hold of Five’s flailing arm again. “Do it now,” she said, turning to Foxpaw. “Quick as you can.”

Five fought harder than ever, but it was useless against the three of them.

With a grateful nod, Foxpaw darted forward. He painted the paste over Five’s wound in a complicated pattern, then wove his magic with quick, fluid hand gestures, mesmerizing in their complexity.