With time and patience, the Fox escaped. And under the cloak of darkness he came to stand before the crib of Ysengrim’s daughter.

“Slay her, I must slay her,” Rennart cried to himself. “Does the blood of my men, my wife, my child not cry out for vengeance? All has been taken from me. I have earned the right to do this midnight deed.”

And though Ysengrim had wounded him beyond healing, despite all that he had lost and suffered, Rennart knew that if he slew the child he would be no better than his enemy. He knew that he could not kill her.

And so instead the Fox took her. He stole her from her crib, and carried her away to his den, and in doing so inflicted a thousand hurts on Ysengrim, worse than burying a wife and child, worse than seeing men fall, worse than losing all that you have built. The Fox gave Ysengrim the Boar a terrible gift: the gift of never knowing what had become of his daughter, the guilt of wondering endlessly whether she had lived or died.

6

The Tiger

I watch Ettie from the corner of my eye. I have to; Thénardier will beat her if she doesn’t learn fast. And I cannot afford for her perfect face to be marred. Not today of all days.

The inn is crowded early this evening, voices merging into a dull roar. They’ll get louder as the night goes on and people get drunker. The air is thick with the scent of beer and wine long soaked into the floor and the sweet smoke of poppy from the pipes of the Dreamers in one corner. It’s roasting in here, too many bodies in too small a space. Carrying drinks to any table means walking through a maze of wandering hands and lecherous grins. I avoid the men with tattoos behind their ears: those are the ones you don’t want to trip over.

I glance back at Ettie, who’s struggling beneath the weight of a jug. Her skinny arms aren’t used to lifting such things.

I take a deep breath.

I can do this. I’ve rehearsed it in my head a thousand times.

I weave through the customers and bump my hip into a table just hard enough that the man at the far end is jostled into Ettie.

She is fighting to keep her hold on the jug when a large hand darts out and grips her shoulder, steadying her.

“Not used to waiting on tables, are we, little one?”

The voice is a rough, warm growl. My heart sinks into my boots, when it should be soaring.

The world seems to slow. I drop whatever I was carrying onto the nearest table, ignore the protests of the customers, and push through the crowded floor to her.

The man has stood to help her with the jug, and, relieved, she lets him take it.

Don’t look at him, Ettie, I think, despite myself.

But she does, a single golden curl escaping from her white cap as she tilts her head up to see who has saved her from a fall. She’s small and he’s a giant of a man, exuding strength and warmth. He has yellow eyes, a face tanned dark from years spent at sea, hair bleached orange-blond by the sun. The long, corded scars that cross from his forehead to his cheek don’t take away from his magnetic charm. He smiles at Ettie, a smile that is all teeth, and God forgive her, she smiles back.