Page 30 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

“Ransom the king to who, Isiodore?”

“No idea. I don’t think they thought that far. They didn’t even do the anti-magic runes right, see? The sun symbol is reversed. It’s the only reason Flick isn’t trapped in here with us.”

Baz freed his right hand and got to work on his feet. “Wait, so why didn’t Flick find me?”

Hektor shrugged. “I don’t know. I just told him to get help. I figured he’d go to you first.”

Baz turned to look at his brother. “But if he didn’t find me, where did he go?”

* * *

GOOD AFTERNOON

I WOULD LIKE ONE OF YOUR CROISSANTS AND AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING

Flick was, all in all, doing a marvelous job of not panicking. Of course, it helped that he had time. For one, Bazyli’s Old One had already grown enough sea kelp to choke the rudder of the smuggler’s ship for at least a year. For another, Hektor didn’t even feel scared. Flick could sense his emotions through the link they shared, and Hektor only felt frustrated and slightly hungry. And the mages on the ship certainly weren’t menacing. Their demons were all runts, little scraggly creatures Flick could have devoured in seconds, if he were still living in the dark.

Not that he would now, naturally. Now, he had better things to eat, like history books, and croissants.

The guard eating his lunch at the gate of the palace stared blankly at Flick. “This is mine, and I don’t think talking foxes are supposed to…uh, you’re not a hallucination or something?”

NO. Flick leapt onto the guard table and gently picked up the croissant in his teeth. It was soft and buttery, and it had a square of chocolate baked in the middle of it. BUT YOU MUST BE NEW. I WILL TAKE THIS CROISSANT AS TAXES.

Hektor had told him about taxes last year, when he’d had to pay them to the king. Apparently, they were things you paid to people just because those people existed, and they turned the taxes into things like roads and bathhouses. Flick was very interested in the concept of taxes, and demanded that Sabre feed him a tax of half an egg every morning.

“Hey!” The guard whistled as Flick raced off, but it wasn’t as though he could catch him. Flick outran him into the palace, where he stopped in an alcove and hurriedly tore the croissant to pieces. It left bits of crumb and an oily spot on the floor, so Flick dug at the rug until the fibers came undone in a little pile around the mess. Satisfied, Flick pranced up the stairs.

HELLO, he said to a messenger-page, who was about ten years old and reading a chapter book in a corner. DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE KING IS.

“Oh, you’re the fox who comes by sometimes.” The girl smiled. “I don’t know. I think his majesty is holding council. Can I pet your tail?”

Flick thought about it. Hektor was in trouble, something that would have normally sent Flick into a spiraling panic, but now seemed almost trifling. What was a pirate to an archmage? VERY WELL. YOU MAY PET ME SEVENTEEN TIMES.

She ended up petting him seventy-three times instead, and cheerfully offered to carry him up the rest of the stairs to the council room. It reminded Flick of how Hektor used to carry him when he was young, and Flick felt a twinge of guilt. For all that the pirates were barely competent enough to be true criminals, they were still making Hektor uncomfortable. Flick had a responsibility to ensure his boy’s safety, or else Hektor wouldn’t be around to carry him, and Bazyli wouldn’t feed him flowers under the table whenever Flick and Hektor visited the palace. He hopped down from the girl’s arms and swished his tail.

I MUST FIND THE KING. THANK YOU, SMALL CHILD.

The girl waved as Flick bounded off, hopping from tile to tile along the corridor. He could sense people nearby, their thoughts and words like a twisted jumble in the back of his mind, and he pushed himself through the door to a crowded room where most of the words were coming from. Hektor’s heart-brother was there, looking handsome in his uniform with his hair tied back, and so was Prince Adrien, the seer. Adrien turned to look at Flick in shock, and Flick rubbed against his legs in greeting before bounding onto the table. He tapped his claws on the polished wood and sat primly, staring at the king.

HELLO, he said, tail waving like a flag. YOUR FLOWER-SINGER AND MY BOY HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO A SHIP FULL OF MISLIANS. PLEASE FETCH THEM FOR ME. YOU MAY CONSIDER IT TAXES.

* * *

Emile stared at the demon fox on the table, who was looking up at him with those strange gold eyes, tail gently swishing on the table. It knocked aside a few pieces of paper, a resolution the council was debating about funding a vocational school and the appointment of Laurent de Rue to a committee to oversee the contract-debt system of the pleasure district.

The fox had also managed to knock Emile off his equilibrium, because the last thing he’d expected to hear was that his submissive was on a ship.

“And why, precisely, are they aboard a ship?” Emile asked, in a voice so full of dominance that a few of the council members inhaled sharply, and a guardsman at the door went to his knees.

WHY DOES ANYONE GO ON SHIPS

“What ship, and where, and who took them?” This from Sabre, who was one of the few submissives in the room who could ignore Emile’s sudden flare of dominance.

IT IS IN THE WATER, the little fox said. AND THEY TOOK THEMSELVES

“Perhaps this conversation should be held somewhere private,” Isiodore suggested, “as it is a family matter.”

“It’s a matter of war, if someone is seeking to abscond with my submissive and his brother,” Emile snapped.

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