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It’s far-too-familiar eyes.
It was the same hound Archie had seen at the Spring Festival. The one who had lost its ear to Declan’s axe. But the missing ear was the only wound the beast still carried from that fight, and even that seemed a distant sort of scar. How had it healed itself and so quickly? And what had led it back here, to the same place where so many of its fellows had already lost their lives?
Archie believed Leo was a magical and mostly benevolent cat. Perhaps this dog was Leo’s cruel opposite, straight from the pits of darkness. It had the same magic, the same cunning.
And it was hunting him, the princess, or the cat.
Perhaps all three at once.
“Oy! Leave our giant alone,” a familiar voice called, followed by a flurry of acorns.
Archie was too startled to react, but as the acorns continued to ping off the feral hound’s hide from several directions at once. As the forest gnomes appeared carrying other weapons that mostly looked like rusty iron nails, the hound took one last, calculating glance behind before it decided to run.
Archie turned back to check on Ainsley. “Are you—?”
“Yes.”
“Oy! Giant!” The child-like voice moved, like someone leaping around branches. “Your girl is fine. Now come and take a look at your cat.”
Archie tracked the movement and finally found Leo lying broken and bleeding on the forest floor. His eyes were closed, as if he was using all his energy just to breathe.
The hound must have bitten him to throw him off its back.
Ainsley ran to help Leo first, fluttering her hands like an anxious hummingbird. “Archie, your cat. What can we do?”
Ainsley knew what to do. She helped with the healers and matrons often enough. She was just spooked, and so was he, but she needed him to be strong. “Stop the bleeding and . . .” Archie forced the emotions out so he could speak, so he could move and look back at the acorn thrower. The gnome. “Can you help him?”
The gnome furrowed his whole wrinkly face and took a pointed step back. “Too much fae magic. We don’t touch the stuff.”
“But you are fae, aren’t you?”
“We certainly are not! We’re gnomes.” He gestured out to the forest where others of his kind must be hiding. “How could you think we were fae? You heard me swear I wouldn’t steal another radish. I stole five radishes just this morning, and I’m holding an iron nail!”
Archie shook his head. “You’re not fae . . . but Leo is?”
The gnome shrugged. “He’s got their cursed magic all over him, just like that hound.”
“And do you know where that hound came from? Where it went?” It certainly didn’t seem like it was going to leave their town alone any time soon.
“Easy. There’s another human colony not too far from here. Didn’t you know? That’s where all the cursed monsters come from.”
Another human colony? Carabus.
“Archie, we can’t stay out here,” Ainsley pointedly reminded him.
They still had a wounded cat. The princess had torn off some of her underskirt to wrap around the wound, but that wouldn’t hold for long.
“We need to go,” Archie agreed. “We can take him to . . .” Who? Leo was a cat. A stray. A sentimental matron might pet him or give him food, but no real healer would waste time or medicine on him when there were still human patients to treat. Their only option would be to bring him to someone who had a clear preference for cats over people and hope for the best.
Perhaps someone who knew how to use a needle? Leo might need stitches.
Then the answer seemed far too obvious. “Tabitha. We can take him to Tabitha.”
Chapter 25
A Cat Might Look at a King
When Archie and Ainsley appeared on her doorstep, Tabitha welcomed them into her shop the moment she saw Leo in the princess’s arms. She didn’t seem to mind the blood, but she kept fumbling her words and casting nervous glances at the princess. She even burned herself once, trying to clean one of her needles in the fire.
