Fox Snare, page 6
“Min?” asked the person under the table with me, and then I was certain.
“Sebin? What are you doing down here?”
I heard rather than saw their grimace. “Failing to keep a couple of cadets from running amok at a party, apparently.”
I’d known that a starship, a battle cruiser, had been assigned to convey the Thousand Worlds delegation to wherever it needed to go. But it had escaped my attention that the specific ship was the Haetae, where my kind-of friend Sebin was assigned. Served me right for zoning out during parts of Seok’s briefing.
“I figured it was an attack,” I admitted. Sure enough, I could hear stern voices ordering people to calm down and stop panicking. I could have told the guards that that never worked, but it had to have been standard procedure.
“I thought they’d hidden down here, but no, it’s you.” Sebin’s voice sounded more growly and exasperated than ever. “I’ll keep looking.”
“Wait. I’ll come with—” I started to say, but they had already left.
“I can either stay here where it’s safe,” I said to Jun, since I doubted anyone else was listening near where I crouched, “or I can help Sebin.”
“Seok would want you to stay safe,” Jun said. “But you’re not going to, so you might as well make your move now. You could use Charm—carefully—to help calm the crowd.”
Jun was a much nicer fox than I was. Or more responsible, at least. But I had a different concern. “That might alert Miho that we’re foxes. Maybe we should find her and get her to do it.”
I clambered out from beneath the table. I probably looked disheveled, but what with all the screaming and carrying-on, I wouldn’t be the only one. The lights flickered, then came back on.
Where was Miho? My nose tickled, and I instinctively followed the direction of that uncomfortable, itchy feeling. Lucky Jun, I thought, since being insubstantial meant it was easy for him to navigate the crowd. I immediately felt awful; it couldn’t be fun being a ghost.
As I began my search, Silhouette emerged from her own hidey-hole. I felt even worse when I caught sight of her expression. She took her job seriously, and I’d vanished. I gave her a thumbs-up and she looked startled, then nodded.
Jun and I located Miho hiding behind a chair. “Assistant Minister!” I hissed. “You can do something about this panic.”
I could smell her reaction, a mix of annoyance and resignation. “You’re right,” she said. “If you insist.”
I couldn’t let this panic go on. “I’ll owe you a favor,” I said, wondering if I’d live to regret the promise.
That decided it. She stepped out from behind her cover and straightened up. “Honored guests!” she said in a voice that carried. “No need to worry. They were just testing one of the emergency systems.”
A transparent lie—except Miho’s power ensured that people would believe her and calm down.
My eyes watered at the outpouring of Charm that gusted from her, almost like a physical force. While her back was turned to me, I indulged in a sneeze. I wondered if I would ever be as powerful as she was and become a full-fledged nine-tail myself.
The shouts and yelps subsided. Even the security guards, who had flocked from their positions, turned toward us, their eyes glazed.
“Now, I believe a couple people have a confession to make,” Miho went on.
I hadn’t looked behind Miho earlier. I did now. Two cadets, both in Space Forces uniform, stared worshipfully at her. They had to be the pranksters that Sebin was looking for. How had she rounded them up so quickly?
And that wasn’t all. Sebin accompanied them, gazing at Miho with that same entranced look, caught in the net of her Charm.
I woke up, if you could call it that, in a holding cell on the station. The setup hadn’t been designed to hold a tiger, which I could tell by testing the flimsy restraints, but no force was more powerful than my own honor. At least under normal circumstances.
The shreds of memory returning to me suggested that these were not normal circumstances.
I’d gone with Haneul to round up Cadets Dak-Ho and Yui and . . .
“They’ve come to,” someone reported. I slowly recognized the voice.
Why was Haneul standing over me at a weird angle, while I was trussed up ineffectually in this chair?
My head lolled to one side. I sat up straight, spotted Captain Chaewon, and reflexively attempted to salute. Then growled when the restraints cut into my wrists. That was a mistake, I realized the moment the noise left my throat. The captain’s mouth tightened as though I had disgraced myself.
I wished the jigsaw pieces would coalesce faster. I was still on Station Ssangyong, judging by the smell. It had an earthier tang than the metal-and-disinfectant reek of the starship. (Not that I would ever describe the Haetae’s smell to the captain that way, even if it had come to be the smell of home.)
“Cadet Sebin,” the captain said, her voice flat. One degree from anger. “Explain yourself.”
Haneul bit her lip. She stood behind the captain, and the cadet smelled intensely of frustration. I would have loved a chance to quiz her on how we’d gotten split up, because the last time I remembered seeing her, she’d been right behind me, watching my back as I checked under the table. Something must have happened to separate us, because there was a blank patch in my memory and then this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Haneul mouth something. Too bad lipreading wasn’t one of my skills, ancestral or otherwise. A headache pounded at my temples as I attempted to gather my wits.
The lights going out. Screams. Running into Min, of all people, under the table.
Fresh adrenaline flooded into my system. My jumbled memories finally made sense, or as much sense as they were going to. At least I had enough presence of mind—not that that was saying much—to force myself to sit still, rather than pulling against, and perhaps breaking, the restraints.
“Min,” I croaked. “I ran into Min. And fox magic.”
“Sir, I know Min,” Haneul said. “She may be impulsive, but she—”
“Cadet Haneul,” Captain Chaewon said, “I know the Bearer of the Dragon Pearl by reputation. Including her heritage.”
Cynically, I wondered if Min had meant to keep her fox heritage a secret, because that ship had sailed.
“I’m not at one hundred percent,” I said to Captain Chaewon, as much as it galled me to admit weakness. “I have a hazy memory of searching for Dak-Ho and Yui with Haneul.” More pieces returned to me as I spoke. “We followed their scent to a reception of some sort, and lost time persuading Security to let us in because we didn’t have invitations.”
“If I may, sir,” Haneul said again.
I had to admire her persistence.
“No,” Captain Chaewon said curtly. “I want to hear Sebin’s account. Don’t make me explain myself again, Cadet.”
Haneul’s face shuttered. It seemed that the captain was done deferring to Haneul on account of her high connections. I wondered what Haneul’s previous captain had been like, and if the dragon had gotten used to special treatment.
I squeezed my eyes shut, which was probably a mistake, especially while the captain was watching. But my head hurt so much, as though someone had reached into my skull and squeezed my brain into a pulp. I needed a moment to regain my equilibrium.
“That’s right,” I said, opening my eyes again to the captain’s unreadable expression. “The only reason we made it into the reception hall was that all the lights had gone out. I was too late to stop Dak-Ho and Yui from getting away with mischief.”
Suddenly another thought occurred to me. “Dak-Ho and Yui—did they cause any more trouble?” And, just as important, because they were crew, the closest thing I had to family: “Are they all right?”
“You’re very fortunate,” Captain Chaewon said in a voice that implied anything but. “No one died in the chaos.”
The headache was nothing to the gnawing anxiety in my stomach. I hadn’t considered that the consequences could be worse than a little mayhem.
“You hadn’t accounted for that, had you? The ‘only reason’ you got past Security was that Security was busy preventing what could have been an assassination attack.”
“The junior cadets would never . . .” I whispered, but the idea shook me. The political fallout would have been catastrophic if any of the dignitaries had died.
The captain smiled grimly. “You’re beginning to understand. Dak-Ho and Yui wouldn’t have knowingly aided an assassination attempt, but there might well have been enemies of the Thousand Worlds ready to take advantage of any disruption.”
I could see it now. As much trouble as I was in, there was no way that Captain Chaewon could go easy on the two junior cadets. Not after what they’d done.
Which wasn’t to say that I was in zero trouble myself. I was sure I was in plenty, and I deserved it. She’d given me a straightforward mission, and I’d been outwitted by a pair of kids even younger than I was.
“Cadets Dak-Ho and Yui are in custody and will be dealt with accordingly,” the captain confirmed.
I didn’t ask what their punishment would be. I’d find out soon enough. That sort of thing didn’t stay secret for long on any ship anyway. Even the plumbing has ears, as they say.
I squared my shoulders, which set off a whole new wave of pain in my wrists and temples, a one-two preview of punishment. But whatever the captain’s sentence, I would accept it with as much dignity as I could muster.
“It does appear,” Captain Chaewon said with a sideways glance at Haneul, “that there are some extenuating circumstances. The Bearer of the Dragon Pearl might hold us hostage to her whims, but she can’t go around using her wicked fox powers on my crew. And it does appear that she used her . . . abilities to keep people from panicking.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. What was there to say when I couldn’t put my own memories of the past couple hours together in a way that made sense?
Min and I weren’t best friends. In fact, we’d started out as enemies. But we’d learned to work together during the hijacking crisis. I’d thought we were allies.
I’d thought, too, that she wouldn’t simply Charm me like I was nothing but an obstacle to whatever she wanted.
Something didn’t add up. I was positive that Min wasn’t the kind of person who used “wicked fox powers” for kicks. At least, I hoped that the Domestic Security Ministry, for which she worked, did a better job of screening its personnel than that.
All the same, if my headache and memory issues hadn’t come from a run-in with a fox’s Charm, what had caused them? Having no answer was almost worse than the one staring me in the face.
And of course, the fact that I was tied up suggested that the captain didn’t entirely trust me. I cleared my throat. “Sir, I won’t let it happen again.”
As soon as I spoke, I realized it was an empty promise. Few countermeasures existed against a fox spirit’s Charm, which was one of the reasons people feared them so much. I was no shaman or magician with access to the ancient magics. And I doubted that Captain Chaewon would be eager to add a Sapsali dog to our crew. For that matter, I wasn’t positive that just any Sapsali would do—maybe only a shaman’s dog had the ability to break a fox’s mind-control powers.
Still, this satisfied Captain Chaewon. “You were thrashing about when we came upon you,” she said by way of explanation. “As if you’d been ordered to resist capture.”
I didn’t remember that, but that didn’t mean a whole lot right now. “Sorry, sir.”
She nodded and released the restraints.
I rubbed my wrists as circulation rushed back into my hands, wriggling my fingers to make sure they all functioned. My aunt had taught me how to tie up someone so that no permanent damage was done, and I could appreciate the skill with which I’d been trussed. It hadn’t occurred to me until much later that this was a weird thing to prioritize in a kid’s upbringing.
“Your assistance is appreciated, Cadet Haneul,” the captain said stiffly. “Please escort Cadet Sebin back to the Haetae. I have arrangements of my own to make.”
The last person I wanted to escort me back to the ship was Haneul. But I wasn’t being fair to her, I realized dimly. If anything, she’d been caught up in events just as much as I had.
We headed out of the room and back through the station’s halls. This time the elaborate decorations stared at me accusingly. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the masks came to life to rebuke me.
I did have one burning question, which I saved for when we were out of earshot of anyone I could see or hear or smell. “If Min Charmed me,” I said to Haneul, “why didn’t she do the same to you?”
She bit her lip, looking troubled. Vulnerable, for once, which might mean she was willing to tell me something of use. “Two reasons. One, we’d gotten separated. I must have been out of range.”
Since her memory could hardly be worse than mine on recent events, I nodded. “And the other?”
“I know Min,” she said in a rush. “We served together on the Pale Lightning once. It’s a long story. Maybe she spared me because she didn’t feel I was a threat to her.”
I frowned as we approached the security checkpoint for the Haetae’s docking bay. “Did I growl at her? Threaten to turn into a tiger?”
“No, no! None of those things. I think . . . I think the captain was harder on you than she needed to be.”
Huh. That statement made me warm to Haneul. She was doing her best, the same as me.
At that point we reached the checkpoint and the guards interrupted us. “Name and ID,” said the taller one, a person with a nose that had been broken at least twice.
“Cadet Juhwang Sebin of the Haetae,” I said, producing my ID for inspection.
The guard waved me through, and it was Haneul’s turn.
“Cadet Haneul of the Haetae,” Haneul said, showing her ID.
I expected them to wave her through as well, so it came as an unpleasant surprise when the guard ran her ID through a scanner and it beeped menacingly.
Haneul and I exchanged glances, united for once in our apprehension.
“Dragon Councilor Gwan requires your presence immediately,” the guard said at last. “Your duty to them supersedes any other orders you have been given.”
A flare of rebellion wafted from Haneul, but out loud she said only, “Understood, sir.”
“I can make it back to my bunk alone,” I started to say when the floor rushed up toward me.
Haneul caught hold of my arm and hauled me back upright. She was stronger than she looked. People didn’t usually think of dragons in terms of their strength—they weren’t primarily known for it like tigers or goblins—but in her true form, Haneul was probably several times bigger than even the largest tiger. Raindrops splattered against my forehead, so cold they almost burned.
“Sorry,” Haneul muttered. The rain stopped abruptly, although the chilly humidity that hung around her didn’t abate. “I’d better get you to sick bay. The dragon councilor can wait.”
I had to say it. “I’ve been Charmed before,” I said in an undertone as she helped me stagger toward the docked ship. “I don’t remember it hitting me quite like this.”
“Shh,” Haneul said. “We can discuss this after you’re better.”
The officer of the deck recognized us both, so getting onto the Haetae proper was much easier. Still, I didn’t want to get Haneul into further trouble. Bad enough that I’d botched my orders.
“Seriously, go on,” I said. “I can make it to sick bay on my own.”
I spoiled the effect by losing my balance.
Now Haneul smelled almost exclusively of worry. “I’ve never seen Charm do this,” she said in a whisper. “Lean on me.”
What could I do? I leaned on her, and together we hobbled to sick bay.
I woke up again, this time hooked up to a medical unit. “Water?” I croaked. My head felt much better. Clearer, as though an unknown veil had lifted.
“Objectively speaking,” said the medic after bringing me a cup of broth, “there’s nothing wrong with you. All the readings come up blue.”
I kept silent. It didn’t seem discreet to say that I’d run afoul of fox magic—it was up to the captain to decide how to share that information. At the same time, I didn’t like leaving the medic completely in the dark.
“I heard there was a big party on the station,” the medic added, frowning suspiciously at me. “You didn’t get into the punch or anything else you cadets aren’t supposed to, did you?”
I’d certainly smelled plenty of rice wine at that party. It was only through luck that it hadn’t gotten spilled on my clothes.
“Of course not,” a voice interrupted. I smelled its owner before I saw her: Min. I couldn’t detect the part of her that was fox, but that stood to reason. She was playing human, after all. “I was there. Sebin ran afoul of some magic business. A geomancer should go over the layout of the whole place again.”
It sounded plausible, although I only knew the bare rudiments of pungsu jiri, or geomancy. My grandmother’s estate had relied on careful arrangements of azalea and wisteria, willow and sycamore, to channel the forces of good fortune in favor of the Juhwang Tiger Clan. Of course, even geomancy couldn’t save the family when misdeeds caught up with them. Something I’d found out the hard way.
Accompanying Min was a taller woman, perhaps in early middle age, with short hair and a red mouth. She had the kind of beauty that drew the eye like an unsheathed sword. It made me uneasy even though I had no objective reason to distrust her.
“Hello, Sebin,” Min said, coming closer. “I thought I’d check in on you.”
I bet Captain Chaewon didn’t like having a fox wandering around loose on her starship.
The medic was unamused. “I’m sorry, who are you two and what are you doing in my sick bay?”
“Pardon me,” the older woman cut in smoothly. “I’m Yang Miho, assistant to the minister of defense. I’m part of the diplomatic party that will be taking this fine vessel to the border world of Jasujeong. I thought I’d take a tour. . . .”
