As February drew to an end, Emerald Hill's corner of the Rocky Mountains was beset with heavy storms. From the front windows of the Kitsune dormitory, Luke could catch only occasional glimpses of the other buildings through the swirling sleet and snow, but he saw enough to frighten him: the prevailing wind kept the front steps of Unicorn and Kitsune clear, but the others were entirely buried, as well as the inner courtyard, and only the head of the dragon statue peeked through the tremendous drift.

No one went outside for several weeks; the doors that led out were locked, restricting travel to the tunnels, which became very crowded. The dormitory bedrooms that were above ground level were given insulated curtains to keep in front of the windows, and every fireplace on campus blazed day and night. Jackson told Luke that all of the sphinxes in the giant painting in his dormitory's common room had hidden away in their caves, and was fascinated to hear that the kitsunes seemed unaffected. "Kitsunes are creatures of fire and shadow," Luke told him, feeling very smart. "I guess they carry their own heat with them."

"Wow," said Jackson, impressed. "So what are sphinxes, then?"

They spent a few hours in the library to try to find out. Luke was surprised at how familiar Jackson seemed with the place, taking them immediately to the third underground level without consulting the research assistant globes that followed them—and Luke could have sworn the gently-lit orbs seemed disappointed by the neglect.

It was pleasantly cozy this far beneath the bad weather, and, eschewing the tables, Luke and Jackson piled their collected books on a space of open floor and crawled among them on the worn carpeting, occasionally pulling one into their laps to flip through. A convoluted trail of amateur research led them to the subject of elementalism.

"What?" said Luke, peering over Jackson's shoulder at the enormous volume balanced in the other boy's lap.

"Elementalism," Jackson repeated, pronouncing it carefully. "Ari and Paris have a buddy whose family are elementalists. That's weird stuff. Invocation and energy-harnessing and crap like that. This stuff here doesn't sound so bad. Theories about how magical animals might be creatures of fundamental powers," he quoted from the paragraph beneath his finger. "Like what you said about kitsunes. How'd you know that, anyway?"

"Uh, one of the upperclassmen told me."

"Well, it's really cool."

"What does it say about sphinxes?"

"Hm." Jackson flipped to the index of the book, and in the intervening moments, Luke silently marveled at how much his friend had grown since coming to Emerald Hill. Last summer, when they had met, Jackson had been so shy, reticent around strangers, and Luke would never have pegged him as the studious type. But during their months at this extraordinary school Jackson had proven himself outgoing and candid, and Luke had been rather surprised to learn that Jackson was excelling in all of his classes.

"Here we go," said Jackson, and turned to a chapter heading marked by a full-page illustration of a sphinx: leonine body, long neck hung with a heavy fringe of black hair that framed, mane-like, a human face. The very large, almond-shaped eyes had slitted pupils, and fine gold chains hung from piercings in the drooping lobes of the ears.

Jackson browsed for a moment or two, turning pages. Luke let him read, contenting himself with the illustrations and photos. Early in the school year he had been repeatedly startled by the size of the sphinx statues in the Joining Glade and in front of Jackson's dormitory; they were much larger than any lion, more comparable in shoulder height to a horse, their paws larger than Luke's head. He had a passing wish to see the painting in the Sphinx dormitory, just to watch the magnificent creatures in motion.

"Different people think different things," Jackson said at last. "Shadow and air, stone and air, earth and shadow, and all kinds of debates about whether shadow or stone are actual elements. Man, why doesn't anyone actually know anything?"

"It's the same way with kitsunes," Luke told him. "Just a bunch of theories and ideas. All questions, no answers."

"Well, we should find out someday!" Jackson closed the tome with authority, earning an irritated shush from a group of juniors at a nearby table. "You and me," Jackson continued in his stage whisper, which was still loud. "We can do research together. I bet we can find out all the secrets."

As they piled the books onto a cart to be reshelved, Luke felt a little guilty. After all, his list of questions for Doctor Yancey was a personal research project, and he wished he could share his knowledge with Jackson, or anyone. But he remembered the burning on his arms when he had been confronted by Andromeda…and that had been only a warning.

That evening, Luke and Grimalkin were relaxing in the Kitsune common room, in an oversized armchair in the sunken area on the ground floor, close to the wall with the fireplace and the painting of the kitsunes. He had brought his History textbook with him to study but had gotten distracted watching the painting. They moved like smoke, almost dancing on long slim legs, multiple tails streaming out behind them. But he had found that it was difficult to focus on just one of them, or even a particular feature; they were obscure, sly, hiding behind screens of shadow or in the standing thickets of the painting, defying definition. For the first time, Luke wondered who had made the painting, and whether that person had spent time with actual kitsunes. He took the list from its hiding place—page 644 in his textbook—and added question forty-one.

"Luke, right?"

Luke jolted as though the voice had been an electric shock. He slammed the book closed on the list (and two of his fingers), turning in the chair to see a face he recognized: the fifth-year junior girl who had greeted him the first time he had entered the Den. Her mass of tightly-curled black hair was hard to forget.

"Zoë," she reminded him. "Sorry I spooked you."

"S'okay." Luke stroked Grimalkin to calm her.

Zoë sat in a bean bag, and tipped her chin toward the painting. "You watch them a lot. I mean, we all do, but you even more than most."

"Yeah." No denying that, Luke knew. He would have to balance honesty with great care. "Well, I think about them a lot. It's weird, isn't it? I mean, we call kitsunes magical creatures, but they're a lot more like people than, like, cats or something."

Zoë smirked at Grimalkin, who, as though slighted, took the opportunity to climb to the top of the armchair and stare disdainfully into the middle distance. "It is weird," Zoë agreed. "Same with sphinxes and unicorns. What level of intellect divides a person from an animal?"

Luke certainly had no answer for that, so he countered with another question: "Have you ever seen one? A real one?"

"'Course not." She pushed her glasses up on her nose, a gesture he also remembered from their former meeting. "I don't know of anyone who has, either. I don't know if any kitsunes live in this hemisphere."

Luke spared himself a second of internal smugness. "Do you know who did the painting? Did the same person paint all six?"

Zoë looked surprised, blinking several times. "I don't know, actually. I've never thought about it." Then she smiled. "You ask good questions, Luke."

That statement struck him, and though he felt a faint tingle on his forearms, he calmed himself and thought over his words carefully, and the tingle was gone by the time he spoke. "Hey Zoë, if you met a kitsune and could ask it one question, what would you ask?"

Zoë pursed her lips, watching the painting for a time as she thought. "I guess…" She hesitated, plucking at the hem of her shirt, seeming suddenly younger than her fifteen years, almost shy. "I would ask to hear it sing."

"That's more of a favor than a question."

"True. But my mom—she was a Kitsune, too—she always says that kitsunes are supposed to sing beautifully. Like, leave-you-speechless beautiful. I've always wanted to hear it."

They watched the kitsunes, content in silence, and Luke tried to imagine what their song might sound like. He thought of the voice of the spirit in the statue, like a charred stick dragged through coals, and hoped, for Zoë's sake, that some kitsunes sang more prettily than others. He glanced at her, but her eyes were hidden behind the reflection of the fireplace flames on the lenses of her glasses. She looked at him, eyes burning. "If it had to be a real question, though," she said, "I would ask it if it likes us. People, I mean. Humans."

Luke nodded slowly. "Huh. That's a good one."

"What about you? What would you ask?"

He had to suppress a grin, keeping his fingers still when they wanted to twitch toward the list hidden in the book. "I think I'd ask its name."

Zoë snorted. "How very practical of you."

When he had gone up to his room to prepare for bed, Luke flopped onto his stomach on his bed and opened the book, finding the list. He popped the cap off his pen and wrote carefully: #42: Do you like us?


On the ninth of March, when Luke's list had grown to forty-nine items, the sun finally returned to Emerald Hill. The campus was buried in white, blinding bright under a sky that blazed with shocking clarity and shocking cold. Crews of students were recruited to help the maintenance staff dig out the dormitories and the Quidditch stadiums; the students, suffering from acute cabin fever after nearly three weeks inside, stepped up with great enthusiasm. The freshmen weren't much help, either with shovels or charms, but they enjoyed being outside all the same, running along the frozen crust of snow until it broke beneath them and sent them tumbling. Once Jackson actually disappeared into a deep drift, and Luke, David, and the quintuplets had to get him out, laughing so hard they could barely dig.

"It's in my pants!" Jackson shrieked when he finally reached the surface again, hopping around and wiggling as he tried to shake the snow from his clothes.

Luke wheezed with laughter, dodging a handful of snow that Paris lobbed at him, but was distracted when he saw a group of upperclassmen hurrying along looking both excited and agitated. He nudged Theia and pointed.

Theia sobered, rolling to her feet and brushing the snow from her hair. "Excuse me," she called, and one of the upperclassmen looked their way. "What's going on?"

"Someone's been outside during lockdown," the boy replied. "Barefoot!"

Jackson scooped up his hat and plopped it back onto his head. "Come on!" he bellowed, and scrambled across the frozen snow to catch up with the older students. The others hurried behind him. Luke figured they were a foot or two above one of the brick paths, not far from the Joining Glade, when they saw the upperclassmen they had followed joining a larger group of students who were leaning on their shovels and talking. Luke and the others pushed their way through, and when he saw what they were looking at, Luke stopped dead.

It was immediately apparent why these footprints had not been buried by the fierce wind. Across the snow lay a slick of ice, thirty feet long and of varying widths, and here and there the ice was depressed in the vague but unmistakable shape of bare human feet. The others were gasping and pointing and speculating about what sort of charm would enable a person to melt ice with his bare feet, but Luke did not have to wonder. He remembered Alice Yancey crouching on the frozen pond with no goosebumps on her arms, and it was very easy to picture her walking alone in the howling night, oblivious to the storm, a source of heat that melted the snow as she walked, leaving it to freeze immediately when she had passed.

"Wow," murmured Psyche, who had come through the crowd beside Luke. She knelt to touch the edge of the ice with a gloved hand. "Why would anyone go out in weather like that?"

As far as Luke was concerned, that was the only pertinent question at hand. After lunch, he went immediately to the schedule posted outside the door of his Transfiguration classroom and signed up to meet with Yancey during her office hours the following day, a Monday.

He watched her carefully during class, and thought she was acting differently. She seemed less engaged with the task of teaching, distant, preoccupied. When the class was dismissed she gave Luke a small nod, which he figured meant that she had seen his name on her schedule; he changed out of his robes in the dormitory, made excuses not to play chess with David, and went back to the third floor of White Hall's east wing.

"How long is your list now?" Yancey asked when he entered her office, closing the door behind him.

"Up to forty-nine," Luke answered, grinning, and produced it from the pocket of his jeans. She accepted it when he held it out, and he gave her a few moments to read before saying, "It was your footprints outside, wasn't it?"

"Yes," she said, without glancing up from the list. "Careless of me. I wasn't paying enough attention."

"So…if you can melt snow with your feet, how come your desk isn't on fire?"

She chuckled. "Containing her flame and shadow is the first thing a kitsune must learn if she wants to interact with humans. It's not as difficult as you might think. Now, remaining visible: that's tricky. Do I—" She tapped the list, finally looking up, with an amused little smile. "Do I like you? What do you mean by us?"

"You know, all of us. People."

"Oh." Yancey looked surprised. "That's a profound question, actually. I…well, yes. Overall, I do like you."

"Overall?"

"Well, think about it. Do you like all people? Everyone? And even the ones that you do like—do you like everything about them?"

"I guess not."

"Well, same here. Humans are a lot like kitsunes that way. There is good and bad in every individual. Things to like, things to despise."

Luke nodded. "That makes sense. But…you're so much like people, right? Does it bother you that people think of kitsunes as animals?"

"Not really."

"Oh. Good, I guess."

"The sphinxes take it rather hard, but most of my kind are so disdainful of humanity that they'd rather be grouped with the animals anyway."

Luke felt stung. "They don't like us?"

"They don't know you. Most of them have no contact with humans." Yancey gave him a long look that Luke found inscrutable. "But if they met you, Luke, I think they would have to admit that some people are worth liking."

Shocked and pleased, he fiddled with the buttons on his corduroy overcoat. Yancey watched him a moment longer and then returned her attention to the list. "Have you always had such an interest in kitsunes?" she asked.

"Oh, my parents are Muggles. I didn't know about any of this till last summer. Until I got my letter."

"Really? You've certainly dealt with it well. No other magic in your family?"

"My grandma was a witch. But I didn't know that till last summer, either. And she's dead now." Suddenly afraid that she would ask about his parents, Luke scrambled for a change of subject. "Uh, does anyone else in your clan spend time with humans?"

"Actually, yes. My brother is a talented shapeshifter."

"That's cool. Did he go to school here, too?"

"No. No, he did not." She frowned thoughtfully. "I said a moment ago that kitsunes, like humans, have good and bad in them, things to like and things to despise."

"Yeah." Sensing a change in her attitude, Luke's attention sharpened.

"Well…there is very little good in my brother." Yancey hesitated, glancing over the list without appearing to actually read anything, looking distracted—the way she had looked during class. When she spoke, her words were slow and careful. "Do you happen to remember my brother's name? I mentioned it, back in December."

"No," Luke admitted.

"He is the-one-who-breaks. If that doesn't sound very pleasant, well, like I said, he is not very pleasant. But unlike my own derogatory title, my brother has been a breaker since birth. He was tolerated for a long time, but eventually the clan forced him out and he has been an exile ever since. He's…not quite right in the head, as they say. I am here, at Emerald Hill, because my brother has an unusual preoccupation with this place. And the only way to guard against a kitsune is with another kitsune."

She watched him, and Luke knew that she was weighing his reaction to this news. He took a deep calming breath, but the image that filled his mind, refusing to be banished, was the illustration he had found in the library book of the shadowy kitsune hunched in menace, spine aflame and teeth gleaming. Gradually he allowed himself to understand that such a creature was stalking Emerald Hill. As this knowledge settled into his mind, a slow gnawing dread crawled into the pit of his stomach. He was just a child, and Yancey's tact was sure to have downplayed the severity of the situation. Not right in the head meant her brother was crazy. Unusual preoccupation meant he was obsessed. He remembered what she had said in December, that the need for her to be at Emerald Hill was greater than the risk of the discovery of her identity. The back of his neck prickled. He looked up at Yancey, trying to think of something sensible to say.

"What…what would be do?" he asked finally.

"I don't know," she replied. "He is full of hate, but not as shrewd as he likes to believe. Are you afraid?"

To be asked such a question, especially so frankly, by another student would have made Luke bristle. But it was different coming from her. He heard a whisper of Andromeda's voice

(she could lie about anything)

in the back of his mind, but he could not deny that despite everything, he did trust Doctor Yancey—Eronil the kitsune. He wondered, briefly, whether this was because she actually was telling him the truth or because he wasn't smart enough to catch her lies, but the implications of the latter were so frightening that he pushed that thought away.

"Yes," he said. It was the truth.

"Good," she said. "There is no shame in fear, Luke. My brother is worthy of fear. Accept your fear, but do not let it rule you. I am more than a match for him."

Luke nodded, somewhat comforted. "Is that why you were out in the storm?"

"My brother frequents storms, and that weather was violent enough that I suspected his involvement. But he was not there."

"Does he know you're here?" And would it keep him away if he did, he wanted to add.

"Almost certainly. I can't be sure—it's not like we keep in touch—but if he came anywhere close, he would be able to sense me. I cannot hide from him. But I don't want or need to."

"You said that he's worthy of fear."

"It's true."

"Do you fear him?"

Yancey seemed taken aback. "I'm not afraid to fight him, if that's what you mean. But I am afraid of having to hurt him, if it came to that."

Luke thought about that. "What's the difference?"

She smiled, but her eyes were sorrowful. "He is hateful, and cruel, and destructive. But…he is my brother."

That made perfect sense to Luke.

They sat quietly for a moment, and then Yancey lifted the list from the desk. "Number forty-one," she read aloud. "Who made the paintings in the dormitories? That's no secret. A witch by the name of Agatha Milonas painted them, back in the mid-1700s. A rare talent, hers."

"Did she meet any kitsunes, or was she just guessing what they look like?"

"Just guessing, as far as I know. Pretty good guesses, though. I do love that painting—much more than the statues on campus. A kitsune was never meant to be frozen in stone."

Luke frowned. "What about the-one-who-reads?"

"He made a great sacrifice for the sake of humanity, and gets very little credit for it among our people. He's been living with humans for three hundred years, looking into their hearts, watching over their dreams. It has changed him…though for better or for worse, who can say?"

"What do you think?"

Yancey smiled again, much more brightly this time. "He is a hero of mine."


The stars burned coldly and too bright. Luke shivered, bare feet slapping on the brick. Where were the dormitories? It was past curfew and he didn't have his cloak. The bare branches of the trees chattered above him, sharing secrets. The wind was so cold. Where were the dormitories? He turned left at a fork but the path was unfamiliar, full of strange shadows. Surely it was this way…? There was ice beneath his feet.

A gust of wind shoved him. He tried to hurry, but his legs were very cold, very heavy. They wouldn't move properly. Where were the dormitories? He had to get inside. Something was out there in the dark. The brick paths wandered under the trees and he stumbled along, searching in vain for something familiar. The stars were going out; one by one they disappeared, and the black branches of the trees blended seamlessly with the black void of the sky, and the blackness shifted and moved, an endless flank of inky fur. It was looking for him.

(I)

Luke tried to run. He had to get inside. The sky turned, and the wind sniffed at his heels.

(I know)

The cold air burned his throat. The shadows crawled up his legs. He fell, and the ground shattered, and he fell into the abyss that was waiting for him and

(I know your name)

his legs jerked and he woke up in the dim dormitory room. Grimalkin was sitting on the shelves that separated his area from David's, and her eyes glittered; the curtain over his window was pulled slightly askew and a sliver of cold silver light was falling on his pillow. Luke sat up and drew the curtain closed, not wanting to see the moon shining on the snow of the courtyard. The fire in the room had burned low and he padded to the fireplace in his slippers to put another log on and poke the flames to life. He sat on the edge of the slightly raised hearth, folded arms resting on his knees, soaking in the warmth of the fire.

Fire, the-one-who-reads had said. Passion, strength, warmth, zeal. But a fire could also burn. A fire could destroy.

"Hey," whispered a voice, and Luke jumped, badly startled. Jeffrey Ryan, who had one of the beds closest to the fireplace, was sitting up. "You okay?"

Luke shrugged. "Bad dream."

Jeffrey nodded, pushing his rumpled hair out of his face. "Wanna play cards?"

"Yeah."

Jeffrey also had a cat, a calico, smaller than Grimalkin. "Move over, Gwennie," he said, picking up the cat with hands gentler than his words, and Luke sat on the foot of the bed as Jeffrey shuffled his worn pack of Bicycles. After a moment Grimalkin joined them and curled up beside Gwennie, and the only noises in the room were the crackling of the fire, the gentle papery snap of the cards, and two cats purring.