He didn’t have to knock a second time. With a rattling of the handle, the door was hauled open by a sixtyish woman who might once have been beautiful. There was a hardness about her features now, but Oliver thought that had not always been the case. When she smiled at the sight of them, he was startled. He’d been prepared to quickly explain their presence, but she did not seem alarmed by the arrival of three strangers upon her doorstep in the middle of a December storm, despite the remoteness of the island.
“Not the best weather to be out on the water, I’d say.”
Oliver could not help being charmed by her. “You’d be right, ma’am. And our time is short because the storm’s supposed to get worse. Captain Moncreiffe wants to get back to the mainland by lunch, and—”
“Ach, well, that’d be Barclay, all right. Though I’d guess he’s more worried about missing lunch than he is about any storm,” the woman said. “Right. Well, what can I do for ya, then? Didn’t come all this way to look at Viking graves or for some monastic retreat like the fellas were out here in September.”
Kitsune drew back her hood. The old woman blinked and stared closely at her, perhaps drawn by those jade eyes. Or perhaps there was something else she recognized in the face of the fox-woman, for she studied Blue Jay more closely and a grim intelligence lit her expression.
“We’re looking for a man named David Koenig. A professor. We’re told he lives on the island. I wonder if you could point us in the right direction?” Oliver asked.
The woman nodded thoughtfully, turning her gaze back to Blue Jay. “Mischief in your eyes, son.”
“And in yours, mother.”
Most women would have been taken aback at the reply, unless they were somehow aware that in some Native American cultures it was a sign of respect to call older women mother. Yet this odd, formidable woman only nodded as though his response was confirmation of some profound suspicion.
“Just beyond the Presbyterian church, along that way, behind the bigger building with the fancy porch— used to be a market once, long time ago— there’s a rock wall runs along a path. Won’t be able to see the path in this weather, of course, but if you follow the wall it’ll take you to a pretty little gate. In warmer weather, the professor keeps a fine garden. ’Tis his gate, you see. The cottage on t’other side belongs to him.”
Oliver didn’t ask if they might find the professor home. Where else would the man go? They thanked her and started off, and Oliver noticed that she kept watching them until they lost sight of the cottage in the storm. He wondered if she kept on gazing after them even after the snow had obscured her view.
They wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the Presbyterian church and the other two— whatever denominations they had once been home to— except that the former market with the “fancy porch” was unmistakable. Other than the churches and what had clearly once been a pub or inn of some sort but was now as hollow as so many of the island’s structures, it was the only building of any size. The rock wall was the sort that had been built to mark land boundaries in another age. Snow had built up on top, but it was not nearly deep enough to hide masonry. They followed along beside it on what they presumed was the path the old woman had mentioned, and at the end they did indeed find the gate, a delicate white-picket thing that seemed absurdly out of place in such inhospitable terrain.
Oliver suspected that in the summer, with the flowers in his garden in full bloom, Professor Koenig’s gate and the fence that ran along the perimeter of his property would have seemed far more appropriate, even quaint.
He paused in front of the gate.
“What are you waiting for?” Blue Jay asked, and when Oliver looked at him the trickster’s laughing eyes were dark with uncharacteristic impatience.
Kitsune seemed to understand his reluctance, however. She pushed the gate open and turned toward him. “At least you will have an answer. Even if it is not the answer you hope for.”
He nodded and followed her, the three of them passing through the gate. At the door, both of the Borderkind looked at him expectantly. There came a hissing from the air above him and Oliver looked up to see Gong Gong gliding to the ground, body slipping serpentine upon the winds. The dragon seemed thinner as it flew, but upon landing it appeared quite the same as when he had first seen it. The snow was not avoiding him as it had earlier, but the lightning sparks in Gong Gong’s eyes gave off enough heat that as the flakes touched his face, they melted.
“Aren’t you going to knock?” the dragon asked.
Oliver stared at him. “Where’s Frost?”
The dragon spread his wings and shook them before curling them against his body once more. His tufts of hair and beard were wild from the storm and his expression pulled back now into a kind of snarl.
“Look around, you fool. He’s everywhere.”
Oliver took a long breath and knocked on the door. It had been Frost who had drawn him into this. Much as he admired and respected Kitsune, Oliver had seen that Frost carried a greater weight of authority when speaking to other Borderkind. Not that Koenig was one of them. He was just a man. But even Kitsune deferred to Frost, and it would have been better to have him there.
The knock was muffled by the falling snow. Seconds went by without any response from within, though there was the dim glow of a lamp in the window farthest to the right. Despite that it was still morning— no later than ten o’clock— the day was so dark with storm that a light inside was no surprise.
“Oliver,” Kitsune urged.
He nodded and knocked again, but lightly.
“Fuck this,” Gong Gong snorted, and he stepped forward and began to kick at the bottom of the door so fiercely that it shook in its frame.
Blue Jay had to step in front of him and nudge him away with one shoe. “Enough of that. You’ll terrify the man. He’ll never open his—”
The door swung open.
But it was not Professor David Koenig who stood there, holding the door wide to admit them. It was Jenny Greenteeth.
“Hello there!” Jenny said happily. “Don’t just stand there in the snow. Come in. There’s cocoa on, and whiskey for those that will have it despite the hour. If you behave, there are some ladyfingers in the cupboard as well.”
Beyond her was a tall man with a lanky frame, his pants too high on his waist, wisps of white hair on his head and bifocals propped on the end of his nose that made it seem as though he was scrutinizing everything. And perhaps he was.
Kitsune laughed. It seemed the most beautiful sound Oliver had ever heard. “Jenny,” she said happily, and she stepped over the threshold and into the arms of the girl with the matted, filthy, river-bottom hair and the pale green flesh.
“Come here, Kit. Glad to see you in one piece,” Jenny said.
They all went through the door. Oliver was last, allowing the Borderkind to savor their reunion.
“Her?” Gong Gong snapped. “What about you? I saw the Kirata take you down with my own eyes. You were dead, pond scum.”
When he poked Jenny with a sharp talon, it was obvious he was taller than before, at least half again as high, and there were coils in his body like those of a snake. Oliver was unnerved by this change, and by the way the tip of his tail seemed to track in the air like the stinger on a scorpion, as though it might strike.
Jenny laughed at him. “You give me the sweetest nicknames, love.”
Kitsune broke their embrace. “Truly, my friend. We thought you dead.”
“How did you manage—” Blue Jay began.
“Better than them have tried,” Jenny Greenteeth said. And there was something insidious about the cast of her face then, and the set of her jaw. “You keep hearing premature reports of me cashing it in, but it’s wishful thinking. I’ve a pretty face, don’t I? It makes them forget how dangerous my sort can be. Took me hours to wash the blood of those soddin’ arrogant kittens off.”
They went on like that for a while, but Oliver was no longer listening. He was pleased Jenny was safe and that she’d made her way to Canna Island. The Mazikeen had discovered the professor’s location before the Hunters had attacked, so there was no mystery as to how she’d beaten them here. She’d known where to look, and didn’t have to worry about bringing a human along for the trip.
But now the journey was over. Oliver had reached his destination.
“You’re Professor Koenig?” he asked, moving around the gathered Borderkind and into the cottage, where a fire burned in the hearth and the man stood with an unlit pipe clutched in the fingers of his left hand. “David Koenig?”
The professor nodded. “I am. Which would make you Mr. Bascombe. Jenny’s told me of your odyssey, sir. I am sorry to hear of it.”
Oliver’s heart thundered in his chest. Until this very moment some part of him had not believed that Professor Koenig had ever existed, or that if he did they would find him still alive.
“Then . . . it’s true?” he said with a slow nod. “The story about you is true?”
The old man smiled and turned to set his pipe on a rack above the fireplace. “If you mean the tale of my journey through the Veil, it is indeed. I confess I don’t believe I am the only trespasser to escape execution. Merely the only one in recent memory . . . and certainly the only one still alive today.”
Gong Gong was warming himself by the fire, snout nearly close enough to the flames that at any moment his beard might alight. Blue Jay and Kitsune were talking quietly but grimly with Jenny Greenteeth. Oliver was aware of all of them, and yet for a moment the rest of the world seemed to slip away and it was just Professor Koenig and himself.
He stepped nearer to the man, melting snow dripping from his coat and hair. “With so many Borderkind, I knew there had to have been others who’ve brought people across with them. But I don’t understand. Why is it that every one of them has been executed except for you?”
“You must understand, Mr. Bascombe,” the professor said. “It is a rarity for any of the Borderkind to break the law like this, and so ever more rare for the Intruder to be allowed to live. I believe before my good fortune it had been over a century since the last trespasser was spared. It’s quite a story, really. I was a folklorist, you see, and working on a study of Eastern European legend.”
As the old man rambled, Oliver cast his mind back to that night in the midst of the blizzard when Frost had slid through the window of his mother’s parlor, wounded and hunted. The memory of that moment when they had careened off the bluff overlooking the ocean with the Falconer in pursuit was seared into his mind. The moment he had pierced the Veil for the first time. He thought of his father, murdered and defiled, of the Sandman, of Julianna, and especially of Collette, out there somewhere beyond Canna Island, beyond the Veil.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” he said, sadly. “Really. I’d give anything to be able to sit and have tea and hear the whole story. If I’m as fortunate as you’ve been, I swear I’ll come back one day soon and we’ll hear each other’s stories, the good and the bad. But I’m in danger. We’re all, all of us—” and he spread his arms to indicate the Borderkind “— in danger. My companions have shared the road with me, helped keep me alive, but they have other troubles to tend to. I owe it to them not to waste a moment.”
A sad smile touched the old man’s features. “I understand. It’s only that it has been so very long since there was anyone I could speak with about all of this. It isn’t easy to have your wildest dreams come true, and not be able to share that truth with anyone.”
Oliver glanced at the others, who had interrupted their conversation to listen to the two men converse. Kitsune smiled at him, but Blue Jay seemed troubled, a dangerous glint in his eye. Oliver forced himself to ignore it. He was going as fast as he could, after all. What more did the trickster want?
“Trust me. I can imagine,” he said, ignoring Blue Jay. “I always believed in magic, but I always wanted . . . I don’t know what.”
“Proof,” Gong Gong growled. “It’s what they all want, humans. Proof.”
Kitsune stepped nearer the professor and the old man’s eyes lit up as he regarded her, though whether it was due to her beauty or the almost tangible feeling of magic that surrounded her, he could not be certain.
“Professor . . . David,” she said, “we really cannot stay. Death pursues us all. An execution order has been sworn out on Oliver. Please, sir, you must tell him how it is that you were granted clemency, and the order for your own execution lifted.”
The cottage had grown warm with the cluster of bodies inside and the blaze in the hearth, the fire crackling and dancing. Blue Jay moved beside Gong Gong and Jenny between Kitsune and the professor, so that they formed a kind of circle. The center of attention, David Koenig smiled sheepishly.
“I wish there was a better story, or some trick to it. But truly, I wasn’t that clever. I simply asked.”
Oliver gaped at him. “I don’t understand.”
The professor shrugged, almost apologetic. “Oh, to be sure, it was no mean feat staying alive long enough to make my appeal to the kings. But I managed. I put myself at their mercy and pleaded for one year to prove myself worthy of their confidence. They granted me that year, and I made the best of it, working with the advisors to both kingdoms, letting them get to know me.”
He gestured to a sword that had been mounted above the fireplace. At first glance it had looked decorative, but now Oliver saw that the grip was worn and the scabbard scraped and dented.
“Hunyadi, King of Euphrasia, gave me the very sword he had used as a young commander, as a gesture of good faith, you understand.”
Oliver stared at the sword and then at Professor Koenig, and all of the hope that had been flickering in his heart was nearly extinguished. Koenig was spared because of who he was, and what he had proven to be. But what was Oliver? A lawyer, a young man who had not only not fulfilled the dreams he’d had as a boy, but never truly reached for them. How could he expect to convince the men who sat on the thrones of the Two Kingdoms to spare his life?