The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 86: Queen's Spy

She tiptoed a few more steps, as careful as if the floorboards had turned into red-hot bronze.

Oh boy. She was going to be even harder to teach than Taila, because I was going to have to un-train years' worth of bad habits first. And change her whole personality.

"Spirit...? May I ask a question?"

You just asked two.

She bit her lip.

Yes. You may ask me a question. Or even two, if you so please.

She hesitated a moment longer. "Spirit...why have you come? To our home? Has Her Majesty sent you to – to test our...loyalty?"

Depending on how you counted, that was either two or three questions, but whatever. She thought that the queen planted spirit spies in the homes of the powerful, and that I might be one of them? I wasn't sure where the Mage-Architect ranked in the kingdom, but obviously Lodia believed in Missa.

I approved of that confidence. Even if she placed it in her grandmother instead of herself, familial pride was a good start. Also, she was braver than she looked, to ask me straight out.

Now the question I needed to answer for myself was: How useful would it be to pretend I was a queen's spy?

("Queen's spy" was a bit of a comedown after "Emissary from Heaven," wasn't it?)

To buy myself time to think, I asked in a stern voice, What do you know of the queen's spies?

Lodia shook her head frantically, her long, ropy braids swinging. "Very little, noble spirit! My mother never said more than was permitted! I know only that Her Majesty hath survived many an assassination attempt thanks to your noble endeavors!"

And how do you know this?

"I heard it...from...someone...." Her voice got tinier and tinier and practically vanished by the end of the sentence.

Your mother, I suppose?

"No.... Someone else...."

I already knew who the "someone else" was, but I wanted her to say it out loud. And who is this "someone else" of whom you speak?

Mumble.

Speak up.

Slightly louder mumble.

I still can't hear you. I instructed you to pretend that you're the queen, did I not? Do you really think the queen mumbles when she's trying to evade an answer?

Lodia twisted her hands together before her, examined her tips of her embroidered slippers – and then surprised me by meeting my eyes. "Forgive me, spirit, but I cannot answer your question."

All of my feathers fluffed up. There! That's it! That's how I wanted you to act in the first place!

"How you wanted me...to act?"

Yes! When I told you to pretend to be the queen, that was the tone and demeanor I was looking for!

"Oh.... Oh...."

And don't worry, I already know it was Len Katulus who told you.

She squeaked. "No! Why do you think – I didn't say – it wasn't! Katu is no traitor! He is hotheaded and he speaks before he thinks, but he is absolutely devoted to the Crown!"

I was pretty sure the whole of Lychee Grove would disagree with that final assessment, but whatever. It wasn't like I was an actual royal spy here to sniff out dissent. In fact, I agreed with the poet: The queen's war to reclaim the Wilds was idiotic and doomed.