Chapter 10: Broken Chain

The crowd was cheering for blood, and the bear was crying.

I walked across the sand toward it with my hands open.

Twelve thousand people howled for me to run.

"Hello," I said, when I was close enough to smell the iron on it.

"I know. I know it hurts."

The bear stopped.

It stood over me, and its breath rolled hot across my face.

I didn't reach for the bell.

I lowered myself to my knees on the sand so my eyes were below its chin.

"Nobody here is going to make you hurt me," I said. "You don't have to do it."

The huge head came down slowly.

A wet black nose touched my forehead, and I felt the whole animal shudder.

Up in the tiers, the noise cut off.

I looked at the collar.

It was a single band of grey iron, held shut by a fat rivet at the back of the neck.

The rivet was crusted with old rust, and the skin around it was ulcerated.

I couldn't open it with my hands.

Nobody could.

"Moth," I said quietly.

The fox climbed out of my hood, looking deeply insulted to be working in front of a crowd.

"Can you do the thing you do to the kitchen fires?"

She flicked her ear.

Then she ran up the bear's shoulder and perched on the back of its neck.

She took the rivet in her teeth.

Her tail tip flared from grey to orange, then to white.

The iron around her jaws began to glow.

The bear stood absolutely still and let her.

It took almost a full minute.

I could smell scorched fur, and I whispered the whole time, "Easy. Easy. You're so good. You're so brave."

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