The Bunny in the Fox's Palm novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Whose Leash

Soren hung in the air of the Council hall.

His half-changed face worked.

His teeth ached to close on something, and his body would not let them.

Nobody breathed.

I had never wanted anything more than I wanted to look away from his eyes.

"It's all right," I said, and my voice came out thin. "Soren. It's me. Come back."

I did not command it.

I only asked, with my hand still raised.

Something loosened between us, and he dropped to his knees on the marble.

The change ran out of him in a long shudder.

Fur and bone and claw went back under the skin, and he knelt there in his dark suit with his hands flat on the floor.

He was gasping.

I crossed the ten feet and went down beside him.

His eyes found mine, amber and clear.

"What did you do?" he whispered.

"I don't know."

"I felt it," he said. "Like a hand on the back of my neck."

"I know."

"Hazel, I could not move."

Linden's voice cut across the hall, light and clipped.

"A charming trick. The girl has taught him to sit."

Nobody laughed.

The oldest elder had gotten up from his knees with help from two others.

He leaned heavily on the cane that someone had put back in his hand.

"Speaker MacMahon," he said in his thin dry voice, "be silent."

Linden's mouth closed.

"I have not seen that in sixty years," the old man said. "My grandfather described it to me. I did not believe him."

He looked at the hall.

"The Keeping was not made for the foxes," he said. "It was made for the hares."

A murmur rose and died.

"In the old days, when the first dens were founded, a fox lord who could not hold his wild half was a danger to every family in the city. So he went to the rabbits. And the hare queens chose one of their own to put in his palm."

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