“Thank you for coming to speak with me today,” Lady Julianne said. They were the same words that Liv had heard her repeat half a dozen times, for every woman who came through the sitting room door.

“Thank you for giving me this opportunity, m’lady,” the girl replied, making a curtsy. Liv judged her to be a year or two older than Mirabel and Griselda, but no more. She was nearly as skinny as Liv was, with large dark eyes that seemed to take all the attention from the rest of her face. The eyes might have been the prettiest thing about her, if they weren’t so cold.

“Your name?” Julianne asked.

“Josephine, m’lady,” the girl from the alley replied. “But everyone calls me Jo.” Liv ignored the rest of the conversation: if Lady Julienne wanted her to pay attention to what she saw, then she was going to look for every scrap of information she could. The girl’s fingernails looked like they’d been bitten down, rather than neatly trimmed. Her clothes were clean, but they didn’t quite fit. Either she’d just bought them, Liv decided, or she’d borrowed them. It certainly wasn’t the same dress she’d been wearing in the alley: that had been old, worn, and filthy. She didn’t smile with her teeth showing, and that was odd.

Open your mouth, Liv found herself thinking. What are you hiding? Finally, when Jo told the baron’s wife, “I left Carinthia because it was just too hot there,” Liv got a look. The girl’s teeth were horrible - yellow and crooked, as if they’d never been scrubbed a day in her life. They were the teeth of a beggar in an alley.

As far as Liv was concerned, Josephine couldn’t be gone soon enough. The moment the door was closed, she spoke up. “I’ve seen her before,” Liv said. “In the Lower Banks, with Little Whit and Bill, who used to be a footman here. She was wearing a different dress, not nearly as nice as this one. Did you notice it doesn’t fit her right? I wonder if she borrowed it just to come here. Her nails are bit down, not trimmed, and her teeth are horrible.”

“Well, that is quite a lot,” Julianne said. “Bill, you say? The footman who helped rob us?”

“That’s him,” Liv said. “I saw them all huddled together in an alley when Master Jurian took me to Master Forester’s home. I don’t trust them. What should we do, m’lady?”

“Well, the first thing is that I’m certainly not going to hire her,” Lady Julianne said. “I don’t know that I would have, anyway, but you’ve settled it. Thank you for speaking up, Liv. This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted you to be paying attention to. Just to be careful, I’ll tell the castle guards she isn’t to be admitted if she comes around again, either.”

Liv let out a sigh of relief, and found she was finally able to relax back into the cushions. “That makes me feel better,” she admitted out loud. “She makes me nervous. Have you decided on a maid, then, m’lady?”

“That is going to depend on the outcome of a conversation,” Julianne explained. “One that you should not be present for. I am going to give Sophie a choice.”

“Sophie?” Liv couldn’t help herself, even though she had no right. “Really?”

“She is either going to walk out of this room a lady’s maid, having put her foolishness behind her, or she is going to leave the castle dismissed from service,” Lady Julianne said, and her tone of voice made Liv shiver. “I won’t tolerate jealousy or grudges among the staff. Either way, Liv, she won’t be bothering you any further. Why don’t you go see how Emma got on with Master Cushing, and then perhaps take her down to the kitchen for a treat?”

“As you like, m’lady,” Liv said. She fetched her crutch from where she’d stashed it under the bench; she was sick and tired of always having to find a place to put the thing. The day she got rid of it couldn’t come soon enough.

She fetched Emma from Master Cushing’s chambers, with a promise to the chirurgeon to make sure she ate more fruits and vegetables. “Her father’s likely been feeding her almost entirely on game meat,” the old man was grumbling as the two girls left.

In the kitchen, they found that Sophie was absent, and Liv wondered how her conversation with Lady Julianne was going. In some ways, it would be easier if the maid left the castle and never came back, but Liv didn’t know what she would do for work without this position. She didn’t like Sophie much, but she also didn’t want the girl to starve on the street.

Mama and Gretta were in the middle of making the evening meal, and they were happy enough to let Liv and Emma help. The younger girl was mostly confined to stirring things, while Liv was put to work chopping vegetables. She’d just emptied a pile of carrots into the stewpot when Sophie made her appearance at the kitchen door.

“Lady Julianne wants you upstairs. She said you should fetch your winter cloak, as well.” The maid looked as if she was chewing on something she didn’t like. She must have been told to leave, Liv decided. She grabbed her crutch from where she’d leaned it against the table, and headed for her room. It would be good to bring her book, in case she was in for another few hours of sitting quietly while the baron’s wife handled the business of the castle.

“Liv.” Sophie caught her by the shoulder, on her way into the servants’ hall. “I won’t give you any more trouble.”

Surprised, Liv froze. She’d been expecting the girl to leave, but it didn’t sound like that was going to be the case. “You’re going to be Lady Julianne’s maid?”

“I want that more than I care about you,” Sophie said. “I still think you’re getting above yourself, and that it won’t end well. But if I have to hold my tongue to advance myself, then I’ll do it.” Sophie released her arm, turned, and hurried down the hall and into the kitchen. It wasn’t an apology, exactly, but Liv decided that if it meant the girl would no longer bother her, that was good enough. She grabbed her book, then headed to the great hall, where her cloak had been drying since the midday meal.

When Liv caught up with her, Lady Julianne was pulling on a heavy cloak and leather gloves while Master Cushing argued with her. Liv slipped into the sitting room and waited for it to be over.

“...no matter what happens, you cannot use any words of power,” Cushing said. Liv had missed the beginning, so she wasn’t entirely clear on what he meant by that. Come to think of it, she’d never seen Lady Julianne use magic at all. But words of power, plural? Did she know more than one? Perhaps she’d learned them at the college.

“I understand that,” Lady Julianne said. “You may be certain that I am fully educated on the risks.”

“If you are, you should leave that wand here in this room,” the chirurgeon shot back.

“Enough!” Julianne nearly shouted. “I’ve been asked for at the northern wall, and I shall go. I will not go unarmed in the middle of an eruption. But you may be assured I will do nothing save in the last defense of my life. That is the end of it.”

Cushing rounded on Liv, crossed the room, and seized her arm, lifting it up. “Mana sickness,” he said, and Liv flinched. Her flesh was still raw and tender beneath the bandages, and his grasp hurt. “You know what it does, you’ve felt my knife.” The old chirurgeon dropped her arm, and pointed at Lady Julianne. “Do not let her use magic. The mana could spill out of control and hurt the child. You understand?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Liv tried to imagine Master Cushing holding a screaming infant down on a table, cutting skin from its arm. “I won’t,” she promised. “I’ll use my own spell first.”

“No one is going to have to cast anything,” Julianne grumbled. “That’s what we have crossbows for. Come along, Liv.”

The baron’s carriage was waiting for them in the courtyard, and two of the castle guards rode on the sides as they thundered through the streets of Whitehill. The carriage driver screamed at people to make way, and the ride shook even worse than usual with the speed they moved over the cobblestones.

“Is this good for the baby?” Liv shouted over the racket.

“If a carriage ride gets the child out sooner, all the better,” Julianne shot back.

Liv felt like her teeth were about to fall out by the time they made it to the northern wall of the town, at the foot of the hill. There, she followed Lady Julianne up to the parapet.

It was the first time she’d ever been up on the walls that surrounded the town. Liv and her mother left the castle only rarely, with their duties keeping them busy save for on market days. When they did have time for themselves, they spent it picnicking in the mountains, swimming in the river, or shopping. Even if they had wanted to climb the walls to get a look at the surrounding valley, the town guards would never have let them pass.

Getting up the steps was difficult with her crutch, but one of the guards took Liv’s arm and helped her. Once she got to the top, she saw a cluster of armed men with crossbows trained on something down below, just outside the walls. Sheriff Porter was there waiting, and pointed out what everyone was watching once Liv and Lady Julianne had come over.

“There,” he said. “Prowling about the base of the walls. It was first sighted an hour ago, but it’s gotten braver since then.”

Liv craned her neck and leaned out through between the crenellations to get a look. She saw what they were talking about immediately: a red fox, it’s fur a bright splash of color against the snow. Like the great bat that hung, preserved, in the old baron’s Room of Curiosities, it was enormous, grown much larger than any natural animal. Liv guessed that it was nearly the same size as one of the horses that pulled the baron’s carriage. Over the shoulders, along the spine, and at the top of the skull, the vibrant fur was broken by ridges of gray stone. Liv narrowed her eyes.

“Even the claws are made of manastone,” she said, and the conversation paused at her words. “I thought the rift would be all underground creatures? Bats and cave spiders?”

“When a rift erupts,” Lady Julianne explained, stepping up to Liv’s side, “raw mana spills out into the surrounding countryside - like how the river here floods in spring. You’ve seen that, haven’t you? I imagine it spills right over the banks, and causes a good bit of damage. And then when it recedes, does it leave things behind?”

Liv nodded. “Yes.”

“A rift is like that,” Julianne continued. “Places where the old gods walked, before they were cast down. Places touched by their power, to a greater or lesser extent. We’re lucky that the Bald Peak rift is a small one, weak in power. That fox must have been on the slopes of the mountain, and it was caught up in the flood of mana.”

“Why would it come all the way here, though?” Liv asked. “There must be plenty of other things for it to eat between the mountain and Whitehill.”

“They can smell mages,” Sheriff Porter broke in. “Like you, and the lady.”

“More specifically, they are drawn to mana,” Julianne said.

“Like the stonebats,” Liv said, recalling the lesson from Master Grenfell. “It won’t leave, then. It wants to get in, at us.”

“Yes, though that won’t stop it from hunting other prey, out of convenience,” Sheriff Porter said. “It won’t be safe for anyone to leave the walls while it’s out there.”

“Have you tried the new crossbows, yet?” Julienne asked him.

The sheriff shook his head. “We were waiting for you,” he admitted. “In case they don’t work. I don’t want the thing running off and losing us in the woods. I want it dead here.”

“Master Cushing has been very clear that he does not wish me to use magic,” the baron’s wife said, with a grimace. “The crossbows will have to do.”

“I might be able to help,” Liv offered. “If you don’t want it to get away, that is.” The eyes of everyone in earshot settled on her again, and she fought the urge to duck her head and hunch her shoulders.

“I don’t want to put you in the position of trying to kill a mana-beast yet,” Lady Julianne said. “You’re too young, and you haven’t had enough practice with your magic.”

“What if I trapped it?” Liv suggested. “I could use the spell from this morning, only instead of stretching it out, I could just make the outside really high.”

“Foxes can jump,” Sheriff Porter pointed out. “You would have to be quick, girl.”

“Time it for when the men shoot,” Julianne suggested. “They still take their shot. If the windlass crossbows kill it, good. If they don’t, and Liv stops it from getting away, they can reload and take another shot. If it jumps the ice, we haven’t lost anything. As long as it’s wounded, at least, we can send men to track it and follow the trail of blood.”

“Alright. All you men, ready,” Porter ordered. A dozen men set their crossbows on the stone of the wall, each standing in their own space between the crenellations.

“Aim for the fur, not the stone,” Lady Julianne told them. “It will be like shooting a curtain wall, otherwise. Liv, tell us when you’re ready.”

Liv leaned her crutch against the wall; she could keep her weight on one leg long enough to cast a single spell. Liv laid her book on the stone between the crenellations, and flipped to the back. She didn’t need to stretch the bowl out into a long path, this time: she simply needed it to form as quickly as possible. Was the fox male, or female? It looked too bulky to be anything but a male.

She flipped back to Master Jurian’s notes and found what she wanted: Veh could be used to modify a spell, making it happen more quickly. It was a bit nervewracking to be modifying something on the fly, but she would make it work. She would show everyone that she could be useful.

Liv took three deep breaths, holding each in turn. “Ready,” she said.

“On the count of three,” Sheriff Porter told the men. “One. Two. Loose!”

A dozen bolts were released at the same time: Liv heard them fly, but her mind was on the words she needed to say perfectly.

“Celet Aiveh Belia,” she shouted.

Below, most of the crossbow bolts hit the fox, with only one whistling off to the side and sinking into the snow. Half of them, however, hit along the ridges of mana-stone. Most of those broke, and the other rebounded off the dense magical rock and bounced off away from the fox. Of the five bolts that struck fur and embedded themselves into the beasts’s flesh, none seemed to have found anything vital. The fox looked up at the wall, bleeding but undaunted, and bared its teeth. The sight was terrifying.

Before it could run off or - as seemed more likely - attempt to leap up the wall at them, Liv’s magic surged through her. A cup of solid ice rose around the monstrous fox in gentle curves, thick enough that you couldn’t see through it. Liv poured her mana into the spell, building the walls higher and higher until she felt absolutely empty, like a rag wrung dry. Without anything left to fuel it, the magic ended, leaving an uneven, half-built top to the curved walls encircling the fox. Liv collapsed forward onto the stone wall. It would have been easier to let herself fall, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off the monster until it was dead.

“Load!” the sheriff shouted. Liv supposed there was no point in being quiet now that the thing had already been wounded. All around her, men slid bolts into place and began cranking their mechanisms. The fox threw itself up against the ice, scrambling, but its claws could find no purchase on the slippery surface.

“Loose!” Porter called, once the men were ready. Another dozen crossbow bolts sank into the beasts’s body: this time, none of them missed. The fox yelped, its flanks streaming with blood, and Liv saw that one of the shots had taken it in the neck. A second time, the animal threw itself at the wall, but Liv’s ice held. A third volley finally put the fox down for good.

When she saw it drop out of sight behind the ice, Liv allowed herself to collapse back onto the parapet, with her back to the wall.

“You did well,” Lady Julianne said. Liv frowned when she saw that the baron’s wife was putting her wand away again, sliding it back into place in her belt.

“And you weren’t supposed to use that, m’lady,” Liv pointed out.

“I didn’t,” Julianne said. “I was simply ready in the event it was needed. Come along - let’s get you back to the castle. You must be exhausted.”

Lady Julianne knelt down and handed Liv her crutch, then took her by the elbow and helped her to the stairs. As they passed, the town guards nodded their heads, and called out their thanks. Liv blushed, and lowered her head.

“You earned it,” Julianne told her. “Don’t be ashamed. But the eruption isn’t over; this was only the beginning.”