The voice came from behind them. When he turned, Felix saw a woman standing on top of an outcropping of rock half covered in moss. She was only slightly taller than himself and wore a flowing white robe with a blue sash across her chest. Her face was hidden behind a white veil that reached back to completely cover her hair. Her voice was calm and deep and maybe a little mournful. From her back, she pulled an oud of dark wood, and as lute’s went Felix could tell it was of superior craftsmanship to his own.

“You may consider me Dame Fortune,” she said. “Actually, I misspoke—the trial began when you entered this wood. The first part of the trial was to test your wit. You realized you were being followed, and I shall say that counts as passing, despite your inability to recognize the obvious enchantment you were under.”

Janus smirked but said nothing. Felix had no rejoinder.

“Have you really done something to this forest then?” Felix demanded. “How is that even possible?”

“I didn't do anything to the forest. What I did, I did to you. You heard my Song of Misfortune, and so you cannot find your way. Lady Luck is against you.” Here, she jumped down from the rock with an impressive landing, barely bending her knees as she hit the earth. For now, she didn’t come any closer, but Felix got the impression that was more because she didn’t need to than out of any wariness toward the two of them.

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Felix.

“Irrelevant. But I will remove the effect for now.”

Long fingers peeked out from under her sleeves and moved across the strings of the oud. The song was different this time, warmer—but he still couldn’t understand the words.

“The next test is one of mettle. We Song-Catchers must fight, so if you are to join us, Felix of Castilia, you must be able to fight. There is no other way, I’m afraid. Bruno, come.”

A monster of a boar emerged from behind the rock. Felix immediately lost all doubt that there was something unnatural about this encounter, as this boar was bigger than a boar had any right to be. It was bigger than a horse, bigger than a bear, and most importantly, more than ten times bigger than himself. In had a massive humped back covered in course gray skin that seemed stretched almost to the breaking point with its size. But the most alarming thing about it were the tusks, which unlike unlike anything he had seen in a pig, pointed outward from its mouth like a bull with its head down preparing to charge, tips looking so pointed that someone might have been sharpening them.

“What is that?!” Felix shouted at the woman. “Do you expect us to fight that thing? It’s going to kill us!”

“He might,” she said indifferently, walking to the side of the mossy rock, well out of the boar’s way. “Think of a way to defend yourself.”

“Damn it!” Felix shouted. The boar’s eyes glinted in the dim light of the forest. Without losing a beat, it charged them. No, wait…it was charging at him specifically, ignoring the space where he had last seen Janus.

Now there were only ten feet between them. In a panic, Felix scanned his surroundings for anything that might save him from being gored, but instead noticed that Janus had disappeared.

Good for him, Felix thought. Now I’ll only be responsible for one person’s death, my own.

In the second before the boar impaled him—the tusks really were long enough to do it—Felix dove to the right. But before he could get fully upright, the animal reversed with impossible dexterity and caught the cloth of his tunic with its tusk. But instead of trampling him as he expected, the animal swung him by his tunic and slammed him into an oak tree.

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That’s not what I was expecting, Felix thought, his eyes watering. Nothing about this animal made any sense. A boar shouldn't be that big and no animal should have the intelligence to catch ahuman by their clothes and body-slam them into a tree. And while it had been a very effective slam—Felix could feel at least three cracked ribs screaming in pain like annoying children asking for candy—why would it bother when it would have just gored him?

It hardly matters, Felix thought. It’s not going to hold back for long.

The boar had already taken its dagger-like tusk out of his tunic and was backing up another charge. Felix instinctively got to his feet, but by the time he was upright the animal was so close he could smell its gamey flesh. This time, it was distinctly aiming for the center of his body, and shut his eyes, knowing he didn't have the strength to dodge. He waited for the tusk to pierce him, but in place of his own imagined cry of pain, he heard the board squeal as if something had struck it.

Felix opened his eyes, sure he was mistaken, but no—something had knocked the monster-boar away. It was…Janus? The boy stood in front of him at a side angle, his fists clenched tight and red. There was something very off about the kid, though—his eyes looked empty, like something else had taken control of him, something apparently capable of knocking away a bear-sized animal with his bare hands.

“How did you—“ Felix tried to ask, but Janus was already hurling his body at the boar as it righted itself. He made an acrobatic leap off a tree stump and kicked it in the head, knocking it away again. For a moment, the boar seemed as confused as Felix, but it soon adapted. As the boy ran at it, the boar positioned itself in front of a tree and waited for the strike. At the last second, it dodged and Janus’s fist drove into the wood with a loud crack. The other boy struggled to pull out his fist, but the boar kicked Janus with its hind legs hard enough to knock him free and roll him several feet away. The most shocking thing was, Felix saw Janus pick himself back up with the same hand that had been trapped in the splintered wood a moment ago, the hand that should have been mangled beyond recognition but somehow looked perfectly fine.

For the next several minutes, the two fought their paradoxical battle, the tiny Janus impossibly savage and the massive boar impossibly clever. Felix tried to form some kind of plan, but the absurdity of the situation paralyzed him and all he could do was stare. Even the so-called Dame Fortune seemed stare at the fight through her veil, occasionally stretching out a hand out halfway as if to call of the boar only to draw it back into her robe.

Felix regained his wits when he started to notice the fight was slowly turning against Janus. The boar had repeatedly body-slammed him and given him several shallow gouges with its tusks, and while the boy had recovered immediately at first, now he was starting to stagger after each clash. Worse, while Janus’s punches and kicks were connecting with enough impact to knock the animal back again and again, it wasn’t showing any signs of real damage.

This isn’t going to end well, Felix thought. Even if Janus was able to do things with his hands and feet that should have shattered his bones, Felix knew instinctively that this durability must have its limits. He doubted it would stop the boar’s tusks from goring him if it got a clean hit. And while Janus’s technique was impressive to say the least, it clearly wasn’t intended to be used against such an opponent—he simply wouldn't do enough damage to the animal with punches and kicks before fatigue overwhelmed him. Whatever trick Janus was pulling, there was no way his body could match the stamina of that monster.

It may look like a monster, but it doesn't act like one. Really, it isn’t even fighting like an animal. This brought back Felix’s earlier thought, the one that had been disrupted by Janus’s sudden intervention. How was a boar fighting like that, like a person? Even a well-trained hunting dog became more or less a wolf when it was trying to kill something. Something was definitely off about the boar, and his frustration at not being able to figure it out almost overrode his fear at Janus’s impending defeat.

Almost.

I need to cut my losses and run, Felix thought. Then again, if he didn’t pass this test, he was going to die anyway—he would starve to death in this foreign country half way across the world. In a sense, the boar would be putting him out of his misery.

No, no, no, no, no. Felix wanted to live. Even if he starved later, he wanted to live. So he had to run away, now. So why was he still there?

What about the kid?

There was nothing Felix could do about him. If anything, Janus had a better chance of getting out of this than he did. If there was enough force in him to hold his own against the monster boar with nothing but his fists, he could probably use that strength to get away somehow. On the other hand, Janus seemed determined enough to find the “school for singers” that he might not give up until it was too late.

“This isn't going to end well—let’s run!” Felix yelled, not bothering to check if Janus had heard him before bolting into the forest.