Theo wasn’t entirely happy about leaving Kayla, but she could hardly refuse to come, when no one else could actually retrieve Gord from the cave in the lake.

It wasn’t like Kayla was actually alone, either. With the sky darkening, Erica would be starting to feel her version of tired, and she had promised to make sure she planted herself next to the two sleeping humans; Des planned on giving Zach a break from guarding their captives, and Theo figured that even while getting something to eat and stretching, Zach wouldn’t be out of sight for any longer than necessary. JC was nearby in the kitchen. Kayla was safe.

But Theo had missed her, and would have liked to stay there.

Although it was unlikely that circumstances were going to allow her to spend as much time with Kayla as she’d prefer. The same was inevitably going to be true when Max and the others got there.

With the prisoners taken care of, Nora had wandered off somewhere, declining an escort and assuring them that she could look after herself. No one really had the nerve to insist. Niko and Arctos had last been seen on their way to the top floor. That would have made them more uneasy without JC’s faith in Niko.

The trip back to the lake was certainly less harrowing than the walk alone from there to the house, since she and Suzi were both in the wagon Alison was effortlessly pulling at a steady trot. They had several litres of water with them as well in case she got uncomfortable between streams—along with a well-worn reusable green shopping bag that JC had told them to open if they encountered any other faelings on their trip. Theo had given up on pointing out that she could just walk, because she was honestly not sure she could keep up with Alison’s pace even briefly, let alone all the way to the lake. There was no road, but Alison knew where she was going. That meant Theo also had no need to try to offer directions, which was just as well since she’d only been this way once and that had been both traumatic and not a direct route.

What she could do was sing, at least offering a bit of entertainment. It wasn’t quite a road trip with the radio on, but it was the closest they currently had. She was even feeling optimistic enough that her singing had a distinctly cheerful flavour.

Suzi and the wisp queen and consort had, between them, added silk ropes that ran in loops around the body of the wagon, at front and back and along each side, which gave Suzi something she could hold on to and keep herself from bouncing out of the wagon when they hit bumps. She wasn’t actually sitting on the bed of the wagon, but she was still angled sideways so her wings weren’t compressed—or even touching anything. She listened with a faint smile, sometimes humming along or singing softly if she knew the song. An occasional bump that was especially vigorous brought the wagon bed up against her behind, usually eliciting a soft grunt.

Alison slowed to a halt, and Theo paused, trying to see why.

Under a tree that Theo identified as a maple of some sort, three faelings were sitting on the ground, sharing a mixed collection of fruit from a battered wicker basket that looked like it had been mended inexpertly at least once.

Maybe less dramatically inhuman than some, the trio nonetheless drew and held the eye.

Two slim women were virtually identical. Unequivocally red foxes, they had white bellies and faces, black markings that mirrored opera gloves and thigh-high stockings, richly orange-red bodies, and floofy dramatic tails with white tips. A lot of skin seemed to be covered in dense short fur, but the overall shape looked essentially human, as did their faces. Each was wearing mid-calf black boots with chunky heels, and a simple matte-black dress with a flared knee-length skirt that would probably be comfortable with those tails—one had a halter neck that left her back bare, and the other had thin straps over her shoulders and short flouncy off-the-shoulder sleeves.

The one male with them was also a fox, and had a fluffy tail that matched his fur, but there the similarity largely ended. Somewhat more athletically built, his longer fur was a grizzled grey, shading towards a more orange-gold before turning to white down his front and the inner surfaces of his limbs. He was wearing only oak-green cargo shorts that ended just shy of his knees. The most surprising thing was that his head was intensely fox-like, with a narrow muzzle and dark whiskers and large brown eyes; Theo could see rather animalistic pads on the bottom of curled-up, fairly-human feet, but the rest of his body appeared to be human.

All three foxes looked at the other trio in surprise.

“Oh!” one of the red foxes said suddenly, the one in the halter dress. “You’re the new ones.”

“We are,” Theo agreed. “Hi. I’m Theo. This is Suzi. That’s Alison.”

“I’m Crimson. Clover. Vester.”

The other red fox, the one with short sleeves, tilted her head. Presumably that was Clover. “You’re going to be in deep shit once they realize you stole the wagon. How’d you get past them with it anyway?”

“That’s kind of a long story,” Theo said. “But we didn’t steal it. Isabel and the others aren’t in charge anymore.”

Three sets of foxy ears all flattened.

“That isn’t funny!” Crimson said sharply.

“You have a really twisted sense of humour,” Clover said, right on her heels.

“Seriously. You could drop by the house fae and ask Callie. She can verify what she saw when she was there a few hours ago. The bad guys who kidnapped us are not in charge any more. My really good friend Kayla found a few allies who could help, and got here. She has Isabel’s magic bracelet now, and she hates the thing but she won’t let anyone else have it because it can be abused. Her new friends are looking for ways to get us all safely off this island and home.”

“Even if that’s true,” Clover said sceptically. “And I doubt it is. But where do those of us who only remember ever being here fit into this lovely fantasy of yours?”

“You don’t remember?” Theo asked gently.

“Enough to recognize my own twin sister. The odd image with no context. A bit of music. Not much of anything.”

“That’s really sad. I don’t know whether there’s a way to get memories back that have been lost. Isabel thought not, but we have some serious skills on our side. One of the people who just got here is a quarter fae. She’s going to be looking for ways that anyone with no home to go to can start a new life. That doesn’t mean being just dumped somewhere. Everyone will have as much choice as possible.”

The grey fox... said something? It wasn’t just animal sounds, but the distortion was worse than Des had, and Theo couldn’t make out any of it.

“Vester thinks you’re either crazy or you’re lying really well. Are you telling everyone this story?”

“Like I said, check with Callie. Or come with us.”

“Would you like a cookie?” Suzi asked, holding out one hand with three peanut butter cookies stacked on it, her other hand still wrapped around a support rope. JC’s bag lay open next to her. “Our house-fae friend JC took over Felix’s kitchen. She sent a lot of good stuff to the other house fae...”

“A wagon full,” Alison muttered.

“... and she’s using the rest to make good things for everyone, not just a handful of humans. Do you remember what peanut butter tastes like? I’m sorry I don’t know that much about foxes, and I don’t want to offend you by comparing you to dogs. Fairly omnivorous, right?”

“We can eat most things,” Crimson agreed, as Vester sniffed at the air, mouth slightly open. “Why do you have cookies?”

“Because we weren’t sure who we might run into,” Theo said. “And our house-fae friend wanted to make sure we had at least small presents to give. If you don’t want those she probably packed something diff...”

“No!” Crimson yelped, a rather high-pitched sound, as she got to her feet quickly. “No, cookies sound wonderful.” She slowed as she got closer to the wagon, but she took the cookies from Suzi with no real hesitation. “For real? You didn’t, like, sell out or something, and you’re trying to trick us with bad stuff?”

“Can’t think why we would,” Theo said. “Or how any of us could live with ourselves afterwards. For real. We’re headed to my lake. I left Gord in a cave he can’t get out of. We need to get him out and tie him up and take him back to lock him up with the others. Wanna come?”

Crimson retreated to hand a cookie each to her sister and their friend. Vester broke his into pieces and ate the pieces one at a time; the red sisters just took small bites, relishing the treat. Theo and her friends waited patiently. Real food after less than four weeks of scavenging had been blissful enough; who knew how long these three had been living like that?

“Sounds like fun,” Crimson said belatedly. “You stuck Gord in a cave? Really?”

“Yep. He was expecting to get his rocks off with the cooperative pet siren. None of them realized I was practising what I can do with my voice. Human men who like women just can’t stop listening and they’ll do what I tell them to do.”

“Talk about leading them around by the balls,” Alison said. She glanced back, and shrugged. “If you’re friendly, you could probably all fit. Suze, if you need to, just come up here and grab my harness.”

“Are you sure you can handle the weight?” Theo asked.

“Nothing to it. They’re not very big.”

Alison was right about that: now Crimson was standing, it was easier to tell. She was somewhere at the lower end of five feet, Theo was quite sure. When Vester stood up, he was close to the same height, if less slender.

“Go ahead,” Alison urged. “I can move comfortably at a speed that will leave you too short of breath to talk, most likely. Hop in.”

Theo and Suzi hastily rearranged the water bottles and the bag of treats, and Suzi snuggled right up against Theo; the three foxes shared glances and shrugs, and scrambled in, adding their battered half-full basket to the bottles and bag. It was a little crowded, but the three foxes didn’t seem to mind legs and arms being tangled into each other’s.

“All good?” Alison asked.

“I think so,” Theo agreed.

“Still not sure I believe all this,” Crimson said. “But it sounds like a good story. What did you do?”

“To start with,” Theo said, “there are seven of us. I guess that’s a bigger group than usual?”

“Yes.”

“And our house fae and green fae figured out really fast that we shouldn’t be eating the food Isabel gave us.”

Clover sighed. “I wish we had. I know two others came here with us. I can’t remember how we know them or anything.”

“Where are they?”

“One’s a rock fae. She likes being underground or on rocky hills. We don’t see her much. The other one... I think she’s gone. We haven’t seen her around for a while. I mean, she stopped talking to us anyway, green fae do that a lot, but at least we used to see her now and then.”

“That’s really sad.”

“Yeah. But this isn’t our story. Seven of you and you all remember everything. Never heard of that before.”

Theo told them about their plotting—leaving out Alison’s ability to talk to all of them, and stressing Des’ ability to get around quickly and easily.

Vester said something, and Clover translated. “We’ve seen the cat around. She’s pretty hard to overlook. We were thinking of asking her if she wanted to hunt with us. The way she climbs and stuff, might’ve worked great if we surrounded a chicken and herded it the right way or something.”

“Not that we’re very good at the bit after that,” Crimson added. “But the house fae try to be good about faelings who really sorta need at least some meat.”

“We’re going to work on that,” Suzi said.

“Will be your BFFs forever if we can get some protein other than eggs and occasionally chicken and pigeon and fish. Story please.”