The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 39: The Holiday Season

Whaaaaat? Fox demons? There were fox demons around?! Hadn't Master Gravitas told the Jeks that all the foxes had been hunted out?

If there were still foxes around, I had to go find them! I couldn't tell them who I was, of course, but I still wanted to meet them. Or at least see who they were, how they lived, what they did.... It had been so long since I'd seen another fox!

But if my first reaction were ecstasy, confusion soon clouded it.

That girl had claimed that fox demons had been stealing people's bodies. Whose bodies? And why? It was possible in theory, but vanishingly rare. After all, any fox demon who was powerful enough to suck out and devour a human's soul was also powerful enough to transform into a human in the first place. Why bother to hunt down the perfect body to steal when you could just tailor your own form? It didn't make sense.

"Really??? Why? How can she tell?" gasped the shortest sister, a girl with messy pigtails, echoing my thoughts exactly.

In response, the first sister raised her bushy eyebrows. "Cuz they're bein' so weird. Haven't you seen how they walk and talk?"

"Clio's little sister's husband says he was passin' by and saw 'em through the window," put in the last girl with relish, her beady eyes glinting under droopy eyelids. "They din't think anyone could see, so their fox tails were all hangin' out under their clothing!"

That made even less sense! True, if a fox demon transformed into a human and got distracted or tired, they might slip up and let their tails re-form. But if they'd stolen the human body in the first place, there wouldn't be any tails at all!

Obviously, these humans knew nothing about foxes. Or were inventing tales to scare Messy Pigtails. She looked like the gullible sort.

And indeed, Bushy Eyebrows waggled them at her sister. "Better be careful, or they'll jump bodies and steal yours!"

Messy Pigtails squeaked and nearly dropped the crock.

I nearly squeaked too – from shock that she'd believe any fox spirit would want her body.

Leaning in close, Droopy Eyelids hissed, "Just like how Piri stole Lady Laelia's!"

Messy Pigtails and I jumped at the same time.

That girl had said my name.

She'd said my name.

No one on Earth had said my name in centuries.

An unbearable mix of yearning and loss roiled through me as I remembered the very last time anyone on Earth had addressed me by my true name.

It was five hundred years ago, the night the palace fell.

I'd known the end was coming for weeks, ever since the rebel dukes defeated the last general still loyal to Cassius and marched their army to the gates of the capital. Cassius had believed – or claimed to believe – that his Golden Bird Guards would hold the walls. Hold out just a little longer and salvation would come, he'd declared to his dwindling court. After all, wasn't he the Son of Heaven? Hadn't the Jade Emperor sent a chimera to his side as a sign of his divine right to rule? Didn't the chimera remain by his side even now?

Maybe the nobles had bought it, but I'd known better. Chimera or no chimera, Heaven would not save a man whom Lady Fate had decreed would die.

I was fairly certain Cassius had known better, too.