Max nodded. “Try to understand, Isabella,” he explained. “I have lots of enemies who might be wondering where I’ve gone. Those enemies know that I come from across the sea. If people start talking about this place … start talking about a boy who killed the monster, those enemies could come looking for me. They would find this place and everyone here, and they are far worse than goblins.”
“I will tell them to say nothing,” she said. “I’m sure they will understand. They are very smart people—professors before the war, I think. They usually spend the night when they visit, but I’m sure they will go if you want them to.”
“No,” said Max, feeling guilty and inhospitable. “I’ll speak with them after supper while you put the children to bed. They can stay in my room.”
Isabella nodded before glancing at the brooch. “Did a woman give you that?” she asked.
“Yes.”
With Max’s permission, she examined the brooch and cooed over its artistry before gazing at an open journal entry.
“Can you read those marks?”
“Of course,” said Max. “I wrote them.”
“Would you teach me?” she asked. “I knew them once and often dream of them … but the dreams fade and I cannot remember. I would like to learn them again.”
Max thought of Astaroth’s edicts.
“I can’t,” he sighed. “If anyone knew you could write … It’s not worth the danger, Isabella.”
“I’d better get supper ready,” she said stiffly.
An hour later the great room was filled with chattering children and adults clustering around several tables. The goblins had brought real tablecloths, whale oil for the lanterns, and even salt and pepper sprinkled sparingly in little bowls.
Max sat at the head of the main table and managed polite conversation with Nix and Valya when they were not besieged by the children who had met the couple on previous visits. When Claudia had served the pair two fish from her catch, Nix turned to Max.
“You’ve been a godsend to this place,” he said, buttering his bread. “Please accept our apologies for the misunderstanding earlier—we meant no offense.”
“Of course not,” said Max, focusing on his plate. “We’ll talk after supper.”
That opportunity did not come until late in the evening. The combination of visitors and presents stimulated the children beyond all reasoning. They sped about the great room, climbing over furniture, unwrapping treats, and generally creating chaos until an exasperated Isabella herded them upstairs. They departed in a thump of footsteps and aggrieved protests until Max was finally left alone with the elderly couple.
He urged the pair to keep their seats while he cleared the dishes. “I hope you understand my concerns,” he said. “It would not do for others to hear about this place, our arrangement with the goblins, or me.…”
“We’ll be discretion itself,” Nix promised.
Valya nodded her agreement before sneezing into her napkin.
“Do you have a cold?” asked Max, stacking the dishes in a tub of soapy water.
“It’s the pollen,” she griped, pawing at her eyes. “It’s always dreadful this time of year.”
“How long have you been living in the valley?” Max inquired.
“Oh,” chuckled Nix, “a long time … longer than we’d like to admit.”
“Are those the Alps I see to the north?” asked Max.
“No,” replied Nix, selecting a cookie. “The Apennines. Americans often make that mistake.”
Max glanced sharply at the man. “You remember America,” he observed. “And you remember movies, too. How unusual.”
“Like I said,” sniffled Valya, glaring at her husband, “you talk too much!”
“It’s all right, dear,” said Nix gravely, his eyes never leaving Max’s. “Something tells me that this friendship will require trust more than delicacy.”
“Isabella said you were professors,” said Max. “Where did you teach?”
“Siena,” replied Nix. “I taught mathematics and Valya taught medicine.”
“How is it that you two remember things before the Fading?” asked Max. “How is it that you can live in this valley as though nothing has happened? Something’s wrong.… Something doesn’t make sense.”
“The children say you can make pictures and lights appear in the air,” said Valya. “They say you make fire from your hands. They say you are a magician.”
Nix sneezed into his sleeve, then pushed a guttering candle away from his reddening eyes.
“Of a fashion,” said Max quietly, concluding that a denial was pointless.
“Well, we are magicians, too.” Nix smiled. “Of a fashion …”
At a flick of the man’s fingers, the candles were extinguished before suddenly bursting back into flame.
Nix chuckled. “Alas, that is nearly the limit of our little tricks,” he said. “We failed the tests.…”
“The Potentials tests?” asked Max, his heart quickening. “You were … Potentials?”
“Are you a student from Rowan?” asked Valya. “We suspected as much. Long have we wished to visit that school, but it was not to be.”
“Is it as beautiful as they say?” inquired Nix.
“Yes,” said Max, smiling at his memories. “It’s a very special place. But … why did you fail?”
“Oh,” said Valya, shrugging, “the tests were very discriminating. We each failed the last.”
Max remembered when Nigel had administered the tests long ago in Chicago. The last one had been a test of character, of courage. Were Nix and Valya cowards?
Nix sneezed again, scratching at his eyes, which were growing red and inflamed. “It’s getting late.” He sniffed, glancing at his wife.
“Go up, dear,” she said. “You always get so sleepy after a big meal, and I’ve got my knitting.”
Bidding the pair good night, Nix trudged up the stairs. When he’d gone, Valya reached for her bag and produced a lump of yarn that she was knitting into a pair of socks for Mario, whom they’d known the longest.
“He grows like a weed,” she sighed. “Can’t have his toes sticking out for all to see, can we?”
“You know,” said Max, stacking cups, “Mario asked me the funniest question the other day. Stumped me, but I’m sure a professor could answer it.”
“I’ll give it my best,” she chuckled, her needles clacking away.
“Well,” Max began. “There’s this farmer who owns a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. He needs to transport all three across a river using his boat, but he can only bring one at a time.”
“Oh?” asked Valya, glancing up with polite interest.
“But there’s a problem,” Max continued. “Without the farmer to supervise them, the chicken will eat the grain and the fox will eat the chicken.”
“Of course,” chimed Valya. “That’s their nature.”
“Indeed,” said Max. “So the question is … how can the farmer transport all three safely across the river if he can only bring one at a time?”
“Well, that’s simple,” replied Valya. “If he just takes the grain across … no … no … the fox will eat the chicken. Hmm … He should bring the fox across! No … then the chicken will just eat the grain.”
As Valya wrestled with the riddle, Max watched her closely. The knitting needles were laid aside, and the ball of yarn fell to the ground, unraveling as it rolled. Chewing at her lip, Valya rocked back and forth, her voice growing agitated.
“But he can take only one!” she snarled to herself, recounting the riddle’s conditions. Max stood by the table, watching her fingernails scratch and claw at the table. Pausing at a place setting by the stairs, Max casually slipped a knife into his hand.
“Valya,” he said, but the woman did not respond. Snapping his fingers, Max called louder.
She glanced up, her eyes red and suspicious as she rocked back and forth.
“Do you really think I don’t know what you are?” asked Max, his voi
ce deadly quiet.
The blood drained from Valya’s face; her breaths quickened to rapid gulps.
“And do you really think I don’t know Nix is right behind me?”
As Max finished the sentence, he turned to see a gray snarling face looming over him. Baring its teeth, the vye went to seize him by the shoulders, but Max twisted out of its grasp, wrenching its arm behind its back even as he kicked its legs out from under it. In the blink of an eye, the stunned vye was pinned facedown upon the floor with Max atop it.
“Don’t hurt him!” pleaded Valya, nearly toppling out of her chair. “Please!”
“Don’t you move,” Max hissed, his knife at the vye’s throat. “You move and that’s the end. Do you understand me?”
The vye wheezed beneath Max’s grip, a hoarse whine sounding in its throat as the blade pressed against it. Nix’s fur was pewter-colored, his ice-blue eyes rolling back to look at Max even as the bearded, blackening snout wrinkled back to speak. The voice was chillingly human, that of the grandfatherly professor who’d been playing with the children.
“We understand perfectly,” he panted. “Dear boy, it is you who does not.”
“What’s to understand?” asked Max, seething. “A pair of vyes so cowardly that they have to bribe and charm their prey?”
“No,” said Valya, her voice taut with fear. “That’s not it at all.… You must let us explain.”
“We love the children,” said Nix gently. “We would never hurt them.”
“It’s true,” said Valya. “Please don’t judge us just because we’re different. If we had wanted to hurt the children, we could have done so long ago.”
“But you’re vyes,” said Max, glaring at Valya. “Vyes came to my house. Vyes attacked Rowan. Vyes are the ones who brought back Astaroth!”
Valya crossed herself.
“Please,” she hissed. “Please don’t call evil things lest they answer.”
“A vye concerned about evil?” Max sneered, tightening his grip on Nix. “Vyes are evil. I know all about your kind.”
“Your knowledge comes from Rowan,” coughed Nix. “And Rowan has never understood ‘our kind,’ as you so eloquently put it. My boy, please let me up. We mean no harm to you or anyone else.”
“If you meant no harm,” said Max, “then why did you change shape? Why did you try to sneak up behind me?”
“The reason is not as sinister as you might suppose,” explained the vye. “I changed shape because human form is painful. I had already transformed in my room and came downstairs because I heard Valya getting agitated. It was clear enough what you were doing. I merely wanted to make you stop torturing my poor wife and restrain you until we could explain.”
“Why should I believe you?” asked Max. “Why shouldn’t I end your life right here?”
“Because you don’t strike me as a murderer.”
“Please let my husband up,” said Valya softly. “You’re hurting him.”
The sorrow and sincerity in this last sentence gave Max pause. Nix’s body was no longer tense; his breathing came slow and shallow while his eyes stared ahead. The vye seemed utterly resigned to whatever fate Max decided to impose.
Slowly, Max released his grip on the vye’s tangled ruff and eased off its back. Nix glanced cautiously at him and the knife Max held before climbing slowly to his feet and padding around the table to join his wife. Even as Max watched, the vye shrunk, its wolfish features receding until it was only the old man looking tired and worn in his nightshirt.
“Thank you,” said Nix, exhaling as Valya anxiously mopped sweat from his brow.
For several moments, no one spoke, and the great room was awash in silence and shadows while the candles guttered. Max watched Nix and Valya closely, his eyes darting between the pair as they looked at one another and shared an unspoken moment.
“Okay,” said Max, pointing with the knife. “You wanted to explain, so here’s your opportunity.”
“Where to begin?” asked Valya, giving a rueful smile. “It is no easy thing being a vye. Imagine being hunted your entire life, being forced to hide your identity lest Rowan Agents track you down.”
“I lost four siblings to Rowan,” mused Nix, counting on his fingers.
“My entire family was hunted down twenty years ago,” said Valya. “When they gathered to celebrate my uncle’s birthday, they were ambushed in the forest.”
“Do you wonder why we hide?” asked Nix. “Do you wonder why we masquerade as humans and cloak our true nature?”
“Rowan wouldn’t hunt vyes if vyes didn’t commit evil acts,” Max snapped.
“Ah,” said Valya. “Would vyes commit evil acts if humans didn’t hunt them? No—please don’t argue, but listen for just a moment.”
Max eased back in his seat and bit back his retort while Valya continued.
“There are many vyes who prey upon humans and who have joined forces with the Enemy. There are vyes who infiltrated governments and corporations and helped bring about the return of the Demon. But vyes were not born of evil, my dear. There is nothing intrinsically evil about us.”
“Right,” Max scoffed. “Vyes are just ‘misunderstood.’ I get it.”
“I’m curious,” said Nix thoughtfully. “What do you actually know about our history?”
“Everything,” said Max, reciting from Rowan’s compendiums. “Carnivorous shape-shifters who live secretly among humans. Vyes can hypnotize victims with their voices, but riddles can distract them and trigger an obsessive-compulsive response. Typically larger than werewolves but considerably more diverse in their appearance. Can control their transformations, which are independent of the lunar cycle. Highly light-sensitive. Intelligent opponents who often mate for life and work in pairs—”
“Just as we suspected,” said Valya, turning to her husband. “Rowan teaches them nothing more than the means to identify and kill us.”
“Vyes tried to abduct me before I met anyone from Rowan,” said Max darkly.
“Alas, many have turned evil,” Nix acknowledged. “We won’t pretend otherwise. But vyes are not evil by nature any more than humans or wolves or bears. Humans have always lashed out at what they fear, and they have feared vyes from the very beginning.”
“What is that beginning?” asked Max. “And why haven’t I heard it before?”
“You haven’t heard it, Max, because it’s been suppressed and woven into a mythology all its own,” said Nix. “But the roots of vyes originate close to this very valley. They are tied to the very founding of Rome.”
“What could vyes possibly have to do with Rome?” asked Max, looking dubiously at the pair.
“Well,” said Valya. “As you may have learned, the city is named after a man. This man was named Romulus, and he and his brother Remus were left to die in the wilderness. But they were saved by a wolf, who cared for them so that they might live. Now, this wolf was no ordinary wolf, but an elder spirit in wolf shape, and some of her essence was passed to these children whom she reared.”
“As they came of age,” continued Nix, “Romulus desired to rule over men and sought to suppress the wild, animal aspect of his being. But Remus shared none of his brother’s ambitions or shame and spent his days within the forest. The historians say that Romulus slew his brother to claim uncontested rule over the city that would bear his name, but this is not what occurred. The truth is that Romulus worried that Remus would betray their secret and reveal to all their dual nature. Fearing that they would be shunned or even hunted, Romulus planned to murder his brother and ensure the secret would be kept. But Romulus could not bring himself to strike the blow and instead sent his brother into exile. And thus, Remus wandered north and largely faded from history.”
“We like to think he traveled past this very spot,” said Valya, squeezing Nix’s hand.
“Well, we can’t say definitively, but it is likely,” said Nix. “We do know, however, that Remus met an Etruscan witch and the two lived the rest of their lives together, even
tually migrating north to Gaul and Germania. Their offspring were the first vyes, and these direct descendants were gifted with both the wild spirit of their father and the magic essence of their mother. They were also gifted in the mystic arts, just like those who would study at the ancient schools, but vyes were prohibited from attending.”
“Why?” asked Max.
“Because the humans were afraid of them,” replied Valya. “It was the same when Nix and I were given the Potentials tests.”
“What a travesty,” Nix sighed, shaking his head. “One morning I saw something most unexpected—a golden light that flickered and danced just out of reach. I ran after it to no avail, but soon received a letter from America and a far-off school called Rowan. A Recruiter arrived the next day while my parents were working in the fields. I completed the first two tests, but the third frightened me so badly that I blundered into my true shape.”
“What did the Recruiter do?” asked Max.
“Packed up her suitcase and left.” Nix shrugged, grimacing. “She was surprised, of course, but not nearly so shocked as my parents when they learned what had happened. We had to bundle up our things and flee before the Agents came hunting for us. We escaped for the moment, but they eventually caught up to my family. I was studying at university when it happened.”
“But that’s terrible,” said Max, fidgeting. “I mean, had they done anything wrong?”
“They were guilty of being vyes,” explained Nix.
“I’m so sorry,” Max murmured. “I—I had no idea that things like this happened … that Rowan could be responsible for such things.”
“It’s a good thing you left Rowan before you became an Agent, too,” said Valya. “There’s still hope for you.”
“But I’m already an Agent,” said Max, reddening. “Or at least was.”
“You?” laughed Nix. “Beg my pardon, but aren’t you a little too young to be an Agent?”
“No,” said Max. “I took an oath. I’m even in the Red Branch.”
The pair shuddered at the name, before Valya abruptly chuckled and patted her husband’s arm.
“He’s teasing us, love. It’s a joke.”
“No,” said Max, standing to pull back his sleeve and display the tattoo on his wrist. “I really am in the Red Branch.”