“Did your uncle ever tell you what to do if you saw a tiger in the wild?”
“Shoot it,” Mouse said. “Cruel advice, but sound, I suppose, if you have a bloody gun.”
“Perfect,” he said.
A rumbling growl billowed from behind the creature’s jaws. Mouse took a step back, and Thornwood did as well, holding her around the hips to steady them both.
“Do not look away,” Mouse said. “I know you should not look away.”
The tiger’s eyes bored into hers. She felt she could see into the creature’s soul; in return, it could see straight through into hers.
Under its gaze she was a child at the V&A, her face pressed to the glass as she looked in on “Tipu’s Tiger.” It was an automaton of a tiger crouched on top of the figure of a European soldier, its teeth at his neck. When turned on, the instrument wailed in an imitation of the man’s cries. Mouse had been both terrified and fascinated by it, and here, she finally understood what it would be like to be the soldier, rather than the tiger.
Thornwood trod on a twig. It snapped. The cat’s gaze shot downward, its pupils widening. Mouse could feel its next move seconds before it sprang, and she threw herself at Thornwood just as it pounced. As it flew past them, its form shifted midair into that of a wolf. The wolf was large, with a head as big as a washtub. It prowled up the path, matching the tiger’s stance with its teeth bared and head low.
Even in its new form, its eyes remained the same, shockingly human and blue.
“Another of your uncle’s trophies?” Thornwood asked.
“Yes. It’s from my uncle’s bedroom. He killed it while he was in Prussia.”
“Any other animals we should keep in mind?”
“He mostly hunted deer on the estate before the war.”
“No elephants, then?”
“He never made it to Africa.”
“Good. I would not want to fight an angry stag, but it would be much less difficult than an elephant or a lion.”
As he spoke, the wolf’s features began to change. Its snout shortened, and Mouse gasped in horror.
“There is a polar bear,” she said. “In the attic.”
Before the words completely left her lips, the creature hadtransformed into a great bear. Its fur was dark with dust, but it was at least three times the size of the wolf and twice the size of the tiger. Lumbering, it rose onto its back legs. Its jaws opened, and the sound that emerged shriveled Mouse’s remaining calm.
“Thornwood,” she whimpered.
Lightning arced out from his palm, striking the bear squarely on the nose. The magic sparked out, like a blown electrical circuit, then faded into nothing.
“I cannot summon any stronger magic,” he groaned.
The bear huffed out what sounded almost like a laugh, then dropped to its feet. Clouds of gray smoke rose around it and licked the sides of the trees.
Mouse clutched at her clothes, trying to tether her will to walking slowly backward, even as all her senses urged her to run. Thornwood skirted around her, maneuvering so he was between her and the bear before mirroring her movements. They finally made it back to the main path. Mouse clung to the childish hope that the creature would disappear once it touched the trail.
The bear stalked them, its dinner-plate paws disfiguring the dirt. Mouse could see the hole where the bullet went through its chest, high up near the base of its neck.
A hunting horn blew from somewhere in the distance. The bear reared back as if struck, then darted away into the trees. Neither Mouse nor Thornwood moved. Mouse held her breath, waiting for the bear to tear back to them, but it did not. Instead, the horn blew again, closer this time.
“We need to get off the path,” Mouse said, fear sliding like ice down her throat. Whatever had the horn was powerful enough to scare away that bear, and Mouse did not want to stand in its way.
“But what about what happened to you when you left the path?” Thornwood asked.
“The tingling did not start until I was a few feet away from it. Stay close, and we should be fine.”
The desperation in Mouse’s voice was enough to convince Thornwood to follow her into the shelter of low-hanging trees. Nettles bit through Mouse’s clothes as she crawled into the hiding place, pricking her arms and legs.