Foxheart

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Fox very quickly found himself stumped. Getting to the Granite Tower had been pretty easy. Now he wasn't needing to be so uptight about being seen, he followed the hundreds of signs pointing towards the massive Tower looming in the distance. He didn't pay much attention to the growing size of the buildings, the grandeur they adopted or the obvious money poured into them. He could only think about Dupont slipping though his fingers and dying before he got to her. It made his heart tighten at the thought and his body cold, despite the heat. He couldn't let her die. He wouldn't. He'd snatch her from the Tower, by himself if he had to, and take her far, far away. Maybe back to Emprise du Soliel. She'd be safe there. Safe from this fatal mess.

But he was forced to pay attention to reality when he found himself close to the Tower and realised he had no idea how he was going to get in there. The Granite Tower itself was huge. It crawled up so high in the sky it darkened everything around it. The fort it grew out from and the gated section were intimidating. Armed guards stood before wrought iron gates, opening and closing it only for cars or pedestrians flashing a card to say they had access. The Wizards' town was well guarded and he had a feeling it was because Dupont was in there. They weren't going to risk her escape.

Fox paused to pop into a shop and snatched up a newspaper, glad Badger had given him some kind of coinage to use here as his own was useless. He sat on one of the many benches lining the street, the line broken only by the occasional tree or lamp, and opened the newspaper. He didn't read it, he just watched, glancing up at the guards and the people coming and going from the Tower.

He formulated a plan pretty quickly. It was easy to realise he had to have one of those passes. The guards weren't rotating regularly and only one at a time so he couldn't take advantage of the distraction and slip by. He'd then be stumped by the locked gates and he doubted there was any other way to get in. The pass was clearly the only way to get by.

Fox watched carefully, waiting for the right victim to leave the compound. Most drove and those who were on foot tucked the pass into purses or bags, places difficult for him to steal from. He was rubbing his neck dry of sweat, not enjoying the summer sun at all, when he finally spotted a mark. An elderly man just hobbled out of the Tower and tucked the pass into his coat pocket. That was exactly what Fox was waiting for.

Just as the man hobbled by, Fox tucked the newspaper under his arm and set to work. He followed a few metres before the opportunity arose. Just the elderly man turned the corner, Fox dove in, lifted the pass and turned around. He didn't glance about to see if anyone had spotted him, it would make him more suspicious, but no one called out 'thief', so he guessed he was safe.

He made his way slowly back towards the gates, keeping close to the huge stone wall, and glanced over the pass and very quickly realised this wasn't going to work. The pass was laminated with the owner's grey-scale photo printed onto to it, along-side his birthdate and full name. There was no way he could fool the guards into thinking he was a seventy-four year old man.

He stopped abruptly beneath a looming tree, it shade not cooling the air around it. Fox was stumped. His one idea didn't work, at least, the one that would get him inside quickly. The next best thing was to disguise himself as a worker but, again, they would probably have visual identifications on them. He gritted his jaw. He wasn't going to give up her. Dupont needed him.

Just as he stuffed the useless pass into his pocket, something laughed beside him. It wasn't abnormal to hear Sprites in the cities, laughing randomly and out of sight, but Fox stopped all the same. It was a laugh he'd come to recognise.

'Absolon?' Fox hissed, glancing about for a sight of the stupid thing.

He jingled and popped into existence in front of him. Fox didn't like how sad he looked, how dim his eyes were.