Introduction here

Reynard swallowed hard. “Ah…?”

The woman ignored his question, as was her right. “What’s your name?” She was pulling a pair of leather gloves from her back pocket and sliding them on. He found her fingers facinating. Of course, she currently held his life in them. That was understandably interesting.

Reynard knew this answer. “Whatever you wish it to be, mistress.”

She made a noise like a laugh, and he found himself looking to her face. It wasn’t beautiful, he thought, but she still took his breath away. Pointed chin, high cheekbones, and a mass of dark hair, all of it framing the most sardonic smile Reynard had ever seen. “Somebody taught you your lines. Was it recently, before they put you in the box? Or was it back before?”

Box? He tried to look around, and found that, while moving his head was surprisingly painful, it was, in actuality, possible.

He saw a room, bare of almost everything except a big chalkboard and three big windows – the view was of a wheatfield, and behind that a stone wall. He saw the woman, and a small table, full of tools that made his heart drop out of his chest. And he saw the remains of a crate, if his guess was any good, most of it to the left of him.

Box? He looked up at the woman, whose expression suggested that, while she was waiting patiently, she wasn’t going to be patient about things much longer.

She wanted his name. And she wanted to know who had trained him.

“I pay attention, mistress.” With luck, that would be enough. “And, ah, they called me Reynard, when I was free.”

“Reynard.” She took one of his ears – fox ears, of course, or his name would have simply been ridiculous, and his Name as well. “I remember you. They called you Fox in the Henhouse.”

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