The panther grunted as Fox approached and, from up in the crags, the parrot whimpered: ‘Heckle is almost certain that Fox and Fibber are the panther’s pudding.’
Fox gulped but she didn’t turn away. She knelt down by the lagoon, close enough to the panther for it to know that she was interested, but at a safe enough distance so as not to be mauled with a single stroke of its claws. She wondered whether all friendships, when they first got going, were this tricky to negotiate. Fox looked at the animal and realised it wasn’t just resting by the water. It was watching something, its ears pricked forward, whiskers tense, as it looked down into the lagoon.
Fox risked a little peek in the water herself and saw silver-scaled fish darting this way and that. The next thing she knew the panther had dashed a paw into the water, flipped one of the fish out, then slammed a paw down on top of it until it was limp on the rock in front of Fox.
‘For – for me?’ she asked cautiously.
Fox felt that being offered a dead fish probably wasn’t how most friendships began, but it was the way this one was heading, so she tried to look as grateful as possible.
The parrot cleared her throat. ‘Heckle recommends you use the fablespoon. The panther could be trying to poison you before it eats you for pudding.’
Fox reached for the fablespoon inside her satchel, her eyes still fixed on the panther, but then she noticed it sigh. Her hand hovered over the magical item. If this really was Deepglint and she was going to try and help him find his magic again, she needed him to know that she trusted him.
‘Thank you,’ she said instead, and went to pick up the fish, holding the panther’s gaze.
The beast took a deep breath and, for a moment, something like doubt seemed to linger in its eyes, then its gaze softened and the panther breathed out over the fish. Fox’s mouth fell open.
The panther’s breath was gold, as Goldpaw’s had been when she breathed over the candletree back in Doodler’s Haven and the satchel filled with magical objects appeared. Fox watched, entranced, as flames burned round the fish, cooking it through, and shadows danced on the cave walls. And she knew then for sure: this panther was a Lofty Husk. This was Deepglint all right. Even if he no longer knew it.
The fire crackled on even when the panther nudged the fish out of the flames towards Fox and turned over a stone to reveal dozens of juicy insects beneath for Heckle and the sloth. Heckle didn’t fuss and worry about being eaten then. She squawked with delight and flew down to Fox’s side because she knew, too, that Fox and Fibber’s hunch had been right. They were in the presence of a Lofty Husk and if they could help him find a way back to his magic they wouldn’t be facing Morg alone.
They’d have a golden panther on their side.
Fox rose early the next morning, but not, it seemed, as early as the panther. By the time Fox had rubbed her eyes and sat up, it was clear that Deepglint had already been out on a morning hunt to satisfy his own appetite and brought back berries and nuts for the rest of them. Fox, Heckle and the sloth ate with no mention of the fablespoon and also no mention of the drool coating the food, which had been carried inside the cave in the panther’s mouth.
A little part of Fox had hoped that, on waking, the panther might have remembered, somehow, who he really was. That he would start speaking and lead them on to Shadowfall. But, when Fox raised the idea of his coming with them again, the panther stayed where he was, still and silent by the lagoon, as if his golden breath the night before had never happened at all. And Fox had to bury her head in her satchel and breathe deeply for several minutes to stop herself from venting her frustration once more.
‘Maybe it’s too much to ask you to come,’ she said, after she had regained her composure. ‘But we have to go on. The Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway are counting on us. So I want you to know, before we go, that I don’t believe that what Morg did to you has changed you for ever. I think you’re still Deepglint inside.’
The panther flicked a piece of dirt from between his claws and Fox watched as the dirt dropped into the lagoon and sank to the bottom. Then she noticed something glistening amongst the rocks in the deepest part of the lagoon. She peered closer. It wasn’t a shoal of fish. They were silver and darting and what she was looking at was gold and still. Fox blinked. It looked like a heap of sunken treasure and she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed it the night before.
The panther stared at it curiously as if, perhaps, this was the first time he had set eyes on it, too.
Heckle and the sloth crept a few steps closer and Fox shifted so that she was at the very edge of the lagoon. Something about the heap of gold seemed to flicker with magic. Then Fox squinted at the treasure and she saw it for what it really was.
A jumble of letters, each one carved out of solid gold. There was an E and a G and – Fox adjusted her position – was that a T and an L? She forced her eyes to find a pattern.
