Drake paused, sniffing the air as he stood in the middle of the street. He’d been on his way to the training grounds for a small bout with Lydia but this was more interesting. It smelled like the fox the captain had scented the other day, but at the same time it smelled different. Had the idiot taken a bath in something strange?

Ignoring the looks he was getting, Drake followed his nose to the rookie fields. It looked like they were getting an introduction to sword-style fighting today, with an explanation and demonstration of each type of blade. Short swords, long swords, curved blades, hooked blades, and pair-swords were lined up across the field. The rookies were on the ground, sitting and taking notes just like good rookies should. One rookie, though, didn’t exactly belong.

Drake leaned against the fence surrounding the training field and waved away the question in the instructor’s quick glance. He didn’t want to interfere just yet. Instead he reached up and activated the radio he wore, wondering if anyone else had worn theirs today. They didn’t always use them in the village; Trace would probably always be monitoring though. “So, uh, there’s only one Black Fox, right?” he asked the air.

The earbud crackled a bit as he waited for an answer. None of the rookies seemed to have noticed him, but that fox was shifting quite a bit. It was only when he turned and glanced back that Drake ducked out of sight and remembered just how good a fox’s hearing was. Damned vermin could hear Drake whisper a full length of the field away without effort.

“You aren’t drunk again, are you?” Lydia asked. “I thought you were going to meet me for a sparring match.”

“I haven’t gotten drunk since my birthday,” Drake growled. “And that totally wasn’t my fault. Slick kept refilling my glass with stronger drinks and pretending they were just beer.”

“You should have noticed,” Slick chimed in.

“You all are horrible,” Drake rumbled as he found a spot on the busy street to stand and watch over the market. The sounds of the traders should cover his conversation easily, and no one’s hearing was as sharp in this area. “Just answer the question.”

“Yes, there is only one Black Fox,” Trace said, his voice a cool balm over the line. “Why?”

“Cause the Black Fox sitting in the training field ain’t the same one the captain scented,” Drake whispered.

“You sure?” that was the captain. Was the whole pack on the radios? Had Drake missed some sort of memo?

“Pretty damn sure. Unless he went and took a bath in something weird. The rest… I doubt you would notice, but he’s built slightly different. The last one was an all-rounder. This guy is still an all-rounder, but has more upper body strength and - best I’m going to get here is a slightly more tense neck. Not sure how else to say it. It’s natural, not a crick. The muscles developed a bit different,” Drake tried to explain.

“You’re the doc, doc,” Lydia said. “If you say it’s different, it’s different.”

“No one else seemed to notice he wasn’t the same person,” Drake pointed out. “I think he’s trying to pass off that he is the same Black Fox we were introduced to.”

The line went silent long enough that Drake wondered if his earpiece had gone dead. Drake had a lot of thoughts on that too, not all of them nice, and none of those thoughts were silent. “Daniel,” the captain said at last, “go to the field and take a look. Question at least three students before you start on the fox. Surprise mental challenge.”

“On it,” Slick answered readily.

“Drake, back in the medical suite. If he is a different person then he will need an evaluation as well. Lydia, you can provide an excuse to get him there, correct?”

“Yes, captain,” Lydia answered.

“In an hour. We don’t want it too close to Daniel’s questioning. Trace - start looking through what we have and try to pinpoint when the switch happened. Set more rookies on stealth monitoring if you need to, so we have the necessary footage. Daniel, make sure you try to find out if this is a permanent switch, if it was planned, and if they plan to constantly switch back and forth. If the original was kidnapped or killed then we have a serious problem.”

“Of course, captain,” Slick answered, sounding a bit uncertain. “Without letting him know I know he’s not the same person?”

“Correct.”

Drake frowned, glad he wasn’t in that position. Slick always managed to get more from a person than they were aware they’d given up, but that didn’t mean it was easy. “If there was a dead body we would have smelled it by now,” Drake pointed out. “Not even the rookies could ignore the smell of rotting flesh in the heat.”

“Which is why we aren’t panicking yet,” the captain said. “I’ll scent this new fox to see how close they are. A similar scent might mean they’ve done this before.”

“You mean it might mean the brother isn’t dead,” Drake pointed out. “It would certainly explain why he didn’t show signs of depression or withdraw.” A secret pair wasn’t easy to pull off. It might work with rabbits and squirrels, maybe even some cats or dogs, but a wolf’s nose couldn’t be fooled. Did they not realize just how sensitive a scent could be?

“That’s a possibility. Or it could be a dog pretending to be a fox while a kidnapper carts the real Black Fox off somewhere. You really think the Forest Foxes will do nothing if we lose the only heir?”

Drake shuddered. That was a political nightmare and even war-inducing. He didn’t want that responsibility at all. Slick was first up, though. Drake pushed off the wall and strolled down the market, buying a few fruits to keep him occupied and so he could be seen. If he was in the market then he wasn’t at the training fields, and he must not have been the one to ask about Black Fox. He wondered if the fox would recognize his voice or if it had blended too much with the instructors and the chatter of the other training fields to be distinct.