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Martin was like a different man. He was animated, his eyes bright with life, especially when he got to his plans for the kits his foxes would produce.
    “Their fur is softer than anything you’ve ever touched,” he said with a wistful sigh. “I could make a fortune if we could get a farm going, but they don’t breed well in the heat this far south. Such a pity, but these two were more of an experiment, anyway. No real harm done, and they make such a nice addition to my collection.”
    Miranda bit her tongue. She didn’t approve of caging anything, but while the foxes looked hot, they had food and water and seemed generally healthy. So she kept her comments to herself as Martin led her to the next cage, which held a pair of black armored pigs. After that there were grass lions, a forest panther, some sort of feathered lizard from the southern rain forest, and an enormous red-golden stripped cat that Martin claimed was some kind of crossbreed that had never been successfully created until now.
    “I’m the only one in the world to own one,” Martin said proudly. “I’m thinking of naming it Hapter’s Cat; what do you think?”
    “It would certainly be a telling name,” Miranda said, not bothering to hide the bite in her voice. She was getting awfully tired of this tour. “Is that all, then?”
    “One more,” Martin said, his smile morphing to a secretive grin. “I’ve saved the best for last.”
    They were at the end of the building, so Miranda didn’t know where this “best” would be until Martin turned down a little hall behind the last cage she hadn’t noticed until that moment. The short hall led into a room that was taller than the rest of the building. It was obviously a new addition, built of much thicker stone. The sides were a foot thick at least, and a great wall of iron bars ran straight across the room’s middle, dividing it neatly in half. On Miranda’s side, the floor was tiled and set with padded benches; on the other side, inside the bars, the floor was covered in a thin layer of straw that had been worn to chaff by the enormous creature pacing the cage’s edge.
    Miranda had never seen anything like it. At first glance, it looked like a dog, but no dog was ever that huge. The creature was enormous, fifteen feet at least from the tip of its broad, black nose to the point of its tail. Its eyes were orange as pumpkins and nearly as large, and they followed her with murderous intent, but most amazing of all was the creature’s coat. Its fur was as long as her index finger, and for the most part, it was a cloudy silver, but streaking across its pelt in curling patterns was a lighter, pure silver that moved as Miranda watched, the color drifting across the animal’s fur like dappled moonlight. The moving patterns sped up as she got closer, the silver marks flashing so quickly they reminded Miranda of a snowstorm, an impression that was only heightened by the beast’s swift, graceful movements as it stalked back and forth along the bars of its cage, its head down, ready to strike. When its orange eyes met Miranda’s, the creature lifted its lip, showing a wall of foot-long yellow teeth.
    She took a step back on instinct and ran straight into Martin.
    “No need to be afraid,” he said, catching her shoulders. “The bars are reinforced. I had them specially made so that even the ghosthound’s famous strength couldn’t break them.”
    “Ghosthound?” Miranda whispered. That was a ghosthound? She’d heard of them, the enormous monsters that ruled the snowy continent at the top of the world. In the stories they were slavering beasts, huge and ugly, all claws and teeth for eating bad children, but the creature in front of her was beautiful. Beautiful, graceful, and deadly as the blizzard it resembled. Looking again at the swirling patterns, she understood for the first time why they were called ghosthounds. The shifting silver-gray made the dog look otherworldly.
    “No other man in the