Reckless (Mirrorworld #1)

Reckless (Mirrorworld #1) Page 10

Jacob leaned back against the well. It will be all right, Jacob. But the night seemed endless. He felt Fox lean her head against his shoulder, and finally he fell asleep, next to the girl who did not want the skin that his brother had to fight for. He slept fitfully and even his dreams turned into stone. Chanute, the paperboy on the square, his mother, his father... they all froze into statues standing among the trees next to the dead Tailor.

"Jacob! Wake up!"

Fox was wearing her fur again. The first light of dawn was seeping through the pine trees. Jacob's shoulder ached so much, he barely managed to get to his feet. All will be well, Jacob. Chanute knows this world like no one else. Remember how he exorcised the Witch's spell from you? You were already half-dead. And the Stilt bite? And his recipe against Waterman venom?

His heart beat faster with every step he took toward the gingerbread house.

The sweet smell inside nearly choked him. It was probably the reason that Will and Clara were still fast asleep. She had her arms wrapped around Will, whose face was so peaceful, as if he were sleeping in the bed of a prince, not a child-eater. But his left cheek was speckled with jade, as if it had spilled onto his skin, and the nails on his left hand were nearly as black as the claws that had sown the petrified flesh into his shoulder.

How loud a heart could beat. Until it took your breath away.

All will be well.

Jacob was still standing there, staring at the stone, when Will finally stirred.

Jacob's eyes told him everything. Will put his hand to his neck and traced the stone up to his cheek.

Think, Jacob. But his mind had drowned in the fear that was flooding his brother's face.

They let Clara sleep. Will followed Jacob outside like a sleepwalker caught in a nightmare.

Fox backed away from him. The look she gave Jacob said only one thing.

Lost.

And that was how Will stood there. Lost. He touched his disfigured face, and for the first time Jacob no longer saw there any of the trust his brother usually gave so freely. Instead, he believed he saw all the blame he put on himself. All the If only you'd been more careful, Jacob... If you only hadn't taken him so far east... If only...

Will stepped to the window behind which the oven stood, and he stared at the image the dark panes threw back at him.

Jacob, however, was looking at the soot-blackened cobwebs under the sugared roof. They reminded him of other webs, just as dark, spun to catch the night.

What an idiot he was. What was he doing at a Witch's house? This was the curse of a Fairy. A Fairy!

Fox looked at him with apprehension.

"No!" she barked.

Sometimes she knew what he was thinking even before he did.

"She will definitely be able to help him. After all, she is her sister."

"You can't go back to her! Ever."

Will turned around.

"Go back to whom?"

Jacob didn't answer. He reached for the medallion beneath his shirt. His fingers still remembered picking the petal that he kept inside it. Just as his heart remembered the one from whom the leaf protected him.

"Go and wake Clara," he said to Will. "We're leaving. All will be well."

It was along the way — four days, maybe more — and they had to be faster than the stone.

Fox was still looking at him.

No, Jacob! No! her eyes pleaded with him.

Of course she remembered it all as well as he did, if not better.

Fear, rage, lost time. "Must have been terrible injuries.

But this was the only way, if he wanted to keep his brother.

11

Hentzau

The Man-Goyl whom Hentzau found in a deserted coach station was growing a skin of malachite. Half of his face was already grained with dark green. Hentzau had let him go, like all the others they had found, with the advice to seek refuge in the nearest Goyl camp — before his own kind could murder him. But there was no gold yet in his eyes, only the memory that his skin had not always been made of malachite. He ran away as if there were still someplace he could run to. Hentzau shuddered at the thought that the Fairy might one day sow human flesh into his jasper skin.

Malachite, bloodstone, jasper. Hentzau and his soldiers had even found the color of the King, but of course no trace of the stone they were looking for.

Jade.

Old women wore it as talismans around their necks, and they secretly knelt before idols carved from the holy stone. Mothers sewed it into their children's clothes so the stone would make them fearless and protect them. But there had never been a Goyl whose skin was made of jade.

How long would the Dark Fairy have him search? How long would he have to look a fool in front of his soldiers, the King, and himself? What if she had invented the dream only to separate him from Kami’en? And off he'd run, ever loyal and obedient, like a dog.

Hentzau looked down the deserted road, which vanished between the trees. His soldiers were growing nervous. The Goyl avoided the HungryForest as much as the humans did. The Fairy knew that very well. This was a game. Yes, that's what it was. Nothing but a game. And he was tired of being her dog.

The moth settled on Hentzau's chest just as he was about to give the order to mount up. It clawed itself to his gray uniform, right above where his heart was beating, and Hentzau saw the Man-Goyl just as clearly as the Fairy had in her dreams.

The jade ran through his human skin like a promise.

It could not be.

And then the deep brought forth a King, and when there came a time of great peril for him, there also came the Jade Goyl, born from glass and silver, and he made the King invincible, even to death.

Old wive's tales. As a child, Hentzau had loved nothing more than listening to them, because they gave the world meaning and a happy ending. A world that was clearly divided into above and below and that was ruled by soft-fleshed gods. But since then he had sliced their soft flesh and had learned that they weren't gods, just as he had learned that the world made no sense and there were no happy endings.

But there he was. Hentzau saw him clearly, as clearly as if he could have reached out and touched the pale green stone that had already spilled onto the Man-Goyl's cheek.

The Jade Goyl. Born from the curse of the Fairy.

Had this been her plan all along? Had she sown all that petrified flesh only to reap him?

What do you care, Hentzau? Find him!

The moth spread its wings, and he saw the fields he had fought on just a few months earlier. Fields that bordered the eastern boundary of the HungryForest. He was searching on the wrong side.

Hentzau suppressed a curse and swatted the moth dead.

His soldiers looked at him in surprise when he gave the order to ride east again, but they were relieved he didn't lead them deeper into the forest. Hentzau wiped the crushed wings from his uniform as he swung himself into the saddle. None of them had seen the moth, and they would all confirm that he had found the Jade Goyl without the Fairy's help — just as he kept telling everyone that it was Kami’en who was winning the war, and not the spell of his immortal beloved.

Jade.

She had dreamed the truth.

Or had turned a dream into truth.

12

His Own Kind

It was early afternoon by the time they finally left the forest. Dark clouds hung above fields and meadows, patches of green, yellow, and brown that stretched to the horizon. Elderberry bushes bore heavy clusters of black berries, and Elves, their wings wet with rain, fluttered among the wildflowers by the roadside. However, the farms they passed were all deserted, and on the fields cannons were rusting among the unharvested wheat.