Reckless (Mirrorworld #1)

Reckless (Mirrorworld #1) Page 23

He averted his face, as if remembering the jade. But Clara didn't see it. This was still the face she loved. The mouth she had kissed so often. Even the eyes were still his, despite the gold. But when she reached out, he shuddered, as he had done in the cave, and the night was like a black river running between them.

Will pulled from inside his coat the pistol that Jacob had given him.

"Here, take this," he said. You may need it if Jacob doesn't come back and should I no longer remember your name tomorrow. If you have to kill him, the other one with the stone face, just remember that he has done the same thing to me."

She wanted to back away, but Will held on to her, pushing the gun into her hand. He avoided touching her skin, but he ran his fingers through her hair.

"I'm so sorry!" he whispered.

Then he stepped past her and disappeared beneath the willows. Clara stared at the pistol. Then she took a few steps toward the lake and hurled it into the dark water.

28

Just A Rose

Jacob stayed the whole night, though every hour tasted of ash. He loosened Miranda's black hair from the darkness and sought solace in her white skin. He allowed his fingers to remember and his mind to forget. Outside, the other Fairies laughed and whispered, and Jacob wondered whether she would protect him should they discover him. He didn’t really care. That night, nothing mattered. No tomorrow. No yesterday. No brother and no father. Just black hair and white skin and red wings writing words he didn't understand into the dark night.

But when even the canopy could no longer shield them from the day, the bite on his hand started to throb, and everything flooded back: the fear, the stone, the gold in Will's eyes — and the hope that he might yet have found a way to put an end to it all.

Miranda didn't ask him whether he would come back. But before he left, she made him repeat everything she'd taught him about her dark sister. Word for word.

Brother. Sister.

The lilies were already closing in the first rays of the sun. Jacob saw none of the other Fairies as he returned to the boat, but the froth drifting on the lake heralded that soon the water would give birth to another.

Will was nowhere to be seen as Jacob rowed back toward the lake's shore, but Clara was asleep between the willows. She woke with a start as he pushed the boat ashore. After the beauty of the Fairies, her tired face resembled a wildflower beside a bouquet of lilies. But she didn't seem to mind the leaves in her hair, or her dirty clothes. All Jacob saw on Clara's face was relief that he was back — and fear for his brother. "Your brother will need her. And you will, too." Fox had once again been right. She always was, and luckily this time he had listened to her.

She came out from under the willow branches, her fur bristling, as though she knew exactly why he'd returned only now.

"That was a long night," she said testily. "I'd started checking the fish to see if there was one that looked like you."

"I'm back, aren't I?" Jacob retorted. "And she'll help him."

"Why?"

"Why? Does it matter? Because she can. Because she doesn't like her sister. I don't really care, as long as she does it."

Fox stared across the lake, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. Clara, however, looked so relieved that all the weariness vanished from her face.

"When?" she asked.

"Soon."

Fox could tell from his face that there was more to it, but she kept quiet. She knew she wouldn't like the whole truth. Clara was too happy to notice any of this.

"Fox thought you'd forgotten about us." Will stepped out from under the willows, and for an instant Jacob thought he'd stayed too long on the island. The jade had darkened. It merged with the green of the trees. The world behind the mirror had finally turned Will into a part of it. It had sown its seed in his flesh, and now it stared at Jacob with golden eyes, gripping his brother in its fangs. But he would free him with the same weapon the Mirrorworld had used against him: the words of a Fairy.

"We have to find a rose," Jacob said.

"A rose? That's it?" The jade face was impassive. So familiar and yet so strange.

"Yes, it grows not far from here." And then, brother, you will sleep, and I'll have to find the Dark Fairy.

"You can't just make it disappear." The way Will looked at him! As if he'd forgotten and yet remembered everything that had driven them apart.

"Can't I?" Jacob replied. "I know that she can help you. Just do what I tell you, and everything will be all right."

Fox wouldn't take her eyes off him. They were saying, What are you trying to do, Jacob Reckless? You are scared.

So what, Fox? he wanted to reply. It's a feeling I've gotten quite used to by now.

29

In The Heart

They rode northward along the lakeshore. Time drowned in the scent of the blossoms, in the light breaking on the water, and for the first time Clara felt ready to forgive this world for all the fear and all the gloom. Everything would be all right. Everything.

Jacob soon turned his back to the lake. The horses sank deep into the vines of the brambles and the fronds of the ferns. Above them the leaves were again turning yellow. A cool wind rushed through the branches, and beyond the trees Clara could already see the valley where the Unicorns grazed. They were still far, barely visible in the mist that hung between the mountains. But their dead kin lay at Clara's feet in the yellow grass.

Their skeletons were everywhere, moss and grass between their ribs, spiderwebs spanning their hollow eye sockets, the white horns still on their bare-boned foreheads. The Unicorns' graveyard. Maybe they came her to die because it was easier under the canopy of the branches, or because in death they sough to be near the Fairies. Vines with tiny white blossoms wove their tendrils through the bleached bones, like a final salute from the Fairies to their faithful guards.

Jacob dismounted and approached one of the skeletons. A single red rose was growing out of its chest.

"Will, come here." He waved his brother to his side.

Fox ran under the trees and peered toward the Unicorns, her muzzle raised in the breeze.

"I smell Goyl."

"So? Will's right behind you." Jacob turned his back to the valley. "Pick the rose, Will."

Will put out his hand — and drew it back again. He looked at his jade-green fingers. Then he looked at Clara, searching her face for the one he had once been.

Please, Will. She didn't say it, but she thought it, again and again. Do what your brother says! And here, among the flowers and the dead, for one precious moment, he looked at her as he once used to. All will be well.

He picked the rose, and Clara heard the woody stem snap. One of its thorns pricked his finger, and Will looked in surprise at the pale amber blood oozing from his petrified skin.

He dropped the rose and rubbed his forehead.

"What is this?" he said, faltering and looking at his brother. "What have you done?"

Clara reached out to him, but Will flinched away from her, stumbling over one of the skeletons. The bones cracked like rotten wood under his boots.

"Will, listen!" Jacob grabbed his arm. "You have to sleep. I need more time. When you wake up, all this will be over. I promise."

But Will shoved him away with such violence that Jacob staggered back, out of the shelter of the trees into the open expanse of the autumnal meadow.