Sylvain whispered something to Fox, and she responded with the sort of carefree laugh Jacob hadn’t heard from her in a long time. It had been close, oh so close. Without the Baba Yaga’s rushnyk, Jacob would’ve lost her, despite all his oaths to never let happen again what had almost happened in the Bluebeard’s castle.
He’d telegraphed Robert Dunbar from the border station. A phone, a kingdom for a phone! His father had brought iron ships and airplanes to this world; why not phones? While he’d waited at the telegraph office, he suddenly remembered events he’d forgotten about for years: an evening in which he and his father (if it had in fact been his father) had taken apart a plane engine; a fight with his mother after she’d caught him in his room with torn clothes. She’d never suspected anything about the mirror—or had she?
Jacob guessed it was still the Elf mirror that was washing up these memories. Did Seventeen remember them when he wore his face? Did Sixteen know about the Larks’ Water when she wore Clara’s face? So many questions…and not a single answer.
Chanute had arranged for a room in the village’s only tavern. In return, he’d promised the landlord to take care of his cellar sprites. But the interval with the Baba Yaga had taken its toll on Chanute more than he cared to admit, and when Jacob saw how much fun Fox was having with Sylvain, he decided to take care of the cellar sprites himself. Fox had even stopped being annoyed by Sylvain’s attempts to act as her protector. Just that morning, the old Canadian had picked a fight with a Troll who’d accidentally bumped into Fox. Trolls were infamous for their tempers and violence, but that Troll had ended up apologizing to Fox and offering her a wooden flower he’d carved himself.
To the left of the unpaved road leading to the tavern was a meadow with a wide pond. A few willows brushed their summer-green branches across the water, and from the opposite shore, a swan and a couple of ducks were launching into the pale blue afternoon sky. Varangia’s Tzars supposedly had tiny spies, Bolysoj, who rode on eagles and wild geese.
Jacob decided the cellar sprites could wait, and he walked over to sit down on the damp grass between the willows. He felt so tired and worn that he probably couldn’t have handled a sprite right then, anyway. Sprites dwelled in cellars all over this world, just like mice, and were of similar size. Jacob had once given Will one of the tiny pickaxes the sprites used to dig through cellar walls to build their rooms and larders.
Where was Will?
As children, the brothers had been convinced each could sense whether the other was all right. Maybe Jacob still believed that, but no matter how hard he listened, his heart wouldn’t tell him how Will was, where he was, or what he was doing. Something seemed to have separated them, even though they were in the same world. A wall of silver and glass. Or was this one made of jade?
Normally, Jacob would’ve been embarrassed by the speed with which he spun around when he heard something rustling behind him. But there was nothing coming through the willow branches. Only the wind was swaying the slender leaves, and he was about to turn around in relief when he saw the card in the grass.
I am impressed. Too bad the vixen had to return the rushnyk. I have to say, the silver skin made her even more beautiful, though that would have deprived me of my prize. How are you going to save her next time? You won’t always have a Baba Yaga nearby.
Jacob didn’t know what was worse, his helplessness or his rage. He was a fish on a silver hook. What fun it must be to watch him wriggle. Yes, if only he could’ve held on to that magic cloth, but he’d been stupid enough to get caught. Turn around, Jacob. Do it for her. Take her to safety, take her away, far from here, where he can’t find her.
Fox was still talking with Sylvain. He could see them through the branches. For her. Give up, Jacob. L’Arcadie…Why not? Surely nobody had heard of Alderelves there. Or what about Aotearoa, Tehuelcha, Oyo... So many places they hadn’t seen.
The card filled with new words. What? Was he being congratulated on his decision? No, it was more. It was his reward. The green letters formed from such slender lines, it looked as though a spider was threading them with its silk.
In Nihon is a tree where the caterpillar of an invisible butterfly goes to pupate. Shape-shifters who carry one of the empty cocoons will not age faster than a normal human.
Spieler? Oh no, he was the Devil. “Do what I tell you and I give you what you desire most.” And then he sank his hook in even deeper.
They pupate only every ten years.
Jacob flung the card as far as his weary arm would let him. But the wind carried it back to him.
“Can’t get rid of it that easily. You have to bury it in damp earth.”
The speaker was standing by the edge of the pond. Her face was hidden behind a veil as red as her dress, which looked like it belonged in a palace, not a Varangian village.
Jacob rose to his feet.
Looking for one Fairy but finding another. His deadly mistress, so beautiful and so unchanged. Without thinking, he reached for the amulet that had hidden him from her for so long, but he hadn’t worn it in a while. Careless. Was she getting tired of waiting for her sister to finally kill him for her? After all, she had tried twice. He attempted to feel proud that she’d come herself. In contrast to her dark sister, the Red Fairy hardly ever left her island. Do not look at her, Jacob. But it was hard not to look at so much beauty.
“Challenging an immortal never gets you anywhere.” No.
She lifted her veil. Eyes that were darker in the daylight. And he’d so hoped she might have forgotten him.
“Like you forgot me?” She could still read his thoughts.
She gave him a smile that had cost many men their lives—or their sanity. Miranda. Jacob was the only mortal to know her name. She didn’t hate him for that, at least not as much as her dark sister did, but she would never forgive him for leaving her.
“Yes, all you think of is the vixen,” she said, coming closer. “And she’s not even half as beautiful as I.”
The setting sun turned the horizon behind her as red as her dress.
He didn’t dare scream for fear Fox might hear him.
The farmer who was trundling his cart past them probably took them to be young lovers. He would never know he’d been looking at a Fairy.
Jacob backed away from her. He felt the willow branches in his back. They let him through like a curtain, but the Red Fairy followed. The light of the setting sun filtered through the leaves, and Jacob felt like he was back on the island. With her.
“You’re as white as snow.” She stroked his face. “You think I’m here to kill you. You are right. I’ve wished for this every day. I should not have saved you after the Goyl shot through your faithless heart, but it seemed too quick and easy a death for all the pain you’ve caused me.” She put her six-fingered hand on his chest, and Jacob felt his heart slowing.
Look at me! her eyes commanded. How can you prefer a human woman over me?
He wanted to say, “Get on with it. Do it already.” Sylvain would hopefully keep Fox away from her. That was all he could think about. Please, Sylvain! Fairies liked to turn their rivals into flowers, which they wore in their hair until they wilted.
“You have to find my sister.”
Jacob’s brain was too numb with fear and exhaustion to comprehend what she’d just said.
“She’s hiding, even from us. She is putting us all in danger. Not that she ever really cared. She knew some of the Alderelves had gotten away, even when she went off to find the Goyl. She knew there was only one way for them to break the spell. Why could you not leave the crossbow where you found it?”
There was something in her face, something Jacob had never seen there before. Fear. It didn’t seem to go well with immortality. What did she have to fear? But the Red Fairy was afraid. And she had not come to kill him.
“What do you want from me?”
“To find my sister before your brother kills her.”
“Will? My brother couldn’t even kill one of your
moths.”
“Nonsense. I have seen it. In my dreams. In the lake water. He will kill her, and we will all die with her. Because you brought them the crossbow.”
Oh, she so wanted to kill him.
But she did not.
“Do you understand how desperate I have to be to have come here?” She pulled the veil over her face. “It is a terrible curse. Terrible and foolish. But we can’t undo it. Please. Find her.”
A dog barked in the distance. Magic and reality—the mix that made this world.
Will. Jacob didn’t want to see them, but the images came: his brother in a bloodstained uniform shielding Kami’en with his body, a dozen corpses at his feet. If his brother really had the crossbow, then he must’ve gotten it from Spieler. What had the Elf told him? Why should Will want to kill the Dark Fairy? It was she who had let him go.
“Jacob?”
Fox. She was coming down the road. He could see her through the leaves. The Red Fairy raised her six-fingered hand. Jacob grabbed her arm.
“You touch one hair on her,” he whispered, “and I myself will put that arrow through your sister’s heart.”
“Jacob!” Fox’s voice sounded worried. And too close.
“You will forget her like you’ve forgotten me!” Miranda whispered back. “And she will hate you for it as much as I do.”
But she did not drop her hand.
“Rumor has it my sister is on her way to Moskva,” she said. “She probably wants to offer her magic to the Tzar. She’ll never learn.” With that, she stepped through the willow’s veil of branches and approached the pond.
Jacob followed her. She looked around before wading into the water. There was much in her glance: regret, longing, anger. And maybe the plea not to forget her.
Fox saw the Red Fairy and stopped abruptly.
“Stay where you are!” Jacob shouted at her. Of course, she didn’t listen.
“Watch your heart, Fox-sister,” Miranda called to her. “I don’t have one, and he still managed to break it.”
Sylvain had followed Fox.
“Do not look at her!” Fox warned him, but it was too late. His eyes went as wide as a child’s. Miranda smiled at him. Her hands caressed the water. Her red dress floated around her like a blossom. It turned darker as the water soaked into the fabric.
“You’re afraid of them. Why?” she called out to Jacob as she waded deeper into the pond. “You brought them the crossbow. What else could they want from you? The usual price? You’ll have to pay it, should they manage to come back.”
The water closed over her shoulders, swallowed her dark hair, the red dress.
“Where did she go?” Sylvain’s face showed his longing, but at least he still had his voice. Some men were turned deaf and mute by the sight of a Fairy. Or they lost their minds. Fox looked quickly at Jacob and Sylvain, as though making sure they’d both survived the Fairy’s visit unscathed. She had good reason to be worried. The first time Jacob met the Red Fairy, Fox had waited a whole year for his return.
“You heard what she said about her sister?” Jacob asked.
Fox nodded. She’d heard everything.
“We’re traveling to Moskva, Sylvain,” she said. “L’Arcadie and Ontario will have to wait.”
City of Gold
A hundred golden domes and a Tzar who owned more magical objects than the Kings of Lotharaine and Albion combined.
They reached Moskva on a cool July afternoon. There were more wolf and mink pelts on display than in Schwanstein in winter, but the golden towers seemed to warm even the north wind, and the mustard-yellow and mint-green facades reminded visitors from the West that Varangia was closer to the Orient than to their home countries.
Jacob had first visited Moskva as Chanute’s apprentice. They’d been on the hunt for a magic doll that had once belonged to Wassilissa the Beautiful. Chanute had started his days with a breakfast of Varangian potato liquor, and Jacob had mostly been left to roam the streets on his own. He’d never seen a city like Moskva on either side of the mirror. Varangia’s capital was a combination of North and East and West, and though the September air had already smelled of snow, the South was still present in its streets. One of its recent Tzars, Vladimir Bear-Friend, had been so captivated by the architecture of Venetia he’d had entire streets torn down and replaced with the designs of an Lombardian architect. Still, Moskva’s heart was beating to the east. The carved Dragons on the roofs looked like they’d flown in from Drukhul, and the golden horses spreading their wings on the pediments of the palaces recalled the wide steppes of Tangut. So what did it matter that even in the midst of spring, you’d find frozen Malen’ky on the cobblestoned streets? (That’s what Varangia’s Heinzel were called.) The burghers of Moskva weathered the rough climate in the countless steam baths while they dreamed of Constantinople and the beaches of the White Sea.
Jacob remembered how much he’d wanted to stay back then, but Chanute had heard in one of the taverns he frequented about a magic hammer in Suoma, which immediately redirected their hunt, as such news so often had before. They’d found the hammer and sold it to a count in Hostein—and Jacob had not returned to Moskva until now.
Before they boarded the train, Chanute had wired one of his old friends about accommodations. “Aleksei Fyodorovich Baryatinsky owes me his life,” he replied (loudly enough for the entire train to hear) to Sylvain’s question about who exactly that friend was. “It’s time to settle that old debt. I saved him from being torn to pieces by a Wolfling. Back then he was just the lost son of some bankrupt local nobleman, but now he supplies weapons to the Varangian army. The war in Circassia has made him filthy rich, so I’m counting on first-class accommodations.”
Jacob had met some of Chanute’s old friends over the years, and those encounters had rarely gone well. But unless they found a way to earn money, they couldn’t afford a hotel. Jacob had tried to fix the handkerchief that for years had faithfully filled his pockets with gold coins, but even Ukraina’s seamstresses, so famous for their dexterity, had shaken their heads with regret. He was going to have to find a new one, though he still had horrible memories of the kiss he’d had to plant on some Witch’s hot lips for it.
Chanute’s message had reached Baryatinsky. As they disembarked in Moskva’s extravagant railway station, they were greeted on the platform by a liveried footman. When Jacob asked him whether the Dark Fairy had arrived, he made the sign of the cross three times and voiced his hope that she’d turned herself into a swarm of moths and flown south to Constantinople. Moskva’s newspapers were all putting out their own predictions about when she would present herself to the Tzar. Chanute knew some Varangian, and he could read enough Cyrillic to decipher the headlines: “Dark Fairy Expected at Tzar’s Ball.” “Dark One Less Than a Day Away.” “She Has Arrived and Is Hiding in the Tzar’s Palace.”
Jacob caught himself scanning the crowds for Will and the Bastard as they pushed toward Baryatinsky’s carriage, which was drawn by a silver horse. Trying to protect Will from the Goyl still sounded much more feasible than saving the Dark Fairy from Will. But her red sister’s fear had been all too real. The Elf’s card had stayed blank since her visit, but Jacob had yet to follow her advice to bury it. He had to admit he was afraid to cut his only connection to the Alderelf. “But how will you save him next time? ” He had no idea. Maybe he was going to have to beg for mercy, though he was clueless as to what gave him any hope it might be granted.
He’d told Fox about the invisible butterfly cocoons. “If they exist, we will find them” had been her reply. “But first we find your brother.” She’d kept quiet for a long time after he told her what the Red One had said about Will. “Do you believe her?” he’d finally asked her. “Yes” was all she’d said. Then she’d gone back to looking out the train window, as if trying to imagine her world without Fairies.
They had not spoken again about Spieler’s price, but Jacob was reminded of it by every touch he avoided, and every time Fox looked at other men
. He just had to look at her to know she was feeling the same about him as he did about her. She didn’t care about the Fairy, and, like Chanute, she believed Will should look after himself. She was still on this hunt because it was the only way to get back at the Alderelf for what he was stealing from her. But all Jacob could think was that he’d been unable to protect her, and even the rare silver gelding pulling the carriage reminded him of Seventeen.
Love makes cowards of us all. He’d never really understood what that meant.
***
Chanute had been right to promise them princely accommodations. Aleksei Fyodorovich Baryatinsky resided in the best part of the city, just a few blocks from the Kremlin, the medieval fortress that the current Tzar, much against the protests of his nobility, had turned into his residence and seat of government. His predecessors had ruled from St. Vladisburg, the port city built in the Western style, but Nicolaij the Third wanted to remind Varangia that its roots lay in the East.
Aleksei Fyodorovich Baryatinsky’s city palace lay behind a gate plastered with more gold than the one in front of the imperial palace in Vena. The dogs that were paired with the guards were as rare as the geldings that had brought them here: Barsoi, Yakutian windhounds. Despite their size, they were as slender as if the wind had shaped them, but that wasn’t what had given them their name. Their fur changed color when the wind brushed through it. The most valuable ones turned light blue, the others more silver, as though their short-haired coats caught the starlight. This trait had nearly caused the Barsoi’s extinction, until the Varangian nobility began to use them as guard dogs instead of for their coats. A Barsoi would attack without warning, and it did so quickly and silently, as if by magic.
They raised their heads, catching Fox’s scent as she stepped out of the carriage. The palace was quite typical for Moskva, where all people, rich and poor, dreamed of country life. Peacocks and turkeys were pecking the ground between the many vegetable beds in the wide courtyard. There was a shed for firewood, and a greenhouse where orange trees thrived, despite the biting cold. The palace’s roof was as colorful as an Oriental rug, and its towers pushed their gilded roofs into the sky like golden bulbs.
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