He reached into his pocket and grabbed a handful of the coins he had left from selling Fox’s ring. He didn’t wait for the beggar lords up by the church columns to notice him. He needed their masses who filled the square like a carpet of bodies. Jacob threw the coins into the crowd, and the carpet turned into a raging sea. The Goyl sank without a trace. Jacob nearly felt sorry for him. He was not going to have an easy time reporting to Hentzau how he lost his prey in a swarm of beggars.
***
An abandoned abbey on one side, the stables of two slaughterhouses on the other... The Sintisa had not gotten the best place to make camp. And still it was not a sad sight. The carts and tents were colorful enough to compete with any rushnyky woven by a Baba Yaga. A viola and an accordion sowed wanderlust into the fresh morning air. The music was a reliable source of income for the traveling folk. The rich liked to pay to have their salons filled with dreams of freedom and adventure. The Tzar himself could only breakfast to the sound of a Sintisa viola.
A tame bear, whose nose ring still showed that his taming had not been entirely voluntary, was yawning in front of one of the wagons. Chickens were pecking at the ground between the tentpoles, and a one-eyed cat was watching a fight between two amber-eyed dogs. It was as though a long-lost past had snuck into the modern era.
A man whom Jacob asked for directions to the glass-sayers had a Malen’ky hanging from his beard.
The man pointed at some tents by the walls of the abbey. According to legend, the monks there had worshipped the Devil. Jacob didn’t allow himself to wonder whether the Alderelves had been behind that as well. He hadn’t touched Spieler’s card since the Elf had so successfully stoked his jealousy.
“Please. You will find someone else.” His own words. So why shouldn’t that someone be the Windhound? Because he wasn’t good enough for her. Really, Jacob? And who is?
The woman in the first tent was so old she looked like her own mummy. When she saw Jacob, she spat three times and screeched through toothless gums, “Cepedko!”—the Varangian word for silver.
The woman in the second tent quickly gave back his coins when her crystal ball filled with black moths. Did that mean Will had already found the Dark Fairy? Jacob didn’t wait to find out.
The next tent appeared to be empty. He was about to back out of it when a young woman emerged from behind a curtain. Her clothes were a mix of Mongolian and Anamian fabrics, and the butterfly-like veil over her jet-black hair was probably from Prambanan.
“We rarely have clients this early in the morning,” she said with a shy smile as she pulled the curtain over the entrance. “The glasses of others are better in the dark.”
She didn’t need glass. The third eye above her nose was like those on certain kinds of Nymphs. Even some Ogres had them, but the almost invisible eyelid and the high cheekbones made clear that the girl was the daughter of a Bamboo Woman.
“What images do you seek?” She pulled the veils over her forehead until they covered the third eye, a gesture she must have practiced since her childhood. A third eye was considered bad luck.
“I’m looking for my brother. He’s disappeared, and I would like to know where he is.”
Jacob had shown Will’s photograph in so many places that it was worn and creased. At least it made it less obvious that the picture was in color. Photographs in this world were still black and white.
The Bamboo Girl looked at the photo and returned it to Jacob. Then she closed her eyes. The eye on her forehead, however, widened. Jacob could see it even through the veils.
Outside, the whinny of a horse.
The cries of a child.
The Bamboo Girl suddenly gasped for air. “He tricked your brother... Oh, he is devious. He promised he could make everything right.”
“Make right? What?” Jacob took her hands. They were soft, like a child’s. “Can you see where my brother is? Is he alone?”
She shook her head and shuddered.
“Is the Goyl with him?”
She didn’t hear him. “They are silver and glass,” she whispered, “and so empty, despite all their faces.” She pressed her hand to her forehead and looked around as though the images she’d just seen had entered the dark tent. “He has a skin of stone,” she whispered. “And he will kill her. She always knew he would.”
Then she dropped to her knees and pressed her head to the floor. Jacob knelt down next to her, but he couldn’t understand what she was muttering. It was not a language he understood. The girl rocked back and forth like a child. She began to hum a melody, a lullaby, as though she were trying to put herself to sleep.
A man entered the tent. Jacob had seen him outside, juggling with Thumblings. “She’ll now sit like that for hours,” he said. “I hope you paid her well?”
“Certainly,” Jacob lied.
He left the tent. Two men, probably casting agents for one of Moskva’s theaters, were watching a hair-raising performance in which six children were contorting themselves to form an almost real-looking Dragon.
“He promised he could make everything right.” What? Jacob couldn’t even be sure it was Will she was speaking about. It had been a stupid idea to come here.
Jacob stood and watched as the “Dragon” unformed to become six children, who bowed and nervously awaited the verdict of their audience. They hadn’t learned yet that these spectators never showed their enthusiasm, in order to keep the price low.
“They are silver and glass.” Good. And bad. If Seventeen and his sister were Will’s bodyguards, that explained why Jacob hadn’t seen them since the attack. “He has a skin of stone.” That was the worst sentence. Had the girl seen the present or the past?
No. This couldn’t have been for nothing. All the pain and the fear... Almost having died. You did die, Jacob.
The Thumbling-juggler was standing once more in front of the Bamboo Girl’s tent. His face said it clearly: He wasn’t letting anyone in anytime soon.
“But you’d rather take the advice of a former lover.” Spieler was right. Who cared if Will killed the Dark Fairy? She more than deserved it. And if she’d turned Will into a Goyl again, Jacob too wanted to see her dead, together with all her sisters.
“He has a skin of stone.”
Jacob had never more felt the need to speak to Fox. Nobody could sort his thoughts better; nobody had better advice. The walk back to Baryatinsky’s palace seemed to take forever. His relief when he finally saw the gilded gates was almost comical. But Fox was not in her room, and the maid making her bed only mumbled in broken Varangian that Mademoiselle Auger had gone out.
Jacob didn’t ask the girl whether Mademoiselle Auger had been alone.
“She’s probably tired of this never-ending journey.”
Poison.
Jacob went to his room, looked down through the window at Baryatinsky’s busy courtyard, and wished he could be one of the stable hands who were brushing down the horses by the stables, or the messenger who was running down the street as though there could be nothing more important than the message he was carrying. Jacob had never wanted a normal life. The same routines, the same people, places, tasks. But after these past few days—Days, Jacob? Weeks. Months—a normal life suddenly didn’t sound so bad anymore. No dangers beyond a runaway horse on the street, no life-or-death decisions, no immortals, no two worlds... Just one thing to hold on to: her.
He was just trying to write down what the Bamboo Girl had said before he forgot the exact words when a servant brought him a telegram. His mood brightened a little on seeing Dunbar’s name, but what he read was very sobering:
Libraries in Albion’s penal colonies rare STOP as expected STOP more silver encounters? STOP any sign of Dark One? STOP Papers here say Walrus sick? STOP not sure if good or bad STOP Dunbar
Even at the end of the world, Dunbar kept an eye on politics. Good or bad news... Dunbar’s first question for the Alderelf would probably be whether Arthur of Albion had indeed been the son of an Alderelf and a Fairy.
&nb
sp; Jacob pushed aside the paper on which he’d noted the Bamboo Girl’s words. Instead, he started writing a reply to Dunbar:
Keep looking. Will probably encounter Mirrorlings if we find Will. Need to know of all weaknesses. Would caustic soda and saltpeter work on breathing glass? Still believe have to tackle the spell and not the manifestation. No sign of Dark One, but sister tried to recruit me. To hell with all immortals. J.
Dunbar would not have to read between these lines to know how Jacob was feeling.
Jacob asked one of Baryatinsky’s errand boys to send the telegram. Then he fetched some of their host’s wine to help him stop wondering where Fox had gone to. He managed to convince himself for a while that he was worried about Seventeen, but then his jealousy reared its green face even in the glass he’d already refilled too many times.
Shortly before lunchtime, Chanute and Sylvain joined him, providing a welcome distraction. Sylvain told him they’d gone to visit the limb maker Baryatinsky had praised so much. His account was laced with admiring invectives. The idea for the visit had apparently been Sylvain’s. Chanute chuckled over Sylvain’s enthusiasm, but Jacob could see that the steel limbs had made an impression on Chanute, too. When Sylvain said how much such a limb would cost, Chanute again became the sickly old man who’d crawled away into his bedchamber in Schwanstein. Jacob inadvertently patted his empty pockets, though he knew their contents wouldn’t even pay for one artificial finger. To cheer his old teacher, he told him about his audience with the Tzar scheduled for the next day and that he had high hopes for a good advance payment. Advance for what? Jacob had no idea, but Chanute’s face lit up again, and an hour later he and Sylvain were already back to planning new treasure hunts.
Fox was gone for another two hours. Jacob only had to look at her to know whom she’d been with. The Barsoi had given her the tour: the golden churches, the Dragon’s gate, the horses that carried the Tzar’s couriers to Yakutia and Zhonghua, and the bakers by the Kremlin walls who baked the singing bread. Jacob hadn’t seen her this carefree since the Bluebeard.
“I see you have competition now. Which was only to be expected, right?”
Jacob felt his jealousy like a sickness. Just what the Elf wants you to feel, Jacob. But not even that helped. He told her he was finally going to meet the Tzar and see his Magic Collection. She looked distracted, as though she hadn’t really returned. “Tomorrow Orlando is meeting some of his contacts to see whether they have news about the Fairy. He’s offered to take me along.”
Orlando. She’d never mentioned anyone’s name in that tone. What tone, Jacob? Heavens, he was dying of jealousy. The words were already on his lips: Come with me. What should I do all alone in the Magic Collection? What should I do with the Tzar?
She looked so happy. And why not? The Barsoi had no debt with an Alderelf.
He showed her Dunbar’s telegram and told her about the Bamboo Girl, but he tried to play down how much the glass-sayer’s words worried him. All the questions he wanted to ask Fox... He just couldn’t get them out.
“Your brother. The Fairy. Clara. Others are always more important.”
It was the terrible truth: The Alderelf’s poison was nothing but the terrible truth.
She looked happy.
“I thought you don’t believe in soothsaying?” She studied his face the way she always did when she sensed he wasn’t telling her what he really felt or thought.
And what had he expected, after all he’d told her in Schwanstein? Not that it would happen so quickly. Damn. He couldn’t even imagine not seeing her for more than a few hours at a stretch. Better start imagining it now, Jacob.
“Even if she was right about everything else...Will is alive, Jacob,” she said.
“Yes, but what if...” He couldn’t even say it. He didn’t have to. She knew what he meant.
Fox took his hand. Jacob didn’t pull it away as he’d done so often in the past days. It felt good.
“Remember what Alma says about prophecies? That they’re always misunderstood? The future doesn’t speak our language. Let’s see what Orlando finds out tomorrow.”
Orlando. Tomorrow. He pictured how...Stop it!
“Did she see the Goyl with Will?”
“She didn’t say anything about him.” And even if she had, the Bastard couldn’t give Will his stone skin back. That would have been a neat revenge, but at least that was past, since the Fairy was gone.“He has a skin of stone.” No, only the Dark One could bring the jade back.
And all these months he’d believed Will had forgotten the stone.
All these months? How often did you see him, Jacob? The things we keep from others. What if Will didn’t even want to be found? Just like before?
“You look tired,” Fox said. “Why don’t you go and sleep?”
She felt safe. Jacob could hear it. She liked being in Moskva. Or maybe she was just thinking of the other one.
Things We Desire
A human dagger with a mother-of-pearl handle. Kami’en’s brother Skala had found it in one of the caves where they built their surface cities. Yes. That dagger had been the first thing Kami’en had truly desired. The desire had been so strong that he’d stolen the dagger from his brother. Skala had broken two of Kami’en’s fingers for that. Four years later, Kami’en had killed him in battle and buried him with the dagger. The two fingers still ached in cold weather.
Things we desire...
The palace where the Tzar was putting him up was full of things that woke desire. To Goyl eyes, the rooms seemed overloaded with pomp, all those golden tendrils and flowers, the paintings teeming with human gods and heroes. But Kami’en couldn’t help admiring the craft in all those things. His weakness for human things—where did it come from?
The feet of his bed were formed like lion paws, which didn’t help his sleep. The onyx lords kept black lions in their palaces. Kami’en had fed the last assassin they’d sent to a lion.
And, of course, there was a mirror. Humans were so obsessed with their reflections. Nowhere in their palaces could you ever escape your own face. Kami’en briefly eyed himself in the polished glass. A Goyl face gave nothing away—not the rage they felt so quickly, nor the love that came and went so quickly, nor the pride that ruled them all, nor the determination to retaliate for all the humiliations that were as familiar to them as the heat beneath the earth.
He turned away from the mirror.
Was she coming to Moskva?
He poured himself a glass of water, ignoring the brief hope to see her face in it. He’d never loved like this, and yet he’d betrayed her for things he desired even more: power, a son with human flesh, the throne of his enemy… All this he’d always wanted more than love. Love scared him. It was soft. And vulnerable.
One of his guards announced Hentzau. Kami’en had posted the Goyl soldiers by his door only as a courtesy to his Bloodhound, who saw spies even among the Tzar’s guards. As usual, Hentzau’s face didn’t reveal whether he was bringing good or bad news. The past days had brought mainly good news. The rebels in the North were ready to compromise; the Man-Goyl were rejoining his army in droves; Wilfred of Albion was seriously ill, which put his alliance with Lotharaine in jeopardy; and the onyx were divided. Three of the black lords had crowned themselves King of the Goyl. But Hentzau was not bearing political news.
“We have proof Amalie’s godfather handed your son to his grandmother’s people.”
The throne of his enemy. The Goyl were holding Therese of Austry two miles beneath the earth, but Hentzau had been suspicious for months that she was somehow managing to communicate with the surface.
“And? Where is he?”
“We can’t find any trace of him.”
Hentzau delivered bad news with refreshing neutrality. Kami’en appreciated that.
The Moonstone Prince was Kami’en’s fifth child. None of the others had been as wanted by their father as this one. Kami’en suspected he knew why that was. The prince had also been her son for him. He’
d made it official that the Fairy was not the child’s murderess, but that hadn’t brought her back to him. He wanted her back.
“Not a trace? The prisoners won’t speak? Have you lost your touch?”
Hentzau straightened his back, though it obviously caused him pain. There was no part of the jasper Bloodhound’s body that didn’t cause him pain—all for his King. No, still for the old friend. Kami’en was aware that Hentzau’s loyalty was not to the crown but to their shared past. He would have loved to reward him by giving him back his youth. He’d even asked Niomee, but she had claimed that kind of magic was not hers to dispense. Kami’en was sure that was a lie.
“I could not make them speak because they don’t know where the infant is.” Hentzau sounded brusque. Kami’en quietly reproached himself, as he always did when he’d offended his old friend. “Three of Therese’s former court Dwarfs came to fetch your son. We found two, but the third is still at large. We reckon it’s Auberon, Therese’s old favorite. The others were obviously
supposed to lead us off his track. They have no idea where Auberon was taking the child, and neither does Amalie’s godfather.”
Rage. His old foe. Kami’en felt it searing away all reason and political calculations. He went to the window so Hentzau wouldn’t see how irritated he was, about Therese’s cunning and his own foolishness. He should’ve anticipated that Amalie would do anything to drive away the Fairy. She hated her as much as she feared her. But he had to admit he’d never expected Amalie to make her own son a tool in her plans. He didn’t know her. He had married a stranger, and a stranger she had remained.
The Golden Yarn Page 20
