Jacob couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He was dreaming. Yes, he must be. Some kind of fevered hallucination. He was probably still lying in the cathedral, her moths’ venom circling in his veins.
“Why?” Why are you asking her, Jacob?
The Fairy ignored his question anyway.
“Take him to the building by the gate, but hurry.” She turned to the water. “And watch out for Kami’en. This day taught him to believe in fairy tales.”
*
She is trying to fool you. That was the only thought in Jacob’s mind when he once again stood between the wedding coaches. His heart believed her, though; he couldn’t say why, but it did. He longed to share the good news with Fox and Clara, but they were nowhere to be seen. Two Goyl were standing guard in front of a building on his left, where they’d probably locked up all the hostages. If only Fox had run. Jacob cursed the vixen’s stubbornness while he crossed the yard. The Fairy had promised him his brother back but she hadn’t mentioned the others.
He kept his head low as he was walking past the Goyl. Surely none of them was aware that they owed their escape to him, but fortunately they were busy receiving instructions from their King or looking after their wounded. Kami’en was still discussing the situation with his officers. The moonstone was not back yet. Amalie approached her husband and tried to talk to him, but he finally grabbed her arm and pulled her away from his men. Will followed them with his eyes but stayed with the other Goyl.
Now, Jacob.
Will’s hand went for his saber as soon as he saw him appear from between the carriages. Whatever the Dark Fairy had promised, his brother was still under her spell. Will eyed him like a stranger but remembered him as the Fairy’s enemy, the man he had chased through the Empress’s palace.
Jacob pushed a Goyl out of his way and began to run. Time to play Hide and Seek, Will. As they had done so often as children, chasing each other through the apartment, to fill the vast silent rooms with laughter and drive away their mother’s sadness.
Will’s wounds didn’t seem to impede him. Let him come closer, Jacob, just as you used to when you were kids. Run. Back behind the carriages, past the barracks where the hostages were. The next building was the one closest to the gate. Jacob pushed open its rotten door. A dark hallway with boarded-up windows. The patches of light on the grimy floor looked like puddles of milk. The first room was still filled with the rusty beds for the cholera victims. Jacob hid behind the open door. Once upon a time…
Will spun around the moment Jacob slammed the door shut behind him. For a moment his face showed the same surprise Jacob had seen there so often jumping out from behind a tree in the park. Despite the jade. He still didn’t recognize him, but he did catch the golden ball. Hands have their own memory. Will, catch! The ball swallowed him faster than Jacob could blink and outside Kami’en would look in vain for the jade Goyl who had stepped out of a fairy tale to save his life.
Jacob picked up the ball and sat on one of the beds. His reflection stared back at him from the gold, distorted, as he had seen it so often in his father’s mirror.
“I knew the girl who once played with that golden toy.” The Fairy appeared so suddenly in the doorway that Jacob almost dropped the ball. “She caught not only her husband with it but also her older sister. She kept her as her prisoner for ten years.”
Her dress brushed over the dusty floor when she walked toward Jacob. It was cut after the human fashion. Her sisters surely despised her for dressing like a mortal.
“I thought you might need my help to convince your brother to go with you. My magic doesn’t let go easily.” She looked at the empty beds. “The ball will do the trick as well until you let him out. My spell will wear off and he will remember. The jade will need more convincing.”
She reached out for the ball. Jacob hesitated but then dropped it into her hands.
“Such a pity. Your brother is so beautiful in his skin of jade.”
She lifted the ball to her lips and breathed on the gleaming surface until the gold misted over. Then she handed the ball back to Jacob.
“What?” She smiled when she noticed his doubtful look. “You mistrust the wrong Fairy.”
She came so close that Jacob could feel her breath on his face. “Did my sister tell you that any man who speaks my name speaks his own death sentence? It won’t be executed immediately. Immortals don’t rush these things, so you may have a year, but you will die, for no one is allowed to know my name. She knows that very well. She even left the henchman on your chest.”
Jacob felt a piercing pain when she pressed her hand against his shirt. Blood seeped through the fabric, and when she pulled it open, he saw that the moth above his heart had come to life. It felt as if it was feeding on his heart, but when the Fairy touched its black wings, the fluttering insect turned once again into a mere imprint on his chest, a winged shadow as pale red as her lover’s skin.
The Dark One moved back.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I despise playing the henchman for my red sister. But she left me no choice and she knew it.”
She looked at the beds where death had harvested countless lives, as if she tried to understand how it felt to be mortal.
“Release your brother as soon as the ball’s gold clears again,” she said. “There’s a carriage waiting by the gate. And remember what I told you. Take him as far away from me as you can.”
Then she turned and walked away, leaving Jacob alone with the golden ball in his hands and her sister’s death sentence written over his heart.
52
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
The tower and the scorched walls, the fresh wolf tracks—it felt as if they’d only just left. But the Fairy’s carriage drew dark lines through freshly fallen snow when Jacob reined in the horses. He was not alone. Fox had been waiting in the carriage, along with Clara and Valiant, when he had come out of the factory gates. The Dark Fairy had returned everything he loved to him, maybe to make up for the mark on his chest. “Why did she let you go?” That was all Fox had asked when he had climbed onto the coachman’s bench. Jacob had evaded the answer by saying that they’d better leave before the Fairy changed her mind. Fox had watched him ever since. She had followed the coach most of the time as the vixen, showing up, casting a glance at him, and disappearing again. Why did she let you go? Fox knew she wouldn’t like the answer.
The massacre at the wedding was blamed on the Goyl. Of course. They had broken the truce and kidnapped the Empress and her daughter, that was the only story they had heard on their way back.
Jacob climbed off the coach. The vixen was already standing between the walls of the ruin, licking the snow from her paws. She lifted her head when he took the golden ball from his pocket. It hadn’t escaped her how often he looked at it, and Jacob was sure that she knew who was the prisoner inside. The golden surface was almost clear by now, but he still hadn’t told the others. How could he believe the Dark Fairy after her red sister had sentenced him to death while kissing him?
In the two days it had taken them to get back to the ruin, Clara had barely spoken a word, although Valiant had tried very hard to cheer her up. At times Jacob had been so worried she’d jump out of the carriage to run back to the deserted factory that he had almost told her about the Fairy’s promise, but to make her hope in vain felt even more cruel than letting her believe they had left his brother behind.
Clara walked slowly over to the tower and looked up to the room where the mirror was waiting. Her breath clung to her mouth in white clouds, and she was shivering in the dress Valiant had bought her for the wedding. The blue silk was torn and dirty and no Fairy had turned the bloodstains into flowers.
“A ruin?” Valiant jumped out of the carriage and eyed the scorched walls with dismay. “What is this?” he snapped at Jacob. “Where’s my tree?”
His angry voice made a few shivering Heinzels drop the acorns they had been digging out of the snow.
“Fox, show him the tree,” Jacob sa
id.
She gave him a mischievous glance, before she led Valiant toward the overgrown gardens. He marched after her so eagerly that he nearly fell over his own boots.
Clara was still lost in her own thoughts. “You want me to go back, don’t you?” she asked when Jacob joined her.
“Forget Will, Clara. The way he forgot you…”
Jacob took her hand and closed her fingers around the golden ball. The surface shimmered as if it had been plucked from the sun.
“Polish it,” he said. “Until you can see yourself in the surface as clearly as in a mirror.”
Then he left her alone. He wanted Will to see her face first. If he remembers her, Jacob. If this Fairy didn’t deceive you as well. He walked into the tower, his heart drowning in both fear and hope. Above him the rope leading up to the mirror was silvery with Elven dust. He had found it in his father’s study. Where else? He felt the imprint of the moth like a brand under his shirt. The skin over his heart was still sore. Would he have tried to save Will had he known about the price? Maybe.
He heard Clara cry out and then Will speak her name. His brother’s voice hadn’t sounded so soft in a long time. Jacob heard them whisper. And laugh.
He leaned against the wall, black with soot, damp with the cold caught between its stones. The Dark Fairy had kept her promise he knew even before he pushed through the ivy. Will was holding Clara in his arms. The jade was gone, and when his brother’s eyes looked at him, his eyes were blue.
Gone, the rage and the anger. Will let go of Clara, his face soft with love, as it always had been when Jacob had come back to see him. His steps, though, were still hesitant with disbelief when he walked up to Jacob to hug him as fiercely as he last did when they were children.
“I thought you were dead.” He stepped back and looked at Jacob as if to make sure he was truly unharmed. Then he looked at his own hands and for a moment Jacob saw a strange yearning on his brother’s face.
“You were right,” Clara said as she stood by Will’s side. “Your brother always finds a way.” Her eyes were bright with gratitude but Jacob could see that she was still afraid that Will had changed.
He was inspecting his sleeve where a saber had cut the gray fabric. Did he recognize the uniform as Goyl? And the pale stains to be his own blood? Jacob couldn’t tell. There was something in Will’s face, as if the jade had glazed his soft features with a firmness that was new.
Once upon a time, there was a boy who set out to learn the meaning of fear.
“Look at this! I’m richer than the Empress! What am I saying? Richer than Wilfred the Walrus and the Crookback throwing all their treasures into one pile!”
Gilded hair, gilded shoulders—even Jacob had trouble recognizing Valiant. The tree had covered the Dwarf more densely with gold than it had showered Jacob with its foul-smelling pollen.
The Dwarf pranced past Will without even noticing him.
“I was sure you would try to trick me!” he said, looking up at Jacob. “But for this I’d take you back to the Goyl Fortress right away. Do you think it’ll harm the tree if I dig it up?”
The vixen appeared from the ruin’s walls, a few flakes of gold shimmering in her fur. She stopped dead when she saw Will. What do you say, Fox? Does he still smell like a Goyl?
Will picked up a small clump of gold that the Dwarf had brushed from his hair. Valiant still hadn’t noticed him.
“No!” the Dwarf proclaimed. “No, I’ll take the risk! You may shake all the gold out of it if I leave it here!”
He nearly stumbled over Fox when he ran off again, while Will was still just standing there, wiping the snow from the tiny nugget in his hand, as golden as his eyes had been.
“Take him away from here, far, far away.”
Clara cast Jacob a worried look.
“Let’s go home, Will,” she said.
His brother looked at the tower. And then at the coach. Kami’en’s coat of arms was on the door. The black moth on carnelian Red.
“Clara’s right. Let’s go.”
Jacob put his hand on Will’s shoulder. No, that wasn’t gold in his eyes. Just the sunlight.
Fox followed them to the tower, but she didn’t go in. She rarely did. She shifted shape to embrace Clara and Will and kissed them both farewell. Then she stepped back, her eyes on Jacob. He saw the usual worry in them. How long will you stay this time? Will you one day decide to not come back?
“It won’t be long,” he said, as Clara pulled Will through the ivy. “I promise. Make sure the Dwarf collects his gold before the ravens get here.”
Enchanted gold attracted them in swarms, and even one Gold-Raven could drive you insane with its cawing.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Fox replied. “Not even a pack of Brown Wolves would get that Dwarf away from his gold.”
She made Jacob smile. But her face remained serious.
“You saved him,” she said. “You really did.”
“Did I?”
She knew what he meant. She had seen Will at the wedding. And at Kami’en’s side. Why? He is what he was meant to be, the Dark Fairy whispered in Jacob’s head.
“Go,” Fox said. “Make sure they really leave. I admit I am quite tired of watching after them both.”
Then she turned to find Valiant.
In the tower room, a dead Heinzel was lying between the acorn shells. The Stilt liked to kill them. Jacob pushed the tiny body under a few leaves. Will and Clara had seen enough death.
The mirror caught them all in its glass. His brother stared at himself as though he were seeing a stranger. Clara moved to his side and reached for his hand, but Will turned away from her when he saw Jacob retreating.
“You’re not coming with us?”
“No. I have to find something.”
“Of course.” Will smiled. “And it’s always something you can’t find on the other side… right?”
Jacob was not sure whether he was talking about him or himself. He seemed far away. With the Fairy. Or with the King whose jade shadow he had been. The things we find behind the mirrors…
“Well, don’t stay too long,” Will finally said. “Promise?”
That’s how he had always parted from him as a boy. And Jacob had always answered with a yes. To break the promise more often than he had kept it. He was sure Will remembered that as well as the words.
“I promise,” he answered. Just go. Go Will! he almost added.
“Take him away from here, far, far away. So far that I won’t be able to find him. For if I do, I will kill him.”
Will still looked at him even as he reached for Clara’s hand and pressed his fingers onto the glass.
And then they were both gone.
*
Fox had freed the coach horses of their harnesses and watched them graze amongst the ruin’s walls. Jacob was surprised she still wore her human skin. Maybe she kept it because the vixen didn’t like the snow, though the gown she was still wearing from the wedding did certainly not warm her as well as the fur.
“They’re gone?” she asked when Jacob moved to her side.
“Yes.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Don’t play the fool. Why did she let him go? Him, all of us…”
“Her red sister told me a secret of hers.”
Jacob walked over to the horses. He would give one to Chanute, as compensation for the packhorse he’d lost.
“What secret?” She sensed that something was wrong. Of course. She knew him too well.
“I can’t tell you. I had to promise.” Another lie. To protect her. The truth would make her sick with worry and the vixen would hate the Fairies even more, which meant she’d try to take revenge on them. No. She could never know.
Jacob looked at the sky. It had begun to snow again. “We should head south. What do you think? Look for the Hourglass?”
“Maybe.” She couldn’t help but smile. Back to the old times. Just her and him. Hunting treasure. Without a w
orry in the world. Well…
Fox looked toward the stables. The garden was right behind them, overgrown, still filled with healing herbs, but none would help him.
“That Dwarf is still collecting his gold. Although I warned him about the ravens.”
Jacob put his arm around her shoulder. “Another reason to leave. Let them get him.”
“You may have a year.” A lot could be done in a year. In this world, there was a cure for everything.
They had only to find it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A published book revised, rewritten and published once again? Why?
I have been playing with the idea to revisit The Petrified Flesh, my first adventure behind the mirrors, for quite a while. I always felt it didn’t tell the whole story, and my readers’ reactions confirmed that. Of course, at first they were upset that I hadn’t stayed in Inkworld. I decided to ignore that. But while working on Books II and then III, traveling further and further, learning more about my characters and watching myself fall passionately in love with this world, I said to myself: Bring all that knowledge to Book I, Cornelia. Polish the mirror that lets the readers in. It was still blurred when you first made it! And so – I did sit down and I started to revise Book I. I didn’t change the story. I didn’t need to. I still love every beat of it and it bore wonderful fruit in Books II and III. But heavens! I knew so little about Fox. She was merely a pet, the way I described her. And Will – I didn’t really understand who he was or what the jade did to and for him. I think I knew Jacob quite well already but I didn’t tell my readers enough about him, and I was so wrong about his relationship with Fox. I made Kami’en step forward. I revealed a bit more about the Dark Fairy. And I added all I know about the world I’ve been exploring for nine years now.
There is not one page unchanged and I think I polished the mirror well. Let’s see. I hope all the Mirrorworlders traveling with me won’t be too upset and that the beautiful new clothes we clad the series in for this new release will make up for the fact that I had to adjust some of the story’s seams.
The Petrified Flesh Page 23
