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Jacob closed his hand around the handkerchief in his pocket until he felt two gold sovereigns between his fingers.
“Two,” he said, tossing the coins onto the table. He’d had six audiences with the Empress, but the lie made Chanute very happy.
“Put that gold away!” he growled. “I don’t take no money from you.” Then he held out his knife to Jacob.
“Here,” he said. “There’s nothing this blade won’t cut. I have a feeling you’ll need it more than I will.”
6
Lovesick Fool
Will was gone. Jacob saw it immediately as he led the packhorse through the collapsed gate of the ruin. It lay as deserted as if his brother had never followed him through the mirror and all was fine and this world was still his, all his. For one moment he caught himself feeling relieved. Let him go, Jacob. Why not just forget he ever had a brother?
“He said he’d come back.” Fox was sitting between the columns. The night turned her fur black. “I tried to stop him, but he’s just as pigheaded as you.”
Another mistake, Jacob. He should have taken Will with him to Schwanstein instead of hiding him here at the ruin. Will wanted to go home. Just go home. But he’d take the stone with him.
Jacob led the packhorse to the other two horses already grazing behind the ruin. He walked toward the tower. Its long shadow wrote a single word on the shattered flagstones: Back.
A threat for you, Jacob, but a promise for Will.
Ivy grew up the scorched walls so densely that its evergreen vines hung like a curtain over the doorway. The tower was the only part of the castle that had survived the fire nearly unscathed. The inside was swarming with bats, and the rope ladder Jacob had installed years earlier shimmered through the darkness. The Elves always left their dust on it as if to remind him that he had once come down here from another world.
Fox looked at him apprehensively as he reached for the ropes.
“We leave as soon as I get back with Will,” Jacob said.
“Leave? For where?”
But Jacob was already climbing up the swaying ladder.
The tower room was bright with the light of the two moons, and his brother was standing next to the mirror. He was not alone.
The girl stepped out of his embrace as soon as she heard Jacob behind her. She was prettier than in the photos Will had shown him. Lovesick fool.
“What’s she doing here?” Jacob felt his own rage like frost on his skin. “Have you lost your mind?”
Jacob brushed the elven dust from his hands. It worked like a sleeping potion if you weren’t careful.
“Clara.” Will took her hand. “This is my brother. Jacob.”
He said her name as if he had pearls on his tongue. Will had always taken love too seriously.
“What else has to happen before you realize what kind of a place this is?” Jacob barked at him. “Send her back. Now.”
She was afraid, though she tried hard to hide it. Afraid of the place that could not be, the red moon above her — and of you, Jacob. She seemed surprised he actually existed. Will’s older brother, as unreal as the place she found herself in.
Jacob came back down the stairs, he found the taproom empty. Chanute was sitting at one of the tables. He pushed a mug of wine toward him as Jacob joined him.
“So? What kind of trouble are you in this time?” Chanute looked longingly at Jacob’s wine; he only had a glass of water in front of him. In the past, he’d often been so drunk that Jacob had started hiding the bottles, though Chanute would always beat him for it. The old treasure hunter had often beaten Jacob, even when he was sober — until Jacob had one day pointed his own pistol at him. Chanute had also been drunk in the Ogre’s cave. He would have probably kept his arm had he been able to see straight, but after that he had quit drinking. The treasure hunter had been a miserable replacement father, and Jacob was always on his guard with him, but if anyone knew what could save Will, then Albert Chanute most definitely did.
“What would you do if a friend of yours had been clawed by the Goyl?”
Chanute choked on his water and eyed him closely, as if to make sure Jacob was not talking about himself.
“I have no friends,” he grunted. “And you don’t, either. You have to trust friends, and neither of us is very good at that. So, who is it?”
Jacob shook his head.
