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The Tailor still wasn't moving.
* * * * *
The journey back to the gingerbread house seemed very long, and when it finally appeared between the trees, Jacob saw Clara waiting behind the fence.
"Oh, God!" was all she murmured when she saw the blood on his shirt. She fetched water from the well and washed the cuts. Jacob flinched as her fingers probed his shoulder.
"This one is deep," she said as Fox anxiously crouched by her side. "I wish it would bleed more freely."
"There's iodine and some bandages in my saddlebag." Jacob was grateful that she was used to the sight of bloody wounds. "What about Will? Is he asleep?"
"Yes." And the stone was still there. She didn't have to say it.
Jacob could see from the expression on her face that she wanted to know what had happened in the forest, but that was the last thing he wanted to remember.
Clara fetched the iodine from his saddlebag and dripped the tincture on his wound, but she still looked worried.
"Fox, what plants do you usually roll in when you're wounded?" she asked.
The vixen showed her some herbs in the Witch's garden. They gave off a bittersweet aroma as Clara plucked them apart and pressed them against Jacob's pierced skin.
"Like a born witch," he said. "I thought Will said he met you in a hospital."
She smiled. It made her look very young.
"In our world, the Witches work in hospitals. Remember?"
Clara noticed the scars on Jacob's back as she pulled the shirt over his bandaged shoulder. "How did those happen? Must have been terrible injuries."
Fox shot him a knowing look, but Jacob just buttoned his shirt with a shrug.
"I survived."
Clara looked at him pensively.
"Thank you," she said. "For whatever you did out there. I'm so glad you came back."
10
Fur And Skin
Jacob knew too much about gingerbread houses to be able to find any sleep under the sugar-icing roof. He took the tin plate from his saddlebag and sat down with it in front of the well, polishing it until it filled with bread and cheese. It wasn't a five-course dinner, like the one provided by the wishing table he had found for the Empress, but at least the plate could fit into a saddlebag.
The red moon splashed rust into the night, and dawn was still hours away, but Jacob didn't dare go see whether the stone in Will's skin had vanished. Fox sat down next to him and licked her fur. The Tailor had kicked her, and she had several cuts on her body, but she was all right. Human skin was so much more fragile than fur — or Goyl skin.
"You should try to sleep," she said.
"I can't sleep."
Jacob's shoulder ached, and he imagined he could feel the Witch's black magic battling the Dark Fairy's spell.
"What are you going to do if the berries do work? Take them back?"
Fox tried hard to sound unconcerned, but Jacob heard the unspoken question behind her words. No matter how often he told Fox how much he liked her world, she never lost the fear that one day he would climb up the tower and never return.
"Of course," he said. "And they'll live happily ever after."
"What about us?" Fox snuggled against him as he shuddered in the cold night air. "Winter's coming. We could go south, to Granady or Lombardia, and look for the hourglass."
