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Will backed away from Jacob, as though afraid he might strike him again.
"Let me go to them."
The sun was setting behind the trees, and its dying light spilled onto the lake like molten gold. The Fairy lilies opened their pale blossoms, welcoming the night.
Jacob pulled Will away from the water.
"You wait here, by the shore," he said. "Stay right here. I promise I'll be back soon."
The vixen pressed against his legs, her fur bristling as she looked at the island.
"What are you waiting for, Fox?" said Jacob. "Find me that boat."
26
The Red Fairy
Fox found the boat. And this time she didn't ask Jacob to take her along. However, just as he climbed in, she bit his hand so hard that the blood trickled down his fingers.
"That's so you won't forget me!" she snapped, and her eyes brimmed with the fear that she might lose him again.
Three years ago the Fairies had chased Fox away after they'd found Jacob, half-dead, in their forest, and she had nearly drowned trying to follow them to the island. And yet she had waited for him, a whole year, while he forgot all about her and everything else. Now she sat here again, her fur blackened by the approaching night, even after he'd already rowed far out into the lake. Clara, too, stood among the willows, and this time even Will watched him go.
"It's too late for me." The waves lapping against the narrow boat seemed to echo Will's words, but who better to break the spell of the Dark Fairy than her sister? Jacob reached for the medallion on his chest. He had picked the petal inside on the day he'd left Miranda. It made him invisible to her, as if he'd cast off not only his love but also the body that had loved her. A petal, nothing more. She herself had told him that he could hide himself from her this way. When Fairies were in love, they revealed all their secrets in their sleep; you just had to ask the right questions.
Fortunately, the petal also made him invisible to the other Fairies. As he hid the boat in the reeds on the island's shore, Jacob saw four of them standing in the water. Their long hair floated on the surface as if the night itself had spun it. But Miranda was not among them. One of them looked his way, and Jacob was grateful for the thick carpet of flowers that made his steps as silent as Fox's paws. He had seen how they turned men into thistles or fish. The flowers were blue, like the bluebell Clara had picked, and not even the medallion could shield Jacob from the memories their scent evoked. Careful, Jacob! He dug his fingers into the bloody imprint Fox's teeth had left on his hand.
Soon he saw the first of the dark nets the moths of the Fairies spun between the trees. Tents as delicate as lacewing skin, that even in daytime stayed so dark they appeared to have trapped the night in their mesh. The Fairies only slept there when the sun was in the sky, but Jacob could think of no better place to wait for Miranda.
The Red Fairy. It was by that name that he had first heard mention of her. A drunk mercenary had told him about a friend she had lured to the island and who, after his return, had been so sick with yearning for her he had drowned himself. Everyone had heard such stories about the Fairies, though few ever got to see one. Some thought their island was actually the Realm of the Dead, but the Fairies knew nothing of human time or death. Miranda called the Dark Fairy her sister only because both of them had emerged from the lake on the same day. So how could she truly understand the despair he felt as his brother grew a skin of stone?
The tent, which for almost a year had been the beginning and the end of his world, clung to Jacob's clothes as he felt his way through its gauzy walls. His eyes adapted slowly to the darkness, and he was startled by the sight of a sleeping figure on the bed of moss where he himself had lain so often.
She hadn't changed. Of course not. Fairies didn't age. Her skin was as pale as the night she so loved. At night her eyes turned black, though by day they were as blue as the sky or as green as the water of the lake, mirroring the leaves of the willows. Too beautiful. Too beautiful for human eyes. Untouched by time and the decay it wrought. But in the end a man wants to sense the same mortality that dwells in his own flesh also in the skin he caresses.
Jacob pulled the medallion from his shirt and unhooked it from the chain around his neck. Miranda stirred as soon as he placed it next to her, and Jacob took a step back as she whispered his name in her dream. It wasn't a good dream, and she opened her eyes with a start.
So beautiful. Jacob's fingers sought the bite marks on his hand.
"Since when do you sleep away the night?"
For a moment she seemed to think he was still the dream that had woken her. But then she noticed the medallion lying next to her. She opened it and took out the petal.
"So that's how you hid yourself from me." Jacob wasn't sure what he saw on her face. Horror or joy. Love or hatred. Maybe something of it all. "Who told you how?"
"You did."
Her moths immediately swarmed at his face as he took a step toward her.
"You have to help me, Miranda."
She got up and brushed moss from her skin.
"I used to sleep away the nights because they reminded me too much of you," she said. "But that was a long time ago. Now it's just a bad habit."
The wings of her moths tinged the night air red.
"I see you haven't come alone," she said, crumbling the lily petal between her fingers. "And you brought a Goyl."
