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A fox was barking outside. Fox always claimed she could feel when he was in danger.
Miranda turned her back to him.
"There is only one remedy against this spell," she said.
"What is it?"
"You will have to destroy my sister."
Jacob's heart stopped, for one beat, and he felt his own fear clammy on his skin.
The Dark Fairy.
"She turns her enemies into the wine she drinks or into the iron form which her lover builds his bridges." Even Chanute's voice had sounded hoarse when he'd spoken of her.
"But she can't be killed," he said. "Any more than you can."
"For a Fairy, there are far worse things than death."
For a moment, her beauty was like a poisonous flower.
"How long does your brother have left?" she asked.
"Two, maybe three days."
Voices came to them through the dark. The other Fairies. Jacob had never found out how many of them there were.
Miranda gazed at her bed as if remembering the times they had shared in it. "My sister is with the Goyl, in his main fortress."
That was a ride of at least six days.
It would be too late. Much too late.
Jacob wasn't sure which he felt more, the despair or the relief.
Miranda reached out. One of her moths perched delicately on her finger.
"You can still make it if I give you some time."
Fox began to bark again.
"One of us once cursed a princess to die on her fifteenth birthday. But we suspended that curse. With a deep sleep."
In his mind's eye, Jacob saw the castle, wrapped in thorns, and the sleeping beauty in the bedchamber at the top of the tower...
"She died anyway," he said. "Nobody ever woke her."
Miranda shrugged. "I'll make your brother sleep. It's up to you to make sure he is awoken. But not before you have broken my sister's power."
The moth on her hand was preening its wings.
"The girl who is with you. She belongs to you brother?" Miranda brushed her naked foot over the ground, and the moonlight drew Clara's face on the dark earth.
"Yes," Jacob replied — and he felt something he didn't quite comprehend.
"Does she love him?"
"Yes," he said. "I think so."
