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"Where did you leave the girl?" he asked instead.
He surely didn't mean Fox. What did they want with Clara? What do you think, Jacob? Your brother is sleeping, and they can't wake him. That's good news, isn't it? And that Valiant had not given her away proved that the Dwarf really had taken quite a fancy to her.
So you just play dumb, Jacob.
"What girl?"
That answer got him another kick in the stomach, winding him as the snakes had done. The soldier doing the kicking was a woman. Jacob thought he recognized her. Of course. He'd shot her out of her saddle in the valley of the Unicorns. It would've been her pleasure to continue kicking, but the jasper Goyl stopped her.
"Leave him, Nesser," he said. "We won't get anything from him that way."
Jacob had heard about the scorpions.
Almost affectionately, Nesser let the creature crawl over her fingers before placing it on Jacob's chest. It was colorless and barely longer than Jacob's thumb, but its pincers shone like silvery metal.
"There not much they can do to Goyl skin," said the jasper Goyl as the scorpion crawled under Jacob's shirt, "but yours is so much softer. So... once again, where's the girl?"
The scorpion dug its pincers into Jacob's chest as if it wanted to eat him alive. Jacob managed not to scream until it plunged its poisonous tail into him. He gasped with pain and fear as the venom poured fire under his skin.
"Where's the girl?"
The She-Goyl placed three more scorpions on his chest, asking the same question, over and over. But Will would sleep as long as he did not tell them anything. Jacob screamed with pain until he lost his voice, wishing he had jade skin himself. He wondered whether the poison would at least burn away the Larks' Water — then he finally lost consciousness.
* * * * *
When Jacob woke up, he had no memory of what, if anything, he'd told them. He was in a different cell. From the narrow window, he could see the hanging palace. His whole body was aflame, as if he had scalded his skin. His weapons belt was gone, as were all the other items he'd had with him, but fortunately they had left him his handkerchief. Fortunately? And how are a couple of gold coins going to help you now, Jacob The Goyl soldiers were infamous for their incorruptibility.
Jacob managed to get to his knees. Metal bars separated his cell from the neighboring one, and what he saw through those bars made him forget his pain.
Will.
He pushed his shoulder against the wall and slowly got to his feet. His brother lay as if dead, but he was breathing. There were still traces of human skin on his forehead. The Red Fairy had kept her promise. She had stopped time.
Footsteps echoed down the dark corridor, and Jacob backed against the bars behind which his brother was sleeping. The jasper Goyl. Hentzau — Jacob now knew his name. He was coming toward their cells with two guards, and when Jacob saw whom they were dragging with them, he wanted to smash his head against the metal bars.
He had told them what they wanted to know.
Clara had a bloody gash on her forehead. Her eyes were wide with fear. Where's Fox? Jacob wanted to ask her, but she didn't even seem to notice him. All she could see was his brother.
Hentzau pushed her into Will's cell, and Clara took a step toward him, but then she stopped, as if remembering that only a few hours earlier she'd kissed the other brother.
"Clara."
She turned, her face a torrent of emotions: horror, anxiety, despair — and shame.
She approached the iron bars and touched the red marks on Jacob's throat. "What did they do to you?" she whispered.
"It's nothing. Where is Fox?"
"They caught her, too."
She took his hand as the Goyl snapped to attention in front of the cell. Even Hentzau straightened his shoulders, though his reluctance clearly showed. Jacob knew immediately who that woman was who was coming down the corridor.
The Dark Fairy's hair was lighter than that of her sister; but Jacob didn't wonder how she had earned her name. He felt her darkness like a shadow on his skin, though it wasn't fear that made his heart beat faster.
You don't have to find her anymore, Jacob. She came to you!
Clara shrank away as the Dark Fairy stepped into Will's cell, but Jacob clasped his fingers around the metal bars that separated him from her. Come closer! Come on! he thought. Just one touch, and the three syllables her sister had taught him. But the bars put her as far out of his reach as if she were lying in her royal lover's bed. Her skin seemed to be made of pearl, and her beauty surpassed even that of her sister. She eyed Clara with the same disdain all her kind had for human women.
