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‘Can you tell me how it will happen?’
Alma pushed open the window to pour out the water. It was getting light. ‘The Dark One will use her sister’s seal to reclaim her name. The moth on your heart will come alive. It won’t be pleasant. Once it tears free from your skin and flies off, you will be dead. You may have a few more minutes, maybe an hour . . . but there can be no salvation.’ She quickly turned away. Alma hated for others to see her cry. ‘Jacob, I wish there was something I could do,’ she added quietly, ‘but the Fairies are more powerful than I. It comes with their immortality.’
The cat looked at him. Jacob stroked her black fur. Nine lives. He always believed he’d have at least that many.
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT NOW?
Many of the graves in the cemetery behind Alma’s house dated from when large numbers of Trolls had migrated to Austry to escape the cold winters of their homeland. Their magical woodworking skills had earned most of them large fortunes, and a number of their grave markers were covered with gold. Jacob had no idea how long he’d been standing there, staring at a masterfully carved frieze depicting the deeds of a long-dead Troll. Around him, men, women, and children were going to work. Carts rumbled over the rough cobblestones in front of the cemetery gate. A dog barked at a junk man who was doing his rounds among the simple cottages. And Jacob just stood there and stared at the graves, unable to think.
He’d been so sure he would find a way to save himself. After all, there was nothing he couldn’t find. He’d firmly believed that, ever since he became Chanute’s apprentice. Since his thirteenth birthday, his only ambition had been to become the best treasure hunter of all time – it was the only name he’d wanted to make for himself. But now it seemed that the only things he could find were the ones other people desired. What were they to him? The glass slipper that brought never-ending love; the cudgel that slew every foe; the goose that laid golden eggs; or the conch that let you listen to your enemies. He’d wanted to be the man who found them, nothing else. And he had found all of them. Yet as soon as he sought something for himself, he searched in vain. That’s how it had been with his father, and that’s how it was now with the magic that might save his life.
Rotten luck, Jacob.
He turned away from the grave markers and their gilded carvings. Most of them depicted tavern brawls or drinking games – the deeds that Trolls were proudest of were not always the honourable ones – yet some also showed the things the dead had crafted from wood: living puppets, singing tables, ladles you could leave to stir on their own. What will your gravestone say about you, Jacob? Jacob Reckless, born of another world, killed by the curse of a Fairy. He leant down and propped up the tiny gravestone of a Heinzel.
Enough self-pity.
His brother had his skin back.
Suddenly, the wish that Will had never come through the mirror became so overwhelming that it made him sick. Find yourself an hourglass, Jacob. Turn back time; do not ride to the Fairy. Or just smash the mirror before Will can follow you.
A woman opened the rusty gate in the cemetery wall. She placed a few flowering branches on a grave. Maybe it was the sight of her that made him think of Fox, for that was what she would do. Though it was more likely she’d put a bunch of wild flowers on his grave. Violets or primroses. Those were her favourites.
He turned around and walked towards the gate.
No. He would not search for an hourglass. Even if he turned back time, everything would just happen again, exactly the same way. And things had turned out well, at least for his brother.
Jacob opened the gate and looked up at the hill where the tower stood out against the morning sky. Should he go back and tell Will how things were standing with him?
No. Not yet.
First he had to find Fox.
It was to her he owed the truth, more than to anyone else.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IN VAIN
The Dark Fairy flinched. Jacob Reckless. She didn’t want to see his face any more. All the fear on it, the pain . . . she could feel death, drawn to him by her name, like a wound on his white skin.
This was not her revenge. Even though the pond that showed her his fear was the same one where he had turned her skin to bark.
Her red sister was probably seeing the same images, on the lake that had spawned them both. What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn’t know much about love.
The pond turned dark, like the sky it reflected, and then her face was all she saw trembling on the waves. They distorted it, as though her beauty was dissolving. So? Kami’en no longer saw her anyway. All he saw was the swollen belly of his human wife.
The sounds of the city drifted into the nocturnal garden.
The Dark One turned around. She no longer wanted to see; not herself, nor her sister’s unfaithful lover. At times she even longed for the leaves and the bark he’d put on her.
He looked nothing like his brother.
The moth that landed on her shoulder was like a sliver of night on her white skin. Yet even the night now belonged to the other. Kami’en now slept more and more often by the side of his doll-faced princess.
What did her sister want with all that fear and pain? They would never bring back the love.
