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“Long story.”
Fox helped him to his feet. He was so weak he had to lean against the wall.
“We should wait for dark,” said Sylvain.
“Who is that?” Jacob squinted. He seemed to at least be able to make out shapes.
Sylvain gave a bow. “Sylvain Caleb Fowler. It seems we have the same enemies. That’s a beginning, non?”
He was right—they should wait for dark—but Fox wanted to get away. This place made her sick. “You can try finding a boat,” she said to Sylvain as she dragged Jacob through the open door. “Good luck.”
Sylvain cursed, then followed them. Fox only just managed to stop him before he stepped on one of the flowers at the bottom of the stairs.
“Sylvain! This place is cursed!” she hissed. “Your eyes are as useless as Jacob’s. Stay where you are and place your feet only where I place mine.”
She told them both to wait while she carefully broke the flowers growing along the steps. She could only hope her fingers wouldn’t trigger any alarms. All seemed still. Nonetheless, Fox kept stopping to listen, and her mind pestered her about how she planned to take Jacob across the courtyard and to the mirror undetected. Even if he were able to see, he could barely stand. She could think of only one way, and for that she would need Sylvain.
It took endless patience to cross the room. Fox laid her coat over the floorboards so they didn’t step on the silver threads.
“Do you know your way around here?” she asked Sylvain when they finally reached the door. A rat scampered away as Fox opened it, but apart from that, all was still. The voices she could hear were far enough away.
“Sure. I told you, I delivered their crates for months.” Sylvain pointed in the direction from which Fox had come. “They keep the mirrors back there, and there”—he pointed north toward the silver chimneys—“is where they make the glass. These cursed islands in the East River. My wife warned me. Ex-wife. ‘Sylvain,’ June said, ‘why do you think they pay you so well? Those islands are cursed. Find some decent work.’ But how much can you make with decent work?”
Sylvain was talking himself into a r
age. Fox put her hand over his mouth. “Not another word,” she whispered. “Or you can try swimming across the river.”
That helped. Sylvain was as quiet as a mouse as he tiptoed after her and Jacob. They reached the courtyard. The van was gone, but other visitors had apparently arrived. Neither Jacob nor Sylvain could see the three carriages, nor the building they were parked in front of. To Sylvain they probably looked like ordinary cars. Camouflage magic didn’t just make things invisible; sometimes it gave a different appearance to them. Fox remembered a hazelnut shell she’d found in a cave. Jacob had seen only the shell, but to her it looked like a tiny silver cradle in her hands.
The guards waiting by the carriages had the same clay faces as the man who’d brought the food. Their weapons, however, looked very much of this world. Jacob, blind and lame as he was, would never get past them undetected, and if that wasn’t enough, the huge dog and his master also appeared from behind one of the carriages. He was the only human Fox could see, if he really was human. He was very young for a guard.
“You have to make it to that building there,” she whispered to Sylvain. “The one in front of the glass vat. Try to sneak around to the other side.”
Sylvain stared at her blankly. He can’t see the vat, Fox. She could only hope the flowering bushes were there to feed the Grass-Elves and not to trigger alarms.
“That building next to the rusty gas tank,” she corrected herself. Sylvain nodded with relief, but Jacob closed his hand tightly around her arm.
“What are you planning?” As if he didn’t know. He just didn’t like it. Together in her world they’d gotten through situations that had looked much more hopeless. Now they just had to find out whether they could summon the same luck in this world.
The dogs lifted their heads. They could smell human sweat for miles, but Fox was planning to give them an even more enticing scent. She waited until Sylvain and Jacob had disappeared between the trees before she stepped out into the courtyard. One of the guards saw her and called out to the others. They all reached for their weapons as she shifted in front of their eyes.
And the vixen ran. Away from the building where the mirror was waiting.
A Brother's Debt
Schwanstein. As a child, Will had often gone to sleep with the city’s name on his lips. It had sounded like a magical place. The darkness he’d since encountered in the Mirrorworld had not changed that. The church towers were visible from the ruin. They proved to be good guideposts, and as Will asked his way to The Ogre (despite the puzzled looks his clothes attracted), every street name reminded him of a story his brother had told him.
Jacob had so resented Will for following him through the mirror without asking that he’d never taken his little brother into Schwanstein. And then the jade had made it impossible. Jacob had always been good at keeping a secret, even the existence of a younger brother. Will had never been able to even keep a bad grade from their mother. The only secret he’d ever kept from his big brother was that he did actually remember some of what had happened to him behind the mirror, even though those memories felt like someone else’s.
The smell of stale pipe smoke and spilled wine, the child-eater’s oven door on the wall, the Ogre’s arm above the bar... Jacob had described Albert Chanute’s tavern so often Will felt like he’d walked into its taproom a hundred times. As a child he’d dreamed of seeing Chanute’s trophies with his own eyes and sitting at one of the tables to plan treasure hunts with his brother.
“We’re closed!” Flaxen hair, round glasses, crutch...Tobias Wenzel. Jacob had only mentioned him on one of his last visits. Chanute’s cook had lost a leg in the Goyl war. Will was glad his skin no longer gave away that he’d been the Goyl King’s bodyguard at one time.
“Is Fox here?” Will could never remember her human name. “I’m Jacob’s brother, Will.”
Wenzel hobbled toward the bar. His crutch was studded with the semiprecious stones Goyl officers wore to signify their rank. Moonstone, jasper, ruby. Memories...
“No, she’s not here.” Wenzel poured himself a shot of schnapps. The dirty tables spoke of a long night. “I didn’t know Jacob has a brother.”
