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“Did you know Kami’en’s bodyguards still talk about you? They admit the Jade Goyl could’ve taken on every one of them.”
Nerron thought he saw the briefest hint of a smile on that innocent face. “The stories are probably exaggerated,” the Goyl added. “Or are they?”
Will looked at his hands. “I don’t remember.”
Liar. Human faces were so easy to read. Will had enjoyed the fighting. Maybe he was more like his brother than he cared to admit. Nerron had never understood the attraction of open battle. Of course, he knew how to defend his own speckled skin. Nobody wanted to be ended by some idiot’s bullet or spear. But Nerron preferred a well-planned ambush, just like the one he’d laid for Jacob Reckless, only then he’d been careless enough to leave him to the wolves.
“Have you ever seen her?” Will stared into the fire as he waited for Nerron’s answer.
Her. The Dark One. The Fairy. The fairest of them all. Jacob Reckless knew too well how dangerous it was to know her true name.
“Yes, but only from afar.”
And each time he’d thought the same: She was even more beautiful than everyone said, and Kami’en was a fool to have chosen the dollface over her.
“They say her moths are her dead lovers.”
Heavens, he never knew.
After that, the boy just stared into the flames until Nerron finally sent him to bed. He could barely walk as he went into the hut. He was clearly not used to sitting in a saddle for hours. Where had his brother kept him?
In another world, Nerron.
When he wasn’t dreaming of killing Jacob Reckless, Nerron tried to imagine what that other world looked like.
He made sure the Pup was asleep before he searched his backpack. The boy had a pouch with him, which he kept touching so often it had to contain something precious. Nerron supposed it held some trinket, a keepsake from his love, dried flowers, or a lock of hair. At first the Pup had kept the pouch under his shirt, but after the rain had soaked it a couple of times, he’d not quite so stealthily tucked it into his backpack.
The first things Nerron dug out were not very exciting: a compass, a knife, a few gold coins, spare clothes. But then his fingers found the pouch. It was a swindlesack! Now, there was a surprise. Nerron reached inside. A wooden handle, metal fittings. A bowstring as smooth as glass.
Embarrassing how childishly fast his heart began to beat.
Impossible. But the swindlesack gave up its contents, and there it was. In his lap. The most powerful weapon in this world.
Nerron closed his eyes for a while. All those months, the sleepless nights, the helpless fantasies of revenge, the vows to peel the skin off Jacob Reckless’s double-crossing bones. Did the Pup steal the crossbow from his brother? Who cares, Nerron? The jeers he’d had to endure since his return from the Dead City... And how they were going to squirm before him. The onyx, Crookback, the Walrus, all the highborn thieves of this world. Even Hentzau would be on his knees. Oh, and the Bastard would make them beg. He would take their gold, their gifts, their castles, their daughters, and then he would give the crossbow to Kami’en so the King of the Goyl would never again have to worry about Albion or Crookback, or about the shadow King of the onyx. They’d be dead. All of them.
Nerron looked toward the hut.
Unbelievable. He had fallen for the boy’s show of innocence. But that was over now. No more reprieve for Jacob Reckless’s little brother. And as far as the Jade Goyl was concerned—to hell with him. Soon enough, Kami’en wouldn’t need any bodyguards anymore.
Nerron pulled the swindlesack over the crossbow. Had he ever been happier? No, happy wasn’t the right word. Exulted, yes, that was more like it. Rewarded. Triumphant. Forget the Jade Goyl. Hail the Bastard. He is the best. Soon every Goyl would
be whispering it.
The story of how Nerron regained the crossbow would need some work, of course. How should he begin his revenge? He could lure the Drekavac into the hut with a trail of blood, then send the Pup’s bones to the one-legged cook to give to his brother.
A breeze brushed through the clearing. Too warm for this cool night. Nerron felt it on his skin as though their fire had begun to breathe.
He tucked the swindlesack into his jacket and reached for his pistol.
There. Under those trees. Something was reflecting the fire like glass. The flickering light outlined two bodies, which even Nerron’s sharp Goyl eyes could barely make out. Leaves and trees were mirrored on their limbs, the horses, the fire, the darkness of the night. But then they grew skin and hair.
What are you waiting for, Nerron? Take the crossbow and run. But he wasn’t sure turning his back on these creatures was a good idea.
Whatever they were, they seemed uncertain which face to show to this world. They seemed to have many. How they stared at him with their mirror-eyes. As though it was he and not they who didn’t belong here. Then the girl approached him. She was beautiful, like a wasp or a flesh-eating plant. Her hands were still glass, her fingernails silver.
Where is he?” she asked with a voice that sounded unsettlingly human.
Glass humans? Were they some kind of local phantom?
