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That made her shut up. Never had her perfect face looked more like a mask.
“I had the castle and the grounds searched by a hundred men. They just showed the torture instruments to your godfather and he confessed.” Kami’en imitated the heavy Austrian accent: “‘It vaz Amalie’s plan, ja! She sent for zee tshild as soon as the Fairy vaz gone.’”
Amalie’s face turned whiter than the lilies that had made it beautiful. “That’s a lie!”
“I don’t care. Where is my son?”
She shook her head, again and again. “He promised to protect him like his own son until you...” She fell silent, like someone who suddenly realized she was standing in quicksand.
Until you cast out your mistress. Until you’ve forgotten her. Until you love no one but me.
“Where is my son?” he repeated.
Had he actually taken her to be intelligent? She was stupid. How could she expect love if she made him lose what he loved more than anything? And that was? The Fairy? Or his son? Who cared. They were both gone.
He so wanted to hit her.
“This palace is now your prison. Your subjects need not know. I can’t afford any more unrest. I give you one month. If by then my son is not returned to me unharmed, you will be executed, together with your godfather.”
He went to the door.
Amalie stood there trembling in her white dress. Kami’en still remembered the other one, the wedding dress covered in blood. A marriage born out of betrayal could not end well.
His adjutant opened the door. He turned around once more.
“Wasn’t it one of your great-aunts who got her head chopped off in Lotharaine? Goyl are less savage. I will have you shot.”
“I don’t know where he is. Please! You have to find him. He is my son as well. I never wanted to lose him.”
Kami’en was already out of the door when she asked, “Will you get the Fairy back?”
“Why should I? She betrayed me just like you did.”
He had decided to see it that way—it made it easier to forget that he had betrayed her first.
A Thousand Steps East
Walking was so hard. The body his legs had to carry seemed to be three times its usual weight. Pockets full of silver, Jacob. No, not the pockets—his bones, his skin, his flesh.
A thousand steps eastward. That’s how one was supposed to find the skulls of the Baba Yaga.
He’d barely walked a hundred steps when he had to lean against a beech tree. His breath came as a silver mist. At least it was a beech. There were now more leaves than needles around him.
Did her house really stand on chicken legs?
The fairy tales of his world sometimes gave surprisingly accurate descriptions of things behind the mirror.
A thousand steps...
Every tree trunk seemed to make faces at him. Elf faces everywhere.
“War is war.”
A hundred and fifty steps. Two hundred. Compass in hand, through shoulder-high ferns, through undergrowth furry with moss and flowering lichen. A young wolf ran away only after Jacob pointed his pistol. He could barely bend his finger around the trigger.
Three hundred. The next hundred felt like a thousand, and breathing became as hard as if he were carrying Fox’s silver body on his shoulders. He was such a lousy savior.
Four hundred. Five hundred. Six hundred.
