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“He has a skin of stone.”
No. Jacob forced himself to go back further. He needed images from the other world, of the Will he’d known better than himself.
Jacob closed his eyes. He found the way back through the mirror, saw Will in a room full of plush animals and toys. Brothers together in the school yard. In the corner store, where the owner sold cigarettes to a twelve-year-old Jacob if he promised to send his regards to their mother. Will had always tried to keep him out of that store.
Then.
Will looked so much like her. They were so similar. No, that wasn’t true. The images came faster, and again they were images he hadn’t wanted to recall. They wove themselves into the carpet’s fibers until Jacob was sitting on his childhood. And then there was an image that made his heart stumble. He had no idea where it had come from, but it was as clear as the others: Spieler in their living room, with the same face Jacob had seen when he’d come to on the Alderelf’s island. His mother was standing next to the Elf, close, like how one stood with good friends. The image came so suddenly, Jacob involuntarily looked around. Could Spieler put fake memories in his mind? But if it was real, why hadn’t he recognized the face when Spieler had shown it to him? Because for all these years it hadn’t meant anything, one face of many, his mother’s friends—did a child really study them? Because Spieler only ever visited when he and Will were not at home?
Jacob got up and pushed open the window.
Sylvain was standing by the stables. Fox was with him.
She was back.
How long had he been sitting on the carpet? No matter. Orlando wasn’t with her. Ridiculous how relieved that made him feel.
He had enough memories of Fox to feed all the flying carpets in the world. Your brother, Jacob. Think of Will. Or do you want the carpet to take you to Fox?
He closed the window, and the scents of the past again flooded the room, like a bunch of wilted flowers.
He sat on the carpet.
Closed his eyes. And remembered the night when the Goyl injured Will. No!
Someone knocked on his door.
Jacob had told the servants he didn’t want to be disturbed. Was it Chanute wanting to show him a trick with his new hand? Had Sylvain again bought some fake magic? Or was it Fox?
He opened the door, hoping to see her face.
The corridor was empty.
“Too high!” a woman’s voice said.
The Dwarf looking up at him was as beautiful as the dolls in Amalie’s collection. No, she was more beautiful.
“Jacob Reckless?” she asked. “Ludmilla Akhmatova. May I speak with you in private? I have a request from a friend, and I’d rather explain that request behind closed doors.”
Fox had told Jacob about the Dwarf spy, but the image he’d had in his mind didn’t do her justice. Ludmilla Akhmatova looked as though she had a world of memories to feed to the flying carpet. She waved Jacob into the salon where Baryatinsky’s servants served afternoon tea. There was a salon for every meal, as there was for each of Baryatinsky’s countless hobbies, as well as three music salons, one each for his butterfly and weapons collections, and five (Sylvain had counted them) containing mementos of lost loves.
Ludmilla Akhmatova waited until Jacob had closed the door behind them.
“I come at the request of Orlando Tennant,” she said, plucking the leather gloves off her fingers. “He wanted me to ask you to deliver a certain message. He’s probably hoping you can find a way to make it sound less upsetting than it unquestionably is.”
“And who is the message for?”
“Mademoiselle Celeste Auger. Orlando is asking you to tell her he can’t take her to the ballet tonight.”
Messenger boy for Fox’s lover. Jacob had no idea the Windhound had such a vicious sense of humor.
“Orlando suggests urgent matters of state as an excuse,” Ludmilla Akhmatova continued. “He believes it best if Mademoiselle Auger only learns the true reason once she no longer has occasion to do anything rash.”
“Rash? That doesn’t sound like Mademoiselle Auger. May I know what the true reason is?”
The Dwarf smiled a sad smile.
“Orlando’s been arrested. The Tzar has decreed he shall face a firing squad at dawn.” Her composure was a front. It was obvious Ludmilla Akhmatova had done a lot of crying, though she’d tried to hide it behind her makeup.
