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He walked faster, through the rain that blurred heaven and earth into a gray haze. He found it hard to breathe—as though the stranger with the two faces was stealing the world he’d called his own for so long.
“Jacob?”
The vixen appeared through the rain and shifted so quickly it looked like the woman’s body was growing out of her fur. “What happened?”
He pulled her into his arms, just like when he’d nearly drowned without her. He sought her lips as if he needed to breathe through her, as if only she could keep him from choking on his rage. Never, Jacob. He let her go, stammered an excuse.
Fox pulled him to her, closed his mouth with her lips. She kissed the rain off his face, the tears, the rage, and Jacob returned the kisses, despite the Elf, despite his promise to himself, to her. Not lost. His. All his. For the first time and since forever. It had always been meant to be. Was that enough excuse?
Behind them a wild gander rose from the dripping branches of a tree.
The Destination
The landscape outside the carriage window had again grown sparse and wide. A sea of yellow grass washing up against rugged mountains in the bluish distance. Woolly horses and camels grazing among the nomad yurts. The people had black hair and dark eyes. They claimed to be descended from a princess who’d been born as a wild goose. Kazakh. She’d even given her name to the whole country. Kaz for goose, akh for white.
The Dark One now also traveled by day, asking every river, every brook, and the rain for the way. The answer was always just a direction. East. Always east. And Chithira drove the horses through a land filled with a magic so alien to the Fairy that she sent Donnersmarck into the villages and yurts to collect stories. He told her stories about a man who’d cheated Death for so long that in the end, Death turned into a snake and bit him. About men of gold, magic pillows made of black wood, eagle lords and rider hordes, but not a single word about the one she was seeking. They’d told stories about her in all other places, and the Fairy knew that meant she was getting closer. And still she felt her restlessness growing, fearing that the one who was following her might catch up before she reached her destination.
But then—she didn’t know how—she suddenly knew she’d finally found the one she was looking for.
Chithira felt it even before she did. He stopped the carriage before she could order him to do so.
A giant spider’s web, woven more artfully than the most precious lace, stretched between two wild apple trees. Thousands of drops of dew clung to the sticky threads, catching the world’s reflection, and the spider sitting in the middle of the web was as green as the leaves of the trees between which she’d spun her silken trap.
“Make way,” said the Fairy.
The spider obeyed only after the Dark One touched the web with her six-fingered hand. She scuttled up the threads until she was hidden in the trees’ foliage. The giant web, now unguarded, stretched in front of the Fairy.
Are you sure? she heard a whisper inside her.
Who was asking? Not she. Not the one she wanted to be.
She stepped through the web, felt the silk threads tearing, and the cold dewdrops rolled down her skin like pearls.
Coward
All those failed experiments to harness the magic of flying carpets for his airplanes—who would’ve thought they’d one day turn out to have their uses? One had to walk the pattern in a counterclockwise direction to erase its current destination. John struggled to drag the huge carpet out of the rib-cave. He had to hurry: the vixen could return any moment with Tennant or Jacob. It would be hard to forget the look in his son’s eyes. It had contained something John had never seen in Rosamund, despite all her disappointment. Rage. And an unwillingness to forgive.
Forget it, John. He was good at forgetting, though he found it harder the older he got. In his mind, John was still lining up all the things he hadn’t said to Jacob: explanations, reasons, excuses... Again and again, in endless variations.
The sky above the skeleton had turned a threatening yellow. Get out of here, John! But where to? Albion? He couldn’t go back there. Even if the Walrus was still alive, they were going to accuse him of giving their best-guarded secrets to the Tzar. No, even though he felt homesick for Albion and his lover, he wasn’t homesick enough to endure months of interrogations in the catacombs of the Albian secret police. There were too many countries that would welcome Isambard Brunel with open arms.
Counterclockwise... It felt like he was massaging a furry animal with his bare feet. The pattern had to be walked with bare feet, another thing John had learned during his experiments. He forced himself to walk slowly. Flying carpets were surprisingly stubborn. There was a theory that they took on their creator’s personality. Hopefully, this weaver had not been too pig-headed.
As pig-headed as his elder son. John had always admired that about Jacob. Rosamund hadn’t. The two had fought often. There had always been much love between the mother and her elder child, but they’d both struggled to show it. As though they’d been afraid of what the other would do with all that love. It was not true that his elder son resembled only him. Had Rosamund never noticed? Or had she been blinded by how much more Will was like her? Oh, how the memories kept sneaking out of that vault he’d built around them in his heart. No matter how tightly he thought he’d sealed it, the vault remained with his lost life inside. That’s what John liked to call it; it made it sound more tragic, more fateful. As though it hadn’t been he who’d discarded Rosamund and his sons like some old clothes he no longer thought suited him.
Where had Jacob been headed with the carpet? Probably toward some treasure. He was always looking for something. Had he ever looked for his father? One of the questions John could’ve asked him, though it was doubtful he would’ve gotten an answer. Jacob’s pride was another trait John had always admired. With him, ambition had always been stronger than pride.
John stared down at the carpet beneath his feet. Same procedure as always, John. Your answer to all problems: run.
What if he stayed this time?
What if he could win back the son he’d once loved so much? If he told him about the newspaper clippings he’d collected, of the treasure-hunting jobs given to Jacob only because of Isambard Brunel’s recommendation? Maybe he could even explain that he’d only left Rosamund because he’d realized she could be much happier without him. It was not the whole truth, but it was a part of it.
So, he’d have to find a reason why the destination had been erased from the carpet. Maybe he could blame the rain.
The warm breeze suddenly brushing across his naked feet felt strange on this cool day. John looked back at the skeleton. Was it still giving off warmth, after all these years? Dragon bones as a source of energy? John slipped his feet back into his shoes. That would be an amazing discovery! These skeletons were everywhere.
The warm air seemed to be coming from the skulls. The first one had its jaws wide open. Something stirred between the teeth. John froze. A figure of glass. Through its limbs he saw bones and teeth, and the gray clouds. But then it suddenly grew a face, became more and more human. It was a girl. John reached for the pistol the Dwarf had given him. Not that he was sure bullets would harm it.
