The Petrified Flesh Read online

  He pulled the medallion from his shirt and unhooked it from the chain around his neck. Miranda stirred as soon as he placed it next to her. Yes, he knew her name, something Fairies don’t forgive easily. Jacob stepped away from the bed when she whispered his name in her dream. It clearly wasn’t a good dream, and she opened her eyes.

  So beautiful.

  Jacob’s fingers sought the bite marks on his hand.

  “Since when do you sleep away the night?”

  For a moment she seemed to think she was still in the dream. Then she noticed the medallion lying next to her. She opened it and let the petal drop into her six-fingered hand.

  “So that’s how you hid yourself from me.”

  Jacob wasn’t sure what he saw on her face. Anger. Love. Maybe both.

  “Who told you about the petal?”

  “You did.” Her moths swarmed at his face when he took a step toward her. “I have come to ask for your help, Miranda. Against your sister.”

  She got up and brushed the moss from her dress. It was softer to the touch than the plume of a bird Jacob’s fingers remembered.

  “I began to sleep away the nights after you left because they reminded me of you.” She closed her hand over the petal. “Now it is just a bad habit.”

  Her moths tinged the night red with their wings.

  “I see the vixen is still following you. And who is that girl? She looks as if she comes from far away. Very far away.”

  She crumbled the petal between her fingers.

  “But you are not here about them, right? It is about the Goyl. Not even my sister dares to bring one of them to this realm.”

  “He’s my brother. The Goyl poisoned him with your sister’s curse. You can undo it I know.”

  Miranda eyed him as if she searched for the love that had once kept him at her side. What if that was the price she would ask for? Jacob tried to find it in his heart, but it was gone. All that was left were memories, wilted like the leaves of a past summer.

  Of course she read that truth from his eyes.

  “I can’t help him. You’ve come to the wrong Fairy.”

  She seemed to be made of the shadows that surrounded her, of the moonlight and the night’s dew. He had been so happy when his eyes had seen nothing but her. Until one day he had remembered that there was so much more. Unforgivable. The Fairies broke the spell, they alone. They asked for blindness in return for their love, oblivion…

  “My sister isn’t one of us anymore.” Miranda turned her back to him. “She betrayed us for the Goyl.”

  “Doesn’t that give you reason to help me?”

  Jacob reached for her arm.

  “And reward you for betraying my love?” She freed her arm from his hand.

  “I had to leave! I am mortal, have you forgotten? You could have come with me. For a while…”

  “Fairies don’t leave. Unless they forget who they are, like my sister.”

  That was not true. A few old stories described a past where they had all been involved with the mortal world, but none explained why they had withdrawn from it.

  “I understand why you don’t want to help me. But use me! To take revenge on your sister!”

  She pressed her fingers on his lips. And kissed him. Jacob returned the kiss, tasting what he had lost like ashes in his mouth. Maybe she would help them after all, if only he could make her believe he still loved her. Or make himself believe. He couldn’t say who let go first. But when she moved away he thought, for a brief moment, he saw his death in her eyes.

  The bark of a vixen echoed through the night.

  Miranda lifted her hand. “There is only one way to break my sister’s spell.” One of her moths landed on her white fingers. So red, like freshly spilled blood. “You’ll have to destroy her.”

  Jacob didn’t easily admit to being afraid of someone. He was good at facing his fears, and at defeating them. But the Dark Fairy… “She turns her enemies into the wine she drinks,” even Chanute’s voice sounded hoarse when he spoke of her, “or into the iron from which her lover builds his bridges and trains.”

  It was impossible to destroy her. She was immortal.

  Miranda was watching him.

  “I can tell you how.”

  For a moment, her beauty reminded Jacob of a poisonous flower. “How long does your brother have left?”

  “I don’t know. Not much time.”

  Voices pierced the dark. The other Fairies. Jacob had never found out how many of them there were.

  Miranda gazed at the bed as if she remembered the times they had shared it. “My sister is staying with her Goyl lover in his Royal Fortress.”

  That was a ride of at least six days.

  “You can still get to her before it is too late.”

  The moth on Miranda’s hand spread its wings and fluttered onto her shoulder.

  “If I give your brother more time.”

  The vixen began to bark again. Miranda smiled. Maybe she remembered how she had chased Fox away, and how she had made Jacob forget her for a full year.

  “I guess you know about the Princess one of us cursed to die on her fifteenth birthday from the sting of a rose. It never happened because we halted the curse with a deep sleep.”

  “Yes,” Jacob answered. “I saw her. She died anyway. Because nobody ever came to wake her.”

  Miranda shrugged. “To wake him is your responsibility. I’ll just make him sleep. But make sure he doesn’t wake before you have broken my sister’s power.”

  The moth on her shoulder was preening its wings.

  Jacob saw the dead body in the rose-covered tower before him. What did immortal Fairies care for the fate of a human princess? They had kept up the curse because they fought each other. And maybe Will could still be saved because Miranda despised her dark sister. To profit from their fights was probably all one could hope for when dealing with immortals. And not to get in their way. Jacob wondered whether there had ever been a Fairy as benevolent and helpful as the ones described in some fairy tales in his world. It would have been a comforting thought to trust in such help.

  “The girl who is with you… she belongs to your brother?” Miranda brushed her naked foot over the ground, and the moonlight drew Clara’s face on the dark earth.

  “Yes. And she still loves him.”

  “Good. For should she not, he will sleep himself to death.” Miranda wiped away the moonlight image. “Have you ever met my sister? She is the fairest of us all.”

  Yes, Jacob had seen blurry photographs, an etched portrait in a newspaper—Kami’en’s demon lover, the Fairy Witch, who made stone grow in human flesh—so beautiful that it blinded men to look at her.

  “Whatever she promises you—” Miranda caressed his face as if her fingers could still find the love they had once felt for each other, “—do not believe her. You have to do exactly as I say, or your brother is lost.”

  Again the vixen barked. I’m fine, Fox, thought Jacob. All will be well.

  Would it?

  Miranda took his hand. Six fingers, as white as the flowers on the lake. She kissed him once again.

  “What if the price for my help is that you come back to me?” she whispered. “For all eternity? Death doesn’t come to this island.”

  She had made the same promise three years ago. But Jacob didn’t wish for immortality, something she would never understand. Say yes, his heart whispered, why not? You escaped her once. You can do it again. But before he could answer, Miranda once again covered his lips with her hand.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get my revenge,” she said, “and my price will be paid.”

  27

  SO FAR AWAY

  Will had not once taken his eyes off the island. It was painful for Clara to see the fear on his face. Was he worried about his brother? Was he afraid they had come here in vain?

  “Jacob will be back soon,” she said, standing by his side, “I’m sure.”

  “Sure? With Jacob, you can never be sure,” he repli
ed.

  He was both of them by now: the stranger from the cave and the other who had stood in the hospital corridor and smiled at her every time she walked past. Will. She missed him so much.

  “He’ll find a way,” she said, “he will.” She had to believe it or she’d lose her mind.

  “Yes, he will try everything, I know…” Will stared at his reflection, jade green between the white petals of the lilies.

  He still looked like the man she loved despite the jade. And he was so alone. But when Clara reached for his arm, he shuddered as he had in the cave.

  It hurt so much. What was she still doing here?

  He didn’t want her. Not anymore. He wanted the jade. That was the truth none of them dared to face. That was the fear on his face: that Jacob would find a way to drive the jade away.

  It was too late.

  Even if Jacob returned from the island.

  Even if he learned there how to break the curse.

  Will might not allow it.

  28

  JUST A ROSE

  Jacob stayed all night on the moss-covered bed in the arms of the Fairy he didn’t love anymore. He tried so hard to convince himself that he still did care—to make sure Miranda would help his brother, and to forget: the jade in Will’s skin, the guilt about leaving him and his mother alone far too often and for far too long, the sinister house of the Witch, the fight with the Tailor, the Goyl who might still be waiting for them in the valley of the unicorns… so much to forget. Even the mirror and the good times it had granted him—this night he didn’t want to remember. None of it. And where else was that wish granted more easily than in a Fairy’s arms? So he loosened Miranda’s black hair from the darkness and kissed her white skin, and pretended that everything was the way it used to be—that her kisses didn’t taste like ashes and that her beauty still enchanted him.

  When the first daylight stole through the net of her moths, the bite on Jacob’s hand started to throb, and he was sure that Miranda knew it was all a lie, that their love was dead, and that it would be so easy to punish him by not helping his brother. But she kissed him again despite the morning light and made love to him, and when he finally told her he had to go, she didn’t ask whether he would come back. She only made him repeat everything she’d taught him about her dark sister. Word for word.

  The lilies were already closing their blossoms and Jacob saw none of Miranda’s sisters on his way back to the boat. There was froth drifting on the water when he pushed the boat out of the reeds, heralding that the lake would soon give birth to another Fairy.

  Will was nowhere to be seen when Jacob approached the shore, and neither was Fox. Only Clara was asleep under the willows. She woke with a start when he pushed the boat ashore. She didn’t seem to notice the leaves in her hair or her dirty clothes. All Jacob saw on her face was a hopelessness that not even his return could change.

  “Did they fight again?” he whispered to Fox when she appeared from under the willow branches.

  “Some silences are worse than fighting,” she replied. “You were gone for quite a while. I was just going to have a look at the fish to see whether any of them resembled you.”

  She knew. Of course she did.

  “So how did you manage to get away this time?” she asked. “With the promise to come back?” Oh, she enjoyed this. Jacob believed he heard the vixen purr.

  “She told me how to break the curse.”

  Clara got to her feet.

  But the vixen frowned. “Why?”

  “Because she doesn’t like her sister.”

  Fox stared across the lake, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “So what did she suggest?”

  Maybe Will had listened all the time. For an instant Jacob was sure he had stayed too long in the Red Fairy’s bed when he saw him step out from under the willows. The jade had darkened and his brother’s face merged with the green of the trees, as if he had become part of this world.

  “We just have to find a rose,” Jacob said.

  “A rose?” Of course Clara thought of the roses growing on the walls of the silent castle, and of the dead Princes entangled in their vines.

  “Yes, but this one will deliver protection from a Fairy’s spell.”

  That was only half the truth, but hopefully Will would trust him one more time and do exactly what he told him. Everything would depend on it.

  Fox wouldn’t take her eyes off him. What are you trying to do, Jacob Reckless? Jacob wished he could have told her. After all these years of hunting for treasure side by side, they were used to telling each other almost everything, and Jacob had never felt more in need of the vixen’s advice. But the presence of Will and Clara didn’t allow the wordless understanding they usually shared. Jacob missed it, although he would never have said so. And neither would Fox.

  I need to find the Dark Fairy, he wanted to tell her, and I am not sure what frightens me more—the prospect of fighting her or of failing and letting my brother down. Yes, all that he would have loved to say, but neither Clara nor Will could know what he had learned on the island, and Fox wouldn’t like what he intended to do for his brother.

  So all he said was: “The rose doesn’t grow far from here.”

  Fox was still watching him.

  Jacob was sure that she saw his fear, although she might not guess what it was: his fear and his determination to protect his brother at whatever price. Maybe not just because he loved him, but also to make up for all of those years, when he had left him alone. Guilt is a strong motive. Sometimes it is even stronger than love.

  29

  THROUGH THE HEART

  Jacob led them northward along the lakeshore. The morning sun turned the water into liquid gold and Clara caught herself thinking that everything might end well after all, although Will still avoided her eyes.

  She couldn’t tell how long they had been riding. Time didn’t exist in this realm. No seasons, no past or future, just the choir of a thousand scents, a thousand birdsongs, a thousand voices in the warm wind. When Jacob finally turned away from the lake, the horses soon sank deep into the bramble, and above them, the leaves lost the fresh green of the Fairies’ eternal spring and some spotted the moss at their feet with orange and yellow. When Jacob reined in his horse, they could see the valley through the trees and some of the unicorns, but when they dismounted, they were surrounded by bones. They were everywhere, unicorn skeletons, moss and grass between their ribs, spiderwebs spanning their hollow eye-sockets, the spiraled horns still on their bony foreheads.

  “They come here to die,” Fox said, “and to receive their last farewell.”

  Vines covered the bones with white flowers, the Fairies’ last gift to their guardians.

  Jacob approached one of the skeletons.

  A single red rose was growing out of its chest.

  Will moved to his brother’s side, but he eyed the rose like a poisonous snake.

  The vixen walked to the edge of the forest and peered toward the living unicorns. “I smell Goyl.”

  Will cast Jacob an almost amused glance.

  “I guess that’s my fault, Fox.”

  There was a lightness in his voice, a freedom that was new, and Jacob caught himself hesitating. But they had come too far and there was so much fresh hope on Clara’s face.

  “You just have to pick it,” he said, pointing at the rose. “You have to do it yourself.”

  Will looked at his hand. It was solid jade by now and disturbingly beautiful. Clara heard the stem snap when he finally leaned down and broke it. One thorn pricked his finger. The blood emerging from the tiny wound was the pale color of amber, proof of the profound transformation. Will stared at it incredulously. Then he dropped the rose. And swayed.

  “What’s going on? Jacob?” He looked in alarm at his brother.

  Clara came to his aid, but Will once again flinched away from her. He stumbled into one of the skeletons, the bones breaking like rotten wood under his boots.

  “Will, listen!” Jacob
grabbed his arm. “I am sorry, but you have to sleep. I need more time. When you wake up, all this will be over, I promise.”

  Will pushed his brother away with such violence that he staggered out from under the trees and into the open meadow. The unicorns raised their heads.

  “Jacob!” Fox barked. “Get back under the trees!”

  But the shot was faster.

  Such a sharp sound. Like splintering wood.

  The bullet struck Jacob in the back.

  The vixen’s scream sounded almost human when he fell. Will ran to him before Clara could hold him back. He dropped to his knees next to his brother, calling his name, but Jacob didn’t move. The bullet had torn open his chest and blood soaked his shirt right above his heart.

  The Goyl appeared from behind a tree a safe distance from the unicorns. He was still holding the rifle. One of his soldiers was by his side—Clara recognized her. It was the female Goyl Jacob had shot before she could kill her with her saber. Her uniform was soaked with the same pale blood that had seeped from Will’s pierced finger.

  The vixen attacked them both with bared fangs, but the Goyl with the rifle thrust the barrel into her ribs, and Fox fell down with a gasp, changing shape as she was collapsing in the yellow grass, the pain robbing her of her fur.

  Will had got to his feet, his face ablaze with rage while Fox crawled to Jacob’s side. He reached for the rifle his brother had dropped, but he was still dazed from the thorn prick, and the Goyl grabbed him before he could get the weapon.

  “Calm down!” he barked at him, while the She-Goyl pointed her pistol at Clara. “I had a score to settle with your brother, but we won’t harm a hair on you. You have my word, and Hentzau’s word—” he added with a satisfied glance at Jacob’s outstretched body, “—is still as reliable as his shooting skills.”

  Fox pulled the pistol from Jacob’s belt, but the She-Goyl kicked it out of her hand while Will just stood there, staring down at his brother.