The Golden Yarn Read online

  Oh yes, John remembered Jacob’s pride. And his fearlessness. Jacob had been too young to recognize his father for the coward he was. Fear had dominated all of John’s life. Fear of the opinions of others. Fear of failure and poverty. Fear of his own weakness, his own vanity. His incarceration by the Goyl had been a relief at first—finally a real reason to be afraid. Cowardice was more ridiculous when one lived where the greatest physical threat came from the traffic on the streets.

  “Monsieur Brunel?”

  Arsene Lelou was still there.

  John forced a smile. “You have my word, Monsieur Lelou. I will make inquiries. And should I hear news of Jacob Reckless, you will be the first to know.”

  The bug eyes glistened with curiosity. Arsene Lelou had not bought John’s story of the will-o’-the-wisp. Isambard Brunel had a secret. John had a strong feeling that Monsieur Lelou was an avid collector of such secrets and that he was also a master at turning them into gold and influence. But John had some experience in keeping secrets, too.

  John rose from his bench. Probably not a bad idea to remind the little bug that he was the taller man. “Is your royal pupil interested in the teachings of the New Magic, Monsieur Lelou?”

  As a little boy, Jacob had listened for hours while his father explained the function of an electric switch or the secrets of a battery. The same son who years later dedicated his life to the rediscovery of the Old Magic. A subconscious statement against his father? After all, John had never made a secret of the fact that the only miracles he was interested in were the man-made ones.

  “Oh, certainly! The crown prince is a great advocate of progress.” Arsene Lelou tried hard to sound convincing, yet his slightly awkward look confirmed what was said about Louis at the Albian court: Nothing could hold the attention of Lotharaine’s future King for more than a few minutes except dice and girls of any provenance. Recently, though, if the Albian spies were to be believed, Louis seemed to have also developed a passion for weapons of any kind. Not a very good hobby for someone as cruel as Louis, yet possibly an asset for Albion’s attempts to modernize both countries’ armies.

  And you, John, will show them how to build tanks and rockets. No, it wasn’t quite true that John had no conscience at all. Everyone had one. But there were many voices in his head that had an easier time reaching him: his ambition, his desire for fame and success—and for revenge. For four stolen years. Admittedly, the Goyl didn’t treat their prisoners as badly as the Walrus or Crookback did. Still, he wanted revenge.

  His Home

  The building in which Jacob had grown up rose into the sky higher than any of the castle towers that had intimidated Fox as a child. He looked different in this world. Fox had no words to describe the difference, but she felt it as clearly as she felt the difference between skin and fur. These past weeks had helped explain much of what she’d never understood.

  Above her, the stone faces stared from the walls like fossils from a Goyl city, but among all this piled-up steel, the walls of glass, the haze of exhaust fumes, and the ceaseless noise, Fox felt the other world like a piece of clothing she and Jacob wore hidden from sight. People, houses, streets—there was too much of everything in this world. And too little forest that could have offered shelter from it all. It hadn’t been easy to reach the city where Jacob had grown up. The borders in his world were more tightly guarded than the island of the Fairies. Forged papers, with her photographed face showing all the lostness she couldn’t hide. Train stations, airports, so many new words. Fox had seen clouds from above and nighttime streets that looked like fiery snakes. She would never forget any of it, but she was glad the mirror that had brought her here was not the only one and that she’d soon be going home.

  That’s what they’d come here for, to go back, and to see Will and Clara, of course. Jacob had talked by phone with Will a few times since they’d come to his world. He’d driven the jade from his brother’s skin, but Jacob was aware he could never undo all the things Will had lived through behind the mirror. How much had it changed his brother? Jacob never asked this aloud, but Fox knew the question preoccupied him.

  For now, though, she was wondering how Jacob must feel seeing Clara again, even though the past months had made them feel so close it seemed almost immaterial if he kissed others. Almost.

  Jacob held open a heavy door that must have been impossible for him to open as a child. Fox squeezed past him, feeling his warmth like a home. A home even in this world. She could tell that Jacob was glad she was here. His two lives brought together. For years he’d asked her to come with him. Now she felt sorry she’d always said no.

  Fox looked around while Jacob exchanged polite words with the wheezing doorman. Compared to the shabby house she’d spent her childhood in, Jacob had grown up in a palace. The grilled door of the elevator he now waved her toward reminded her a little too much of a cage, but Fox did her best not to let Jacob see her uneasiness, just as she’d done in the airplane that had brought them here. Only the sight of the clouds had made up for the metal confinement.

  “Just one more night.” Even in this world Jacob read her thoughts. “We’re going back as soon as I’ve gotten rid of this thing.”

  Jacob carried the swindlesack that concealed the crossbow under his shirt. The sack’s magic still worked. Jacob couldn’t explain why. So far, all objects he’d brought through the mirror had lost their magical powers. He claimed it was because of the crossbow, but her fur dress also still worked. Fox had been very relieved. Being able to shift into the vixen’s body had helped her not to become completely lost in this strange world, though it hadn’t been easy to find places where she could shift unobserved.

  The dizziness she felt as she stepped out of the elevator reminded her of her childhood, of climbing trees that were always a bit too tall. A window framed Jacob’s city: trees of glass, chimney reeds, rusty water-tank flowers.

  Fox hadn’t seen Will in almost a year. In her memory, he still had a skin of stone, but the joy on his face as he opened the door made those memories disappear like bad dreams. She did think Will looked tired. The mirror had given the brothers very different gifts, and wasn’t that just the way magic objects worked? One sister’s gold was the other one’s pitch.

  Will barely seemed to notice how much Fox had changed. Clara, on the other hand, looked at her as though she couldn’t believe this was the same girl she’d known in another world. Fox wanted to tell her, I’ve always been older than you; that’s how the fur works. The vixen was always young and old at the same time. Fox remembered the closeness she’d shared with Clara—and the feeling of betrayal when she’d caught her kissing Jacob. And Clara remembered, too. Fox could see it in her eyes.

  Jacob had made Fox promise not to tell Clara or his brother how he’d nearly paid with his life for getting Will his human skin back. And so Fox had kept quiet about their race against death and instead answered their questions about how she liked this world. Oh, the things we never talk about...

  At some point, she asked Clara to point her in the direction of the bathroom. On her way back, she stepped into what she immediately recognized from Jacob’s stories as his room. A shelf with tattered books, photographs of Will and their mother on a desk into which he’d carved his initials. He’d carved something else into the wood: the profile of a fox. Fox ran her fingers over the carving, which was stained with red ink.

  “Everything all right?” Jacob was standing in the doorway.

  Once more Fox noticed how different he looked in the clothes of this world. There was no point in trying to pretend she felt all right. Jacob had told her how on his first trips through the mirror Alma had to feed him medicines for days. But in this world there was no Witch who could help the body adjust to the strangeness.

  “Why don’t you go back now? I’ll join you tomorrow evening.”

  There were photographs above his bed—not the sepia pictures of Fox’s world but fully colored images of faces that meant nothing to her. She’d been so ce
rtain she knew every crevice of his heart, but Jacob was like a country she’d only traveled through halfway. She wanted to visit the places he loved in this world, where he came from... But for now this was probably enough. Her body yearned for her world, as if she’d been breathing the wrong air for too long.

  “Yes,” she said. “Maybe you’re right. Will and Clara will understand, won’t they?”

  “Absolutely.” He stroked her forehead, which ached. The noises of this world had settled behind it like a swarm of wasps.

  Fox had imagined the room with the mirror almost exactly: Jacob’s father’s dusty desk, and above it the models that looked so like the plane they’d used to escape from the Goyl fortress. The pistols that looked like they came from her world...and maybe they did.

  “You’re not leaving because of her, are you?” Jacob tried to sound casual, but Fox could hear that the question had been on his mind for hours.

  “Her?” They both knew who he meant, but Fox couldn’t resist. “The girl in the chocolate shop? Or the girl who sold you the flowers for Clara?”

  Jacob smiled, relieved to hear the sarcasm in her voice.

  “When you get to Schwanstein, send a telegram to Robert Dunbar.” His glance toward the mirror told Fox how much he wanted to come with her. “Ask him what he knows about Alderelves. I want to know how many there were, and how you’d recognize one. Also their enemies, allies, weaknesses... Anything he can find.”

  Robert Dunbar was one of Albion’s most renowned historians. His knowledge had helped Jacob on many of his treasure hunts. He was also half Fir Darrig, hiding his rat tail under his coats,and he owed Jacob his life.

  “Alderelves? Have you smelled blood? Are you going to look for more of their magic weapons?”

  “No, I think one is enough.” Jacob’s voice sounded serious. Fox knew he had something on his mind that he didn’t yet want to talk about.

  “Some things are best never found, Jacob.” Fox wasn’t exactly sure what made her repeat Dunbar’s warning about the crossbow.

  “Don’t worry.” Jacob handed her the clothes she would need in the other world. “I don’t have any wish to find the lost Elves. I just want to make sure we haven’t already found them.”

  She should stay, but she had no idea which world he was talking about. She believed him safe in his.

  Jacob leaned against his father’s desk as Fox stepped toward the mirror. She touched the glass. She already missed him.

  A Safe Haven

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art stood above the constant flow of traffic like a temple, though Jacob couldn’t say what gods were worshipped here: the arts, the past, or the human urge to create useless things and then dress up useful things in beauty. The wide steps were teeming with schoolchildren. When Jacob didn’t join any of the admission lines, a grouchy guard asked him where he thought he was going, but the guard immediately became chatty when Jacob mentioned Fran’s name. She was probably the only curator who brought home-baked bread (after a French recipe from the Middle Ages) or Russian walnut cake for the museum employees. Frances Tyrpak would have fit in perfectly behind the mirror, and not only that but her knowledge of antique weaponry would have served her very well there.

  Jacob had borrowed Will’s backpack to transport the crossbow. His own bag was so tattered that it was much more fitting for a treasure hunt than for visiting a museum, and even Fran would’ve found it hard to accept seeing him pull a weapon of that size from a barely palm-sized pouch.

  Swords, sabers, spears, maces... One could have outfitted an entire medieval army with the items on display in the Met’s Arms and Armor collection, and the halls Jacob walked through showcased only a fraction of that collection. Every modern museum of this world had treasure vaults that often filled entire floors of their buildings. They were, of course, much less romantic than the vaults behind the mirror, but they did preserve their treasures much more effectively: climate-controlled, windowless rooms, precious items hidden in white drawers, in boxes, and behind metal doors. The perfect hiding place for a weapon that should never see the light of day again.

  Fran was supervising two men who were dressing the figure of a horseman in a rich armor bristling with gold and silver. Not an easy task, and the stiff mannequin sitting on an equally stiff horse made it even harder for the two, who didn’t seem to be adept at their task. Fran had deep furrows in her brow.

  “A suit of presentation armor from 1737 Florence.” She greeted Jacob with a deadpan voice, as though she saw him in her exhibition rooms every day. “The only time this was worn was for a royal wedding. Quite ridiculous and almost sensationally tasteless, but it’s quite a sight, isn’t it? I read it was too big for its owner, so he had stuffing added to it and then nearly died of heatstroke.” Fran pointed to one of the glass-fronted cabinets along the wall. “That spear you sold me is quite the attraction. But I still don’t believe it’s from Libya. I will find the truth one day. But it’s a gem.”

  Jacob had to smile. It really was a pity he couldn’t take Fran Tyrpak on a trip behind the mirror.

  “I admit the spear has its secrets,” he said, putting the backpack on one of the padded benches where people could sit and marvel at the artistry of objects whose sole purpose was to kill. “But I promise you, I never lied about where it’s from.”

  Behind the mirror, they called it Lubim, but its borders were almost identical to those of what Fran knew as Libya. The equivalent country behind the mirror was ruled by a deranged emir who drowned his enemies in vats of rose water. The spear brought forth armies of golden scorpions wherever it struck the ground. Jacob had, of course, always assumed it would lose that power on this side, but since the swindlesack and Fox’s fur dress had kept their magic, he couldn’t be so sure anymore. The spear’s thick glass home gave him some consolation. Just two nights earlier, he’d spent hours making a mental list of all the things he’d brought into this world.

  Fran’s eyes widened behind her tortoiseshell glasses as Jacob pulled the crossbow from the backpack.

  “Twelfth century?”

  “Sounds about right,” Jacob answered as he handed her the weapon, though he didn’t have the faintest idea when or where the Alderelves had created it. Should Fran ever have its wood examined, she’d certainly get some very mysterious results.

  One of the men dressing the knight lost his footing on the ladder, and a jewel-encrusted arm-guard barely missed Fran’s head before it clanged on the floor by her feet. She shot a barbed glance at the man, but her real concern was neither for her head nor for the precious arm-guard, but for the crossbow, which she had pressed to her chest.

  Jacob picked up the piece of armor and examined the jewels set into the metal. “Glass.”

  “Sure. The descendants sold off the original jewels. Quite normal. The Italian nobility was perpetually bankrupt.”

  Fran pointed at the silver covering the crossbow’s handle. “These embellishments look like nothing I’ve seen before.”

  “You should avoid touching those for too long.”

  Fran raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Why?”

  “There are...stories about the crossbow. The silver may have been laced with some poison. And there’s supposedly a curse on it, one that works even in our godless times. Whatever it is, the last owner of this crossbow succumbed to a fatal madness.” And I met his living corpse. He could hardly tell Fran that most magical weapons were known to be devious and evil, and more than eager to do their work.

  “Who’d believe it—Jacob Reckless is superstitious?” Fran’s smile was so incredulous Jacob felt quite flattered. She put the crossbow on the display case next to them. “You acquired this legally, did you?”

  “Fran Tyrpak!” Jacob managed to sound truly offended. “Hasn’t my paperwork always been beyond reproach?” He’d learned to forge documents and seals from one of the most talented forgers behind the mirror. An indispensable skill when one dealt in goods from another world.

  “Yes.” Fran eyed the
crossbow with obvious desire. “Your papers are always flawless. Maybe a little too flawless.”

  A dangerous subject.

  Jacob handed the arm-guard up to the workers.

  Fran was not paying attention to anything but the crossbow. “I’ve never seen such a bowstring,” she mumbled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was made of glass.”

  Her eyes pleaded, Come on, tell me the truth! What kind of a weapon is this? Her gaze looked so wise that for a moment Jacob felt uncertain whether he’d come to the right place. Maybe he’d already pushed his luck too far with the spear.

  “The string is indeed made of glass,” he said. “A very rare technique.”

  “So rare that I’ve never heard about it?” Fran adjusted her glasses as she scrutinized the silver. “Very unusual. I think I may have seen a similar pattern some years ago on a dagger. But that came from England.”

  Another Elven weapon in this world? What could that mean? Nothing good. Jacob felt a sense of danger he’d so far known only in the other world. “Is that dagger in your collection?”

  “No. As far as I remember, it belongs to a private collector. I can find out for you. How much for the crossbow?”

  “I’m not sure I actually want to sell it yet. Would you mind storing it for me for a while? The dealer I got it from treats his merchandise so badly it would’ve been better off buried in a bog.”

  Fran’s eyes darkened as if Jacob had told her the dealer was a cannibal, though in her eyes even that probably would’ve been a minor offense in comparison to ill-treating such a beautifully crafted piece of weaponry.