Fearless Read online

  Behind the mirror were hourglasses that stopped time. Jacob had long searched for one for the Empress. In Lombardy there was a carousel that could turn children into adults, and grown-ups back into children. And there was a Varangian count who owned a music box that, if you wound it up, would transport you back into your own past. Jacob had often wondered whether such items changed the course of events or whether one ended up doing things the very same way one had already done them: his father would still go through the mirror, and he’d still follow, and Will and his mother would be left behind again.

  Heavens, Jacob! The prospect of his own death was making him sentimental.

  He felt as though, for months now, someone had kept throwing his heart into a crucible over and over again, like a lump of ore refusing to take the right shape. If that bottle proved as useless as the apple and the well, then all of his efforts would have been in vain, and soon he’d be nothing but a picture in a dusty frame, like his mother. Jacob returned her photograph to the nightstand. Then he straightened the bed, as though at any moment she might step into her room.

  Someone was unlocking the apartment door.

  ‘Jacob’s home, Will!’ Clara’s voice sounded nearly as familiar as his brother’s. ‘There’s his bag.’

  ‘Jake?’ Will’s voice had no trace of the stone that had tainted his skin. ‘Where are you?’

  Jacob heard his brother walk down the hallway, and for an instant he was transported to another hallway, with Will’s rage-contorted face behind him. It’s over, Jacob! No, it would never be completely over, and that was a good thing. He didn’t want to forget how easily he might lose Will.

  And there he was, standing in the doorway. No gold in his eyes, his skin as soft as Jacob’s, just a lot paler. After all, Will hadn’t spent most of the past weeks riding through a godforsaken desert.

  Will hugged Jacob nearly as hard as he used to in the schoolyard as children, whenever his big brother had saved him from yet another bullying fourth grader. Yes, this was well worth paying for. As long as Will never learnt the true price.

  Will’s memories of his time behind the mirror were fragments from which he desperately tried to assemble the whole picture. Nobody likes living with the knowledge that he can’t remember the most crucial weeks of his life. Whenever Will described places or faces to him and Clara, Jacob realised again how much his brother had lived through alone behind the mirror. It was as though Will had a second shadow, which followed him like a stranger and scared him every now and then.

  Jacob couldn’t wait to go back, but Clara asked him to stay for dinner, and who knew whether he’d ever see her or Will again. So he sat down at the kitchen table, into which he’d once carved his initials with his first penknife, and he tried to act as carefree as possible. But he’d obviously lost his knack for peddling his stories to his brother as the truth. Jacob caught more than one pensive glance from Will as he tried to explain his trip to Chicago as merely some Schwanstein factory owner’s obsession for Djinns.

  He wouldn’t have even tried that story on Fox. During their endless searches for the wrong objects, he’d often been close to telling her the truth, but he was stopped by the prospect of seeing his fear on her face. He loved Will, but he would always and foremost be the older brother to him. With Fox, Jacob could simply be himself. She saw so much of what he tried to hide from others, though he didn’t always like it, and they rarely spoke of what they knew of each other.

  ‘Will, do you know a Norebo Earlking?’

  His brother frowned. ‘Short guy? With a strange accent?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Ma sold him some of Grandpa’s things when she needed money. I think he has a bunch of antique shops here and in Europe. Why?’

  ‘He asked me to send you his regards.’

  ‘Me?’ Will shrugged. ‘Ma didn’t sell him everything he was interested in. Maybe he wants to try his luck with us. He’s a strange bird. I could never figure out whether Ma liked him.’ Will rubbed his arm. He often touched his skin, as if to make sure the jade was really gone. Clara noticed it as well. Spirits . . .

  Will got up and poured himself a glass of wine.

  ‘What should I do if he makes an offer? The cellar is full of old junk. It looks like our family hasn’t thrown anything away since this house was built. There’s barely enough space for the pictures we took off the walls. But Clara needs an office and . . .’ Will left the sentence unfinished, as though their parents’ spirits were listening from their empty rooms. Jacob ran his fingers over the initials he’d once carved into the tabletop. That knife had been his first secret possession.

  ‘Sell whatever you want,’ he said. ‘You can also use my room, if you like. I’m here so rarely, I can just sleep on the couch.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll keep your room.’ Will pushed a glass of wine towards him. ‘When are you going back?’

  ‘Tonight.’ Ignoring his brother’s disappointment was no longer as easy as it used to be. He was going to miss Will.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Will looked at him anxiously. Fooling him definitely wasn’t as easy as it used to be.

  ‘Sure. It’s just hard work, living in two worlds.’ Jacob tried to make it sound like a joke, but Will’s face was still serious. He looked so much like their mother. Will even frowned the way she used to.

  ‘You should stay here. It’s too dangerous.’

  Jacob looked down so his brother wouldn’t see him smile. Oh, little brother, it only became dangerous because of you. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said. ‘Definitely.’

  He still was a decent enough liar. The odds were a thousand to one that the bottle’s inhabitant would kill him rather than save him. A thousand to one against you, Jacob. He’d beaten worse odds.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DANGEROUS MEDICINE

  Back. The rain that whipped into Jacob’s face as he stepped out of the tower seemed to be the same rain that had been running down his mother’s window. His eyes scanned the crumbled walls for the outline of a vixen, but all they spotted was a Heinzel, hungry and haggard, as they always were towards the end of winter. Where was she?

  It was rare for Fox not to be waiting for him. She often sensed his return days in advance. Jacob, of course, immediately thought of traps, or the shotgun of a farmer protecting his chickens. Nonsense, Jacob. She was good at looking after herself, better than he was. And he wouldn’t have wanted her around when he opened the bottle, anyway.

  After the noise of the other world, the silence surrounding him here seemed even more unreal than the Heinzel. It always took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness. The lights of the other world made forget how dark nights here could be. Jacob looked around. He needed a place where the bottle’s occupant wouldn’t grow all the way into the clouds. And Jacob couldn’t risk any damage to the tower, and the mirror inside.

  The old chapel.

  Like the tower, the chapel had been left untouched by the fire that had destroyed the castle. The building lay just beyond where the overgrown garden stretched down the slope of the hill. Jacob had to hack a path through it with his sabre. Mossy steps, crumbling statues, marble fountains filled with rotting leaves. A few headstones still stuck out from the unmowed grass: Arnold Fischbein, Luise Moor, Käthchen Grimm. The servants’ graves had been spared by the fire, while the mausoleum of the castle’s owners had been reduced to a circle of sooty stones.

  The wooden doors of the chapel were so warped that Jacob barely managed to open them. The inside looked desolate. All the colourful glass windows were broken, and the wooden pews had long gone to heat a few draughty cottages. But the roof was still intact, and the nave was barely more than twelve feet high. This would have to do.

  A Thumbling peered over the rim of the dried-up font as Jacob pulled the leather sheath off the bottle. The brown glass was so cold that it nearly burnt his fingers. Its occupant was not from the south, where Djinns could be found in the markets of every desert village. T
he medicine Jacob needed could be provided only by a northern Djinn. They were very rare and very vicious – which explained why the men who hunted them were often even more scarred than Chanute. The spirit Jacob was about to set free had given his captor such a fight that the man had died within hours of trapping it. Jacob had buried him himself.

  He chased the Thumbling outside before his curiosity cost him his life. Then Jacob closed the doors.

  ‘They are all murderers, Jacob, never forget that!’ Chanute had warned him more than once about the northern Djinns. ‘They get locked up because they love to kill. And they know they have to spend the rest of their immortal existence serving every fool who gets hold of their bottle, so their only desire is to kill their master and take possession of the bottle themselves.’

  Jacob stepped into the centre of the chapel.

  The etched pattern on the neck of the bottle was what bound the Djinn inside. Jacob copied it on to the palm of his hand before he drew his knife. The only thing more dangerous than catching one of these spirits was letting him out again. But what did he have to lose?

  The seal on the bottle was that of the judge who’d sentenced the Djinn to an eternity behind brown glass. Jacob used his knife to peel the wax off the top. Then he set the bottle on the flagstones and quickly stepped back.

  The smoke that rose from the mouth was silvery-grey, like the scales of a fish. The wisps formed fingers, an arm, a shoulder. The fingers felt the cold air and clenched into a fist. From the shoulders grew a barbed neck like a lizard’s.

  Careful, Jacob!

  He ducked into the smoke still rising from the bottle. Above him, a skull with a low forehead and stringy hair was taking shape. A mouth opened. The groan it uttered made the chapel shudder like the haunches of a frightened animal. The cracked windows burst, and Jacob breathed the dust of broken glass. Coloured shards rained down on him while the spirit above him opened his eyes. They were white, like the eyes of a blind man, and the pupils were like black bullet holes. Their lurking glance found Jacob just as he got hold of the bottle and closed his fingers firmly around its neck.

  The huge body ducked like a cat ready to pounce.

  ‘Will you look at that!’ The Djinn sounded hoarse, as though he had lost his voice in his glassy prison. ‘And who are you? Where’s the other one, the one who captured me?’

  He leant down towards Jacob. ‘Is he dead? I remember breaking his ribs. But that is nothing compared to what I will do to that judge. I’ve been picturing it all these years. I will pluck him apart like a flower. I will pick my teeth with his bones and blow my nose on his skin.’

  His hoarse rage flooded through the chapel, and the pattern on Jacob’s hands grew icy crystals.

  ‘Enough of the boasting!’ Jacob shouted up at the spirit. ‘You will do none of those things. You will serve me until I grow tired of you, or I will take you to one of the prisons where they store your kind like bottled wine.’

  The Djinn brushed the filthy hair from his forehead. Each strand was made of flexible glass and was worth a fortune anywhere behind the mirror.

  ‘That was not very respectful!’ he whispered. His face was scarred, and the left ear was torn off. In their cold homeland, Djinns were often used in wars.

  ‘Good. What are my master’s wishes?’ he purred. ‘The usual? Gold? Power? Your enemies laid out at your feet like swatted flies?’

  The bottle was so cold that Jacob’s hands were getting numb. Hold on to it, Jacob!

  ‘Give it to me!’ The Djinn leant down so far that his glass hair brushed against Jacob’s shoulder. ‘Give me the bottle and I will get you whatever you desire. If you try to keep it, I shall wait day and night for my chance to kill you. I have seen nothing but brown glass for a long time, and your screams would help drive out the silence that still numbs my ears.’ The idea brought a smile of pure delight to his sly face. Djinns liked to talk nearly as much as they liked to kill.

  ‘You can have the bottle!’ Jacob called out. The stench of sulphur emanating from the Djinn’s grey skin was so strong that he nearly threw up. ‘For one drop of your blood.’

  The spirit bared his teeth, which were as grey as the rest of his body. ‘My blood?’ His grin was pure malice. ‘What’s killing you? Poison? A disease? Or is it a curse?’

  ‘What is it to you?’ Jacob replied. ‘Do we have a deal or not?’

  The grin turned murderous. His kind of Djinn usually tried to bite off the head of whoever handed him his bottle. Jacob knew of two treasure hunters who’d died that way. Djinns had strong teeth. You’d better be quick, Jacob. Very quick.

  The spirit offered his hand. ‘We have a deal.’ His little finger alone was longer than a human arm.

  Jacob closed his fingers more firmly around the bottle, though the glass was scorching his skin. ‘Oh no. Your blood first.’

  The spirit bared his teeth and leant over Jacob with a sneer. ‘Why don’t you come and get it?’

  Exactly what Jacob had been waiting for.

  He grabbed hold of one of the glass hairs and pulled himself up. The spirit snatched at him, but before the Djinn could reach him, Jacob had already rammed the bottle up his nose. The spirit howled and tried to pull it out with his massive fingers. Now, Jacob! He jumped on to the Djinn’s shoulder and sliced the tattered earlobe with his knife. Black blood spurted out. Jacob rubbed it on his skin while the spirit still tried in vain to pull the bottle from his nostril. His grunts and groans sent ice crystals dancing through the air. Jacob jumped off the Djinn’s shoulder. He nearly broke his legs landing on the icy flagstones. On your feet, Jacob! The chapel’s roof burst under the pressure of the spirit’s barbed back. Jacob slithered towards the door.

  Go, Jacob!

  He ran towards the tall pines behind the chapel, but before he could reach the protection of their branches, he was grabbed by icy fingers and lifted up into the air. Jacob felt one of his ribs break. Dangerous medicine.

  ‘Pull it out!’

  Jacob screamed with pain as the spirit tightened his grip. The huge fingers lifted Jacob higher, until he was close enough to push his hand into the massive nostril.

  ‘If you drop it,’ the spirit whispered, ‘I’ll still have enough time to break all your bones.’

  Maybe. But the Djinn was going to kill him even if he handed over the bottle. Nothing to lose. Jacob’s fingers found the neck of the bottle. They gripped the cold glass.

  ‘Pull . . . it . . . ooouuut!’ The spirit’s bloodthirsty voice enveloped him.

  Jacob was in no rush. After all, these might be the final moments of his life. Up on the hill he saw the tower rising into the dark sky, and beneath it a marten was nibbling on the fresh buds of a tree. Spring was coming. Life or death, Jacob. Once again.

  He pulled out the bottle and threw it as hard as he could against the remnants of the chapel’s gabled roof.

  The Djinn’s enraged howl caused the marten to freeze. The grey fingers closed around Jacob’s body so hard, he thought he could hear every one of his bones break. But his pain was penetrated by the sound of shattering glass. The huge fingers let go – and Jacob fell.

  He fell far.

  The impact winded him completely, but above him he could see the spirit’s body erupt as though someone had stuffed him with explosives. The Djinn’s grey flesh tore into a thousand shreds, which rained down on Jacob like grimy snow. He lay on the ground, licking the black blood from his lips. It tasted sweet and burnt his tongue.

  He had got what he wanted.

  And he was still alive.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALMA

  Schwanstein’s gaslit streets had not seen a practising Witch for years. Witches were part of the past, and the people of Schwanstein believed in the future. Instead of relying on magic and bitter herbs, they preferred the doctors who had moved there from Vena. It was only when modern medicine failed them that they found their way to the village on the eastern side of the castle hill.

  Alma Spitzweg’s h
ouse stood right next to the cemetery, even though her craft usually kept her patients out of it before it was their time. Officially, she ran a normal medical practice. Alma could splint a broken limb like any doctor from the big city. At times she even prescribed the same pills, but Alma also tended to cows and Heinzel with the same diligence she applied to her human patients; her clothes changed colour with the weather; and her pupils were as slender as the pupils in her cat’s eyes.

  Alma’s practice was still closed when Jacob knocked on the back door. It was a while before she opened it. She’d obviously had an exhausting night, yet her face brightened immediately at the sight of him. On that early morning, she looked exactly as Jacob would have imagined a Witch would look like when he was a child, but he’d seen Alma with many different faces and in many different bodies.

  ‘I could have done with your help last night,’ she said. Her cat was purring a welcome at Jacob’s feet. ‘The Stilt from up by the ruins tried to steal a child. Can’t you get rid of him?’

  The Stilt. The first creature he’d encountered behind the mirror. Jacob hands still bore the scars from its yellow teeth. He’d tried to catch it more than a dozen times, but Stilts were cunning, and masters at playing hide-and-seek.

  ‘I’ll try again. I promise.’ Jacob picked up the purring cat and followed Alma into the plain room where she practised both the old and the new kinds of medicine. As he took off his coat, she noticed the black blood on his shirt and shook her head wearily.

  ‘And what is this now?’ she asked. ‘Couldn’t you just once come here with a cold or an upset stomach? Will I regret to my dying day that I didn’t stop you from apprenticing with that Albert Chanute?’

  Alma had never liked the old treasure hunter. Too many times had she given shelter to Jacob after Chanute had beaten him. And like all Witches, she didn’t like treasure hunting. Jacob had first met her by the ruins. Alma swore by the herbs that grew there. ‘Cursed? Half the world is cursed,’ she had said when asked about the stories that surrounded the ruins. ‘And curses wear off faster than a bad smell. All that’s up there are burnt stones.’