Reckless II Read online

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’s 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 practiced 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.”

  She’d never asked what a twelve-year-old boy was doing all alone among the walls of a burnt-down castle. Alma never asked such questions, maybe, because she already knew the answers. She had taken Jacob home with her, given him clothes that wouldn’t attract curious stares, and warned him about Thumblings and Gold-Ravens. During his first years behind the mirror, he could always count on her for a warm meal or a place to sleep. Alma had patched him up after he’d first been bitten by a wolf; she’d put a splint on his arm after he’d tried to ride a hexed horse. And she’d instructed him on which of her world’s creatures were best given a wide berth.

  She dabbed some of the black blood off his skin and sniffed it. “Northern Djinn blood.” She looked at him, worried. “What do you need that for?”

  She put her hand on his chest. Then she opened his shirt and ran her fingers over the imprint of the moth.

  “Fool!” She punched her bony fist into his chest. “You went back to the Fairy. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from her?”

  “I needed her help.”

  “And? Why didn’t you come to me?” She opened the cupboard where she kept the instruments for the less modern part of her practice.

  “It was a Fairy’s curse! You couldn’t have done anything.” Fairy magic was beyond the power of any Witch. “It was for my brother,” he added.

  “And your brother’s worth sacrificing your own life for?”

  “Yes.”

  Alma looked at him silently. Then she took a knife from the cupboard and cut a strand of Jacob’s hair. The hair caught fire as soon as she rubbed it between her fingers. Witches could set fire to almost anything with their touch.

  Alma looked at the ash on her fingertips—then she looked at Jacob. Her fingers were white as snow. She didn’t have to explain what that meant. He’d cleansed himself of a curse before. Back then, the ash on Alma’s fingers had been black.

  The Djinn’s blood had done nothing.

  He buttoned up his shirt again. You’re a dead man, Jacob.

  Had the Red Fairy been watching him all these months, as he’d found hope after hope dashed? Was she watching him right now? The Fairies had many ways to see what they wanted to see. She’d probably been waiting for his death ever since she whispered her sister’s name to him. No, Jacob. Ever since you left her.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  The pity in Alma’s eyes was worse than her anger. “Two, three months, maybe less. How did she curse you?”

  “She got me to say her dark sister’s name.”

  Alma’s cat was brushing against his legs as though she were trying to console him. One never would have guessed that she could become quite vicious to visitors she didn’t like.

  “I thought you knew more about Fairies than I. Did you forget how big a secret they make of their names?” Alma went to her apothecary cabinet. Its drawers were filled with every remedy this world had to offer.

  “I said the Red One’s name countless times.”

  “And? Many things are different with the Dark One.” Alma picked a root from one of the drawers. It looked like a pale spider with its legs drawn under its body. “She’s more powerful than the others, but, unlike them, she doesn’t live under the protective spell of their island. That makes her vulnerable. She cannot allow anyone to know her name. She probably hasn’t even told it to her lover.” She ground up the root in a pestle and poured the powder into a pouch. “How long have you been carrying that moth on your chest?”

  Jacob pushed his hand under his shirt. He could barely feel the imprint. “The Red first saved my life with it.”

  Alma’s smile was full of bitterness. “She saved you only so she could give you the death she had planned for you. Fairies love playing with life and death… and I’m sure her revenge will be all the sweeter for having made her mighty sister her unwitting accomplice.” Alma offered Jacob the pouch with the powder. “Here. This is all I can do. Take a pinch of this whenever the pain comes. And it will come.”

  She filled a bowl with the cold water from the well behind her house so Jacob could wash off the Djinn’s blood before it burnt into his skin. The water soon turned as gray as the ghost.

  On Jacob’s last birthday, he’d filled a sheet of paper with a list of the treasures he still wanted to find. He’d turned twenty-five. You’ll never get any older, Jacob.

  Twenty-five.

  The towel Alma handed him smelled of mint. He didn’t want to die. He loved his life. He didn’t want a different one, just more of this.

  “Can you tell me how it will happen?”

  Alma pushed open the window to pour out the water. It was getting light. “The Dark One will use her sister’s seal to reclaim her name. The moth on your heart will come alive. It won’t be pleasant. Once it tears free from you skin and flies off, you will be dead. You may have a few more minutes, maybe an hour… but there can be no salvation.” She quickly turned away. Alma hated for others to see her cry. “Jacob, I wish there was something I could do,” she added quietly, “but the Fairies are more powerful than I. It comes with their immortality.”

  The cat looked at him. Jacob stroked her black fur. Nine lives. He always believed he’d have at least that many.

  6

  WHAT NOW?

  Many of the graves in the cemetery behind Alma’s house were from when large numbers of Trolls had migrated to Austry to escape the cold winters of their homeland. Their magical woodworking skills had earned most of them large fortunes, and a number of their grave markers were covered with gold. Jacob had no idea how long he’d been standing there, staring at a masterfully carved frieze depicting the deeds of a long-dead Troll. Around him, men, women, and children were going to work. Carts rumbled over the rough cobblestones in front of the cemetery gate. A dog barked at a junk man who was doing his rounds among the simple cottages. And Jacob just stood there and stared at the graves, unable to think.

  He’d been so sure he would find a way to save himself. After all, there was nothing he couldn’t find. He’d firmly believed that, ever since he became Chanute’s apprentice. Since his thirteenth birthday, his only ambition had been to become the best treasure hunter of all time—it was the
only name he’d wanted to make for himself. But now it seemed that the only things he could find were the ones other people desired. What were they to him? The Glass Slipper that brought never-ending love; the cudgel that slayed every foe; the goose that laid golden eggs; or the conch that let you listen to your enemies. He’d wanted to be the man who found them, nothing else. And he had found all of them. Yet as soon as he sought something for himself, he searched in vain. That’s how it had been with his father, and that’s how it was now with the magic that might save his life.

  Rotten luck, Jacob.

  He turned away from the grave markers and their gilded carvings. Most of them depicted tavern brawls or drinking games—the deeds that Trolls were proudest of were not always the honorable ones—yet some also showed the things the dead had crafted from wood: living puppets, singing tables, ladles you could leave to stir on their own. What will your gravestone say about you, Jacob? Jacob Reckless, born of another world, killed by the curse of a Fairy. He leaned down and propped up the tiny gravestone of a Heinzel.

  Enough with the self-pity.

  His brother had his skin back.

  Suddenly, the wish that Will had never come through the mirror became so overwhelming that it made him sick. Find yourself an Hourglass, Jacob. Turn back time; do not ride to the Fairy. Or just smash the mirror before Will can follow you.

  A woman opened the rusty gate in the cemetery wall. She placed a few flowering branches on a grave. Maybe it was the sight of her that made him think of Fox, for that was what she would do. Though it was more likely she’d put a bunch of wildflowers on his grave. Violets or primroses. Those were her favorites.

  He turned around and walked toward the gate.

  No. He would not search for an Hourglass. Even if he turned back time, everything would just happen again, exactly the same way. And things had turned out well, at least for his brother.

  Jacob opened the gate and looked up at the hill where the tower stood out against the morning sky. Should he go back and tell Will how things stood with him?

  No. Not yet.

  First he had to find Fox.

  It was to her he owed the truth, more than to anyone else.

  7

  IN VAIN

  The Dark Fairy flinched. Jacob Reckless. She didn’t want to see his face anymore. All the fear on it, the pain… she could feel death, drawn to him by her name, like a wound on his white skin.

  This was not her revenge. Even though the pond that showed her his fear was the same one where he had turned her skin to bark.

  Her red sister was probably seeing the same images, on the lake that had spawned them both. What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn’t know much about love.

  The pond turned dark, like the sky it reflected, and then her face was all she saw trembling on the waves. They distorted it, as though her beauty was dissolving. So? Kami’en no longer saw her anyway. All he saw was the swollen belly of his human wife.

  The sounds of the city drifted into the nocturnal garden.

  The Dark One turned around. She no longer wanted to see, not herself, nor her sister’s unfaithful lover. At times she even longed for the leaves and the bark he’d put on her.

  He looked nothing like his brother.

  The moth that landed on her shoulder was like a sliver of night on her white skin. Yet even the night now belonged to the other. Kami’en now slept more and more often by the side of his doll-faced princess.

  What did her sister want with all that fear and pain? They would never bring back the love.

  8

  CHANUTE

  Along the road to Schwanstein, the workers were already crowding the gates of the weaving mill. Sirens were calling the morning shift to work, and as their wailing battled with the sound of church bells in the early morning, Jacob could barely calm the old horse Alma had lent him. The mare pricked her ears as though the Dragons had returned, but she was hearing only the modern times. The howling of sirens. The ticking of clocks. Machines wanted to run, and they ran fast.

  Many of the men shivering in front of the gate looked up at Jacob as he rode past. The treasure hunter who always had some gold in his pocket, who came and went and did as he pleased, and who knew neither the toil nor the tedium that galled their lives. On any other day he would have understood the envy on their tired faces, yet on this morning Jacob would have gladly swapped with any one of them, even if that meant fourteen hours of hard labor for two copper coins an hour. Any life was better than death, wasn’t it?

  It was a ridiculously beautiful morning. The flushing trees, the fresh green… even the old mare’s hide seemed to smell of spring. Pity. Dying in winter might have been a little less hard, but Jacob doubted he had that much time left.

  A boy was sleeping by the side of the road, his bundle clutched to his chest so that the Thumblings didn’t steal what little he owned. Jacob had not been much older when he first came to Schwanstein, but thanks to Alma he’d at least been better nourished.

  The pointy gables had looked like one of the illustrations in his grandparents’ yellowed fairy tale books, and the coal soot in the air had smelled so much more exciting than the exhaust fumes in the other world. Everything had smelled of adventure: the leather harnesses on the carriages, even the horse manure on the grimy cobblestones and the butcher’s scraps that were being picked over by some hungry Heinzel. A few months later he’d met Albert Chanute, and he’d lost his heart for good to the world behind the mirror.

  *

  The windows of The Ogre were still shuttered. Jacob tied Alma’s horse in front of the tavern’s door. Only the windows to his own room were open, just as he’d left them. Fox sometimes slept there when he was gone. He’d spent the whole journey lining up the words he wanted to say to her. But there was no version that made the truth sound any better.

  Chanute’s new cook was behind the counter, washing the previous night’s dirty glasses. Chanute had hired the former soldier after too many tavern guests had complained about the food the owner cooked himself. Tobias Wenzel had lost his left leg in one of the battles with the Goyl, and he drank too much, but he was a very good cook.

  “He’s upstairs,” he said as Jacob approached the bar. “Careful, though. He’s got a toothache, and the Goyl just raised the taxes.”

  The Goyl had been ruling Austry for half a year, and nobody in Schwanstein suspected that the Reckless brothers had not been entirely blameless in this. Not that it would have interested anyone much, anyway. The men were back from the war (those who had survived it), and the Goyl were building new factories and roads, which was good for trade. Even the mayor was still the same. There were bombings and organized resistance in the capital, but most of the country had learned to live with the new masters. And the Empress’s throne now belonged to her daughter, who was pregnant by her stone-skinned husband.

  Chanute barked a grouchy “What?” when Jacob knocked on his door. His chamber was crammed with even more memorabilia than The Ogre’s taproom.

  “Well, I never!” he growled. His hand was pressed to a swollen cheek. “This time I really thought you wouldn’t come back.” A toothache. Not something you wanted to have on this side of the mirror. Jacob had once had an infected tooth extracted in Vena. Fighting an Ogre took less courage.

  “And?” Chanute scrutinized him through squinting eyes. “Did you find the bottle?”

  “Yes.”

  “See? I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.” Chanute wiped a quill on his wooden hand and stared at the paper in front of him. He’d been writing his memoirs ever since some drunk patron told him he could make a fortune from them.

  “Yes, I found it.” Jacob went to the window. “But the blood didn’t help.”

  Chanute put down his quil
l. He tried very hard not to look concerned, but he’d never been a good actor. “Damn,” he muttered. “Nevermind, though. You’ll think of something else. What about the apple? The one in that sultan’s cursed garden? You know the one!”

  Jacob already had the answer on his tongue, but the old man looked worried, so he quickly swallowed the truth. Chanute probably would have ridden off himself to find a cure. Chanute had grown old. He wore his prosthetic arm less often now because it caused him too much pain. And his hearing had grown so weak that twice already he’d nearly run into a carriage in the market square. No. Jacob still felt those calloused hands on his skin from all the beatings the old man had given him, but he owed everything he’d achieved in this world to Albert Chanute and to what the old treasure hunter had taught him. He owed him a lie.

  “Sure,” Jacob said. “The apple. How could I forget?”

  Chanute’s ugly face stretched into a relieved smile. “There you go. You’ll sort it out. And there’s also always that well.”

  Jacob turned his back to him. He couldn’t let Chanute see the truth on his face.

  “Damn! I wish that Ogre had chewed off my head instead of my arm.” Chanute held his hand to his cheek again. “You don’t have any moor-root on you?” Eating moor-root numbed any pain, but it also made you feel for days as if you were being swarmed by will-o’-the-wisps. Jacob pulled the tin that contained his first-aid kit from his rucksack: moor-root, fever-haulm, a wound-dressing salve Alma had concocted for him, iodine, aspirin, and some antibiotics from the other world. Jacob fished out one of the roots and offered it to Chanute. The roots looked like shriveled grubs, and they tasted hideous.

  “Where is Fox? Is she here?”

  She’d been sensing for a while that something was wrong. But as long as there’d been hope, he’d found it easy to convince himself that it was best for her not to know the truth. He couldn’t wait to see her.