Reckless III: The Golden Yarn E-Book

Cornelia Funke

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Mirrorworld Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 548

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The worlds on either side of the mirror are about to collide. And there's nothing Jacob can do to stop them.After a perilous encounter with an Alder Elf - an immortal, trick-­turning creature to whom he owes a great debt - Jacob must journey back into the enchanted Mirrorworld once again.Together with Fox, his beautiful shape­shifting friend, Jacob has no choice but to follow his brother on the trail of the Dark Fairy, who has fled deep into the East: to a land of folklore, Cossacks, spies, time­-eating witches and flying carpets. But what exactly is the Dark One running from? Could it be the same danger that threatens Jacob and Fox?The third book in the Reckless series, The Golden Yarn is a thrilling tale of courage and fear, jealousy and forbidden desire; in which love has the power both to save a life - and to destroy it.

Leseprobe

For

The Phoenix – Mathew Cullen

and his wizards in alphabetical order:

The Magical Bookmaker – Mark Brinn

Wizard Eyes – Andy Cochrane

The Canadian – David Fowler

The Fairy of the Marina – Andrin Mele-Shadwick

The Tamer of Magical Beasts – Andy Merkin

and for

Thomas W. Gaehtgens

Isotta Poggi

and last, thanks to the alphabet only,

Frances Terpak,

who opened the Treasure Chambers of the Getty Research Institute

for me and Jacob

CONTENTS

Title PageDedication1.The Moonstone Prince2.An Alliance of Old Foes3.His Home4.A Safe Haven5.The Prince6.A Visitor for Clara7.The Bloody Crib8.Sleepless9.Over10.Too Many Dogs11.Once Upon A Time12.In the Wrong Place13.A Brother’s Debt14.His Roads15.Blind16.Like an Open Door17.An Old Acquaintance18.The Warning19.Regardless20.A Heinzel’s Woe21.Mirror, Mirror22.War23.Soon24.Her Mortal Play25.Like Old Times26.The Wrong Face27.A Thousand Steps East28.The Colors of the Baba Yaga29.The Forgotten Moth30.All Lost31.Gone32.The Other Sister33.City of Gold34.The Tzar’s Ball35.Connected36.She Belongs Only to Herself37.Things We Desire38.Ridiculous39.A Part of Her40.There art Others41.The Bear in the East42.The Robbers in the Trees43.Lost Stories44.A New Hand45.From Her46.The Wrong Questions47.A Message for Celest Auger48.The Dress of War49.Home50.The Gift of the Goyl51.A Fairy Tale52.Forgotten53.The Lost Son54.Hidden Words55.Double Cross56.Prividiniy Park57.Fly, Carpet, Fly!58.The Wrong Dead59.Lying Mountains60.The Right Place61.The Destination62.Coward63.Different Paths64.Exposed65.The Weaver66.So Much to Lose67.So Weak68.And Everything Will Be Just as It was Meant to Be69.As in Her Dreams70.Gone71.The Executioner72.Silver and Gold73.NoAbout the PublisherThe Reckless SeriesCopyright

1

THE MOONSTONE PRINCE

The doll-princess was not having an easy labor. Not even the palace garden offered a refuge from her screams, and the Dark Fairy listened, and she hated how those groans and whimpers made her feel. She hoped Amalie would die. Of course. She’d been hoping ever since Kami’en had said yes to the other one in her bloody wedding gown. Yet there was more: an unreasonable longing for the infant who was pushing those screams from Amalie’s vapid, pretty mouth.

Through all these months, only her magic had kept the unborn child alive. The child that could not be. “You will save it. Promise me!” The same whispered plea, every time after he’d made love to her. Only that had made Kami’en return to her bed at night. The desire to meld his flesh with human flesh—it made him so helpless.

Oh, how the Doll screamed. As though the infant were being carved with a knife from her body, the body that only a Fairy lily could make desirable.

Kill her already, Skinless Prince. What gives her the right to call herself your mother?

He would have rotted inside her, like a forbidden fruit, if it hadn’t been for the magic the Dark One had spun around Amalie. Yes, the infant was a boy. A son. The Dark Fairy had seen him in her dreams.

Kami’en did not come for her help himself. Not this night. He sent his bloodhound to find her instead. His milky-eyed jasper shadow. Hentzau stopped in front of her, and as usual he avoided looking in her eyes.

“The midwife says she’s losing the child.”

Why did she go with him?

For the child.

It filled the Fairy with quiet satisfaction that Kami’en’s son chose the night to come into the world. Amalie feared the darkness so much, she always kept a dozen gaslights burning in her bedchamber, even though their pale light hurt her husband’s eyes.

Kami’en was standing next to Amalie’s bed. He turned as the servants opened the door for his mistress. For an instant, the Fairy thought she could see in his eyes a shadow of the love she used to find there. Love. Hope. Fear. Dangerous emotions for a King, though Kami’en’s stone skin helped him hide them. More and more, he was starting to resemble one of the statues his human enemies erected for their Kings.

The startled midwife toppled a basin with bloody water as the Fairy approached Amalie’s bed. Even the doctors backed away from her. Goyl doctors, human doctors, Dwarf doctors. Their black frocks made them look like a murder of crows drawn in by the scent of death rather than anticipation of a new life.

Amalie’s doll face was swollen with fear and pain. The lashes around her violet-blue eyes were congealed with tears. Fairy-lily eyes…The Dark Fairy thought she could see in those eyes the water of the lake that had once delivered her.

“Go away!” Amalie’s voice was hoarse from screaming. “What do you want? Who called you?”

The Dark One pictured those violet eyes being snuffed out and that soft skin Kami’en so loved to touch turning cold and flaccid. The temptation to make her dead was so sweet. Too bad the Fairy couldn’t indulge it, for a dead Doll would take Kami’en’s son with her.

“I know why you’re not letting the child out!” the Dark One whispered in Amalie’s ear. “You’re afraid to look at him. But I won’t allow you to kill him with your dying flesh. Deliver him, or I will have him cut out of you.”

How the Doll stared at her. The Fairy wasn’t sure whether the hatred in Amalie’s eyes revealed more fear or jealousy. Maybe love bore fruit even more poisonous than fear.

Amalie squeezed the infant out. The midwife’s face turned into a contorted mask of horror and disgust. On the streets, they already called him the Skinless Prince. But he did have a skin. The Fairy’s magic had given him one, as hard and as smooth as moonstone, and just as transparent. His skin revealed everything it covered: every sinew, every vein, the small skull, the eyeballs. Kami’en’s son looked like Death—or at least like his youngest spawn.

Amalie groaned and pressed her hands over her eyes. Kami’en was the only one who looked at the baby without dread. The Dark Fairy took the slithery body and stroked the transparent skin with her six-fingered hand until it turned as red as his father’s, giving such beauty to the small face that now all the averted eyes turned back in enchantment to admire the newborn prince. Amalie reached out for her son, but the Fairy placed the baby in Kami’en’s arms. She did so without looking at the King, and when she stepped out into the dark hallway, he didn’t stop her.

The Dark Fairy had to pause halfway and struggle for breath on a balcony. Her hands trembled as she wiped her fingers on her dress, again and again, until she could no longer feel the warm body they’d touched.

There was no word for child in her language. There hadn’t been in a long time.

2

AN ALLIANCE OF OLD FOES

John Reckless had stood in Charles de Lotharaine’s audience chamber before, once, with a different face and a different name. Was that five years ago? He found it hard to believe it hadn’t been longer, but those past years had taught him much about time, about yearlong days and years that passed as quickly as a day.

“These will be better?”

Charles, the Crookback, frowned as his son tried to hide another yawn behind his hand. It was an open secret that the crown prince Louis was suffering from the Snow-White Syndrome. The palace kept silent about where and how the prince had contracted that malady (as was, in these days of progress, the preferred term for the effects of black magic). Yet the parliament of Albion had already seen debates on the dangers (and opportunities) of a King on the throne in Lutis who could at any moment fall into a sleep lasting days at a time. The Albian secret service claimed that Crookback had even gone so far as to secure the services of a child-eater to heal the crown prince. Judging by the yawns Louis tried to hide behind his dark red sleeves, she’d not been very successful.

“You have my word, and that of Wilfred of Albion, Your Majesty. The machines I will build for you will not only fly higher and faster than the airplanes of the Goyl but will also be much better armed.”

What John did not mention was that he could only be so confident because those Goyl airplanes had been designed by him as well. Not even Wilfred of Albion knew of his famous engineer’s past. His stolen name and new face had shielded John from such exposure, just as they protected him from the Goyl, who were supposedly still looking for him. A different nose and a different chin were a small price to pay for days spent free of fear. His nights were still shattered by dreams that were the legacy of years spent in Goyl prisons. But he’d learned to make do with little sleep. Yes, the past five years had indeed taught him a lot. Not that they had made him a better person—he was still a self-serving coward, relentlessly driven by ambition (some truths were best faced straight on). His imprisonment had taught him that, but also a lot about this world and its inhabitants.

“Should your generals be concerned that airplanes may not be the answer to the military superiority of the Goyl, then I can assure you that the parliament of Albion shares these concerns and has authorized me to address them by presenting two of my most recent inventions.”

The authorization had, in fact, been issued by King Wilfred himself, but it seemed best to maintain appearances. Albion was proud of its democratic traditions, though the true power still rested with the King and the nobility. It was no different in Lotharaine, though here the people had a less romantic view of noble and crowned heads—one of the reasons for the armed riots that were currently plaguing the capital.

Louis yawned again. The crown prince had a reputation for being as stupid as he looked. Stupid, moody, and with cruel tendencies that worried even his father. And Charles of Lotharaine was getting old, though he dyed his hair black and was still a handsome man.

John motioned one of the guards who had accompanied him from Albion to come closer. The Walrus (this moniker for Wilfred the First was so fitting, John was perpetually worried he might one day actually use it to address his royal employer) had him well guarded. Albion’s King had insisted, over John’s well-known dislike for ships, that his best engineer go in person to sell Crookback on the idea of an alliance. The construction plans, which the guard now handed to the King’s adjutant, had been drawn by John especially for this audience, leaving out a few vital details he would supply after the alliance was completed. Crookback’s engineers wouldn’t notice. After all, John was confronting them with the technology of another world.

“I call these ‘tanks.’” John had to suppress a smile as his Lotharainian competition leaned over the drawings with an obvious mix of envy and incredulous awe. “Not even the Goyl cavalry can withstand these machines.”

The second drawing showed rockets with explosive warheads. There were indeed moments when John’s conscience tried to put him on trial. He could have brought inventions into this world that would have made it healthier and more just for its people. He usually soothed his conscience with a generous donation to an orphanage, or to Albion’s suffragettes, though that of course brought up memories of his wife, Rosamund, and of Jacob and Will.

“Who is going to manufacture these valves?” an engineer asked doubtfully.

John returned to the present, where he was a man without sons and where the woman in his life was the daughter of a Leonese diplomat and fifteen years his junior.

“If they can make those valves in Albion,” Crookback barked at the engineer, “then we can damn well do it here. Or will I have to recruit my engineers from the universities of Pendragon and Londra?”

The engineer’s face lost all color, and the King’s advisors regarded John with cold eyes. Everyone in the hall knew what the King’s answer meant. The decision was made: Albion and Lotharaine would form an alliance against the Goyl. A historic decision for this world. Two nations that for centuries had used any excuse to declare war on one another, now turned into allies by a common foe. The old and eternal game.

John decided to go to the palace gardens to write a missive informing the Walrus and the parliament of Albion of his diplomatic success, even though it turned out to be near impossible to find a bench without a statue towering over it. His phobia against stone statuary was just one of the irritating consequences of his imprisonment by the Goyl.

He finally found a bench under a tree. As he wrote the message that would shake the balance of power in this world, his uniformed guardians used the time to stare after the ladies of the court as they ambled between the pristine hedges. They certainly seemed to confirm the rumor that it was Crookback’s ambition to have all the most beautiful women of Lotharaine gathered at his court. John found a little comfort in the fact that Crookback was an even worse husband than he. After all, John had never been unfaithful to Rosamund until he discovered the mirror. And as far as his affairs in Schwanstein, Vena, and Blenheim were concerned, one could certainly wonder whether having such dalliances in a different world actually counted as adultery. Oh yes, they do, John.

As he put his signature under the dispatch (with a fountain pen he’d discreetly modernized, after having grown tired of ink-stained fingers), he saw a man rushing toward him across the white gravel paths. He’d noticed the man before, standing in the audience chamber by the crown prince’s side. The unexpected visitor wore an old-fashioned-looking frock coat, and he was barely taller than a large Dwarf. The spectacles he nervously adjusted as he stopped in front of John had such thick lenses they made the eyes behind them look as large as an insect’s. Fittingly, his pupils were just as black and shiny as insect eyes.

“Monsieur Brunel?” A curtsy, a servile smile. “With your permission: Arsene Lelou, tutor to His Highness the crown prince Louis. Could I, possibly, eh”—he cleared his throat as though his assignment were stuck there like a splinter—“bother you with a request?”

“Certainly. What is it?”

Maybe Monsieur Lelou needed help in explaining some technical innovation. It couldn’t be easy to be the teacher of a future King in such a rapidly advancing world. Yet Arsene Lelou’s request had nothing to do with the New Magic, as science and technology were referred to behind the mirror.

“My, eh, royal pupil,” he lisped, “has for these past months been fielding inquiries regarding the whereabouts of a man who has also worked for the Albian royal court. And since you are a member of that court, I wanted to take this opportunity to ask you in His Highness’s name for your aid in our search for this person.”

John had heard nasty stories about how Louis of Lotharaine dealt with his enemies, so the man Arsene was asking him about already had his deepest sympathy.

“Certainly. May I ask whom you are inquiring about?” Always best to feign helpfulness.

“His name is Reckless. Jacob Reckless. He is a famous, if not infamous, treasure hunter who has worked in the service of, among others, the deposed Empress of Austry.”

John noted with irritation his hand trembling as he handed his signed dispatch to one of his guards. How easily one’s own body could turn traitor.

Arsene Lelou noticed the trembling hand.

“A bite from a will-o’-the-wisp,” John explained. “Years ago, but I still have that tremor in my hands.” He’d never been more grateful for his new face, for he had once looked very much like his elder son. “You may relay to the crown prince that he can cease his inquiries. To my knowledge, Jacob Reckless died when the Goyl sank the Albian fleet.”

He was proud of the calmness of his voice. Arsene Lelou would not know that the news John had just related had rendered him unable to work for days. His own reaction to the news of Jacob’s death had startled John so much that at first he’d been utterly convinced the tears dripping on his newspaper had to be someone else’s.

His elder son…John had, of course, known for years that Jacob had followed him through the mirror. All the newspapers had reported on his treasure-hunting feats. Still, the unexpected encounter in Goldsmouth had been a shock, but his new face had worked even then. It had hidden everything he’d felt at that moment of meeting, the shock and the love, as well as the surprise that he still felt so much love.

That Jacob had followed him had not surprised John. It had been no real accident he’d left the words to guide his son through the mirror in one of his books. (John himself had found the words in a tome on chemistry left behind by one of Rosamund’s illustrious ancestors.) John had been fascinated that his elder son had made it his mission to seek this world’s lost past while his father was bringing it into the future. In that way, Jacob took more after his mother. Rosamund had also always tried to preserve rather than to change. Could a father be proud of a son he’d abandoned? Yes. John had collected every article about Jacob’s achievements, every picture that showed his face or illustrated his deeds. Of course, nobody, including his own mistress, ever knew this. And of course, he’d also hidden from her the tears he’d shed for his son.

“The sinking of the fleet? Oh yes. Impressive.” Arsene Lelou swiped a fly from his large, pale forehead. “The airplanes have indeed given the Goyl too many victories. I shall await with burning impatience the day your machines defend our sacred lands. Thanks to your genius, Lotharaine will finally have an appropriate answer against the Stone King.”

The toadying smile Lelou gave him reminded John of the icing the child-eaters put on their gingerbread. Arsene Lelou was a dangerous man.

“However, if I may be so bold as to correct you…” Lelou continued with obvious glee. “The Albian secret service may not be as omniscient as its reputation suggests. Jacob Reckless survived the sinking of the fleet. I myself had the dubious pleasure of meeting him a few weeks after. Reckless calls Albion his home. And through my inquiries, I’ve learned that for many of his treasure hunts he relies on the expertise of Robert Dunbar, professor of history at the University of Pendragon. All that makes it more than likely he will, sooner or later, turn up at the Albian court. He does need royal sponsors. Believe me, Monsieur Brunel, I wouldn’t have bothered you if I wasn’t convinced you could be of great service to the crown prince in this matter.”

John would not have been able to name his emotions. They were, again, surprisingly strong. Lelou had to be wrong! There had been barely any survivors, and he’d pored over the lists dozens of times. And? What difference did it make whether his son was alive or dead? To give up the only one he’d ever loved unselfishly was the price John had paid for his new life. Yet those years in the dark dungeons of the Goyl had made the wish to be forgiven by his elder son grow like one of the colorless plants the Goyl grew in their caves… And with it had come the hope that the love he’d discarded so carelessly might not be lost for good. He had to admit he’d always been forgiven most readily. His mother, his wife, his mistresses… Yet a son was probably not as eager to absolve a father, especially not a son as proud as Jacob.

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.

3

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 certain 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.

4

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.

“Admit it—you got this from one of those crooks who cause more damage to our cultural heritage than all the world’s exhaust fumes combined. Which one? Thistleman? Dechoubrant? If it were up to me. I’d have them all executed—by firing squad. But why don’t you want to sell this crossbow? You’re not sentimental. How is it special?”

Oh, she would have loved the story. The palace of a dead king, the Waterman, the Witch’s clock, the marksmanship of a Goyl…

Jacob zipped the empty backpack. “Let’s just say I’m in its debt.”

Fran’s eyes pierced him as though trying to skewer the truth out of his head, but her fingers were already closing around the crossbow’s handle. Like him, she was a treasure hunter, guardian of a lost past that had left only its traces in gold and silver. Too bad he couldn’t tell her about the bolt that had pierced his chest and saved his life. Or about the two armies destroyed by this one crossbow. Fran would’ve appreciated these stories.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll have it archived—if you’ll permit me to let our conservators take a closer look.”

“Absolutely. I’d love to know more about its history myself.” And about the smith who could make bowstrings out of glass. But there was probably not much to be learned about the Alderelves in this world, even if one’s laboratory was as good as the Met’s.

“How long shall I keep it for you?”

“One year?”

By then, hopefully, he would have learned how the crossbow could be destroyed. Of course, he didn’t tell Fran about this. He’d already tried fire, explosives, and a saw, but these hadn’t even left a scratch. Only the fire had made the wood a little darker.

***

A museum made it easy to forget which world you were in. But back outside, at the top of the steps, the noise of the Fifth Avenue traffic gave Jacob such an abrupt reminder where he was he found it hard to handle the wave of homesickness washing over him. Not that the streets of Vena or Lutis were any less noisy. It was surprising how much noise horse-drawn carriages and coaches could make. Below him people were crowding the wide sidewalks on their way to bus stops and coffee carts, but in his mind’s eye he saw the castle ruin with the roofs of Schwanstein in the distance. When he spotted Clara at the bottom of the steps, he nearly stumbled into a tourist who was coming up.

Will? Jacob’s heartbeat was set racing by all the worries he’d tried to keep at bay ever since he sent his brother back through the mirror. It was ridiculous how any unusual gesture or expression he’d not seen on his brother’s face before immediately took him back to those moments in the palace in Vena where Will had nearly killed him. But Clara smiled at him reassuringly, and Jacob slowed so that he wouldn’t stumble over his own feet. If this wasn’t about Will, then what was she doing here?

Yes, what, Jacob? Oh, he could be such a fool. Naive like a puppy, he stumbled straight into the trap. But the face at the bottom of the steps was so familiar. It still reminded him of all they’d been through together. His memory’s soft focus had turned even the Larks’ Water into a pleasant anecdote. He noticed she was wearing leather gloves despite the warmth of this summer morning, but he didn’t think too much of it.

“What are you doing in a museum so early in the morning?”

Even the question didn’t raise Jacob’s suspicion. But then she kissed him on the lips.

“Just think of the unicorns,” she whispered to him.

And she pushed him into the oncoming traffic.

Screeching brakes. Horns. Screams. Maybe even his own.

He closed his eyes too late.

Felt a bumper break his arm.

Metal and glass.

5

THE PRINCE

It was so quiet Jacob assumed he was dead. But then he felt his body. The pain in his arm.

He opened his eyes.

He wasn’t kneeling on pavement, as he would’ve expected, nor lying in his own blood, but on ultramarine-blue wool embellished with silver and woven into such soft thickness as found only in the most precious carpets.

“I apologize for the crude joke. Your brother’s bride as a lure—it was simply irresistible. She has the same grace your mother had, though she does lack a bit of the mystery, doesn’t she? It’s probably what your brother likes about her. He already has too much mystery himself.”

Jacob looked up to find the face for the voice. His neck ached as though someone had tried to break it. A man was sitting in a black leather chair a few feet away. The same chair stood in the museum. The museum in front of which Clara had pushed him into the moving traffic. Department for Modern and Contemporary Art.Get up, Jacob!He couldn’t tell what was making him more nauseous—the collision with the car, or Clara’s blank face as she’d pushed him into the street.

The man was maybe in his late thirties, and he possessed a beauty that seemed strangely old-fashioned. His face would have fit well in a painting by Holbein or Dürer. His suit, however, had been crafted by a modern tailor, as had his shirt. He gave an amused smile as Jacob’s eyes fixed on the tiny ruby in his earlobe.

“Ah, youdoremember.”

The voice had been different when they last met in Chicago. Norebo Johann Earlking.

“Rubies.” He touched his ear. “I’ve always had a weakness for them.”

Jacob managed to sit up, though he had to grab a table for balance.

“Is this your real face?”

“Real? A big word. Let’s say it’s closer to my own than the one I showed you in Chicago. The Fairies like to make a secret of their names, and we Alderelves like to hide our true guises.”

“So the name is real?”

“Does it sound real? No. You can call me Spieler…”

He followed Jacob’s glance out the window.

“Fantastic view, isn’t it? We’re barely a stone’s throw from Manhattan. Amazing how easy it is to hide under the mantle of apparent disuse.”

The derelict landscape outside the window stood in stark contrast to the precious furniture. Crumbling buildings drowning in ivy, and the unrestrained growth of a forest battling human construction.

“You mortals place such a touching importance on appearances.” Spieler got up and went to the window. “Animals aren’t fooled as easily. A few decades ago, your lot were almost onto us because some rare heron didn’t want to share this island with us.” He drew on a cigarette he balanced between his slender fingers. Six fingers on each hand, as on all immortals. Spieler blew the smoke toward Jacob, and the narrow room suddenly became as wide as a palace hall, with walls clad in silver and chandeliers made of elven glass. The only object that didn’t change was a marble sculpture of startling beauty. This eliminated Jacob’s final doubt about who he was dealing with. The sculpture was of a tree, and captured in its bark was a face frozen in mid-scream.

“Exile. At first you try to make it bearable by imitating the familiar.” Spieler took another drag from his cigarette. “Yet that gets very monotonous very quickly, and it reminds you too much of all you’ve lost.”

The view from the window disappeared into smoke. The trees vanished, and the water of a river reflected the skyline of a city that seemed strange and still familiar. New York maybe a hundred years ago? No Empire State Building.

“Time. Another thing your kind takes too seriously.” Spieler crushed the cigarette into a silver ashtray, and the hall shrank back into the room where Jacob had awoken, with the same desolate view through the window. “Not foolish, trying to disappear the crossbow into the archives of the museum. After all, how could you have known that Frances Tyrpak is a good friend of mine? Of course, she knows me with a different face. A lot of the Met exhibits were donated by us. But I assume you realize you’re not here because of the crossbow. Or have you forgotten your debt to me?”

Debt…

Jacob thought he could smell forgetyourself, the mythical flower of the Bluebeards. Yes, his worry over the crossbow had made it easy to forget his debt. Together with the desperation that had made him careless enough to engage in such a magical trade. Careless? There wasn’t much choice when you were caught in a Bluebeard’s labyrinth.

“There’s a charming tale from our world about a Stilt who teaches some useless peasant girl how to spin straw into gold,” Spieler continued. “She, of course, tricks him. Even though all he’d asked for was rightfully his.”

Today I bake, tomorrow brew, the next I’ll have the young Queen’s firstborn child.

Jacob had never been too impressed by the Rumpelstiltskin’s threat—his mother had to explain to him what a firstborn was. And even now, he doubted he’d ever have children anyway.

Spieler saw the relief on Jacob’s face and smiled.

“You don’t seem to mind my price. So let me be quite clear: As soon as the vixen puts her first child into your arms, that child is mine. You can take your time with your payment, but pay you will.”

No.

No what, Jacob?

“Why should her first child be mine? We are friends, nothing more.”

Spieler now looked bemused, as though Jacob had tried to tell him the world was a flat disc. “Oh, please! You’re talking to an Elf. I know your most intimate wishes. It’s my business to fulfill them.”

“Name another price. Any other.” Jacob hardly recognized his own voice.

“Why should I? This is my price, and you will pay it. Your vixen will make beautiful children. I hope you don’t take too long.”

How love suddenly tasted of guilt, all wishes of treason. How clear one’s own desires become once they are made impossible. All the nonsense he’d convinced himself of—that he didn’t love her in that way, that his yearning didn’t really mean anything… Lies. He wanted her forever by his side; he wanted to be the only one in her life, the only one who mattered, the only one who’d give her children, the only one who’d see her grow old.

Never, Jacob. Forbidden. He’d sold his future. That he’d sold it to save her life was little consolation.

“Payment is due only in the world where the deal was struck.” It was a pathetic attempt.

“Into which I shall never return lest I want to be turned into a tree? Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about that small detail. But I have to disappoint you again. We shall return. Soon. Some of us, at least.”

The Elf stood by the window.

Get out of here, Jacob.

There were two doors. And then what? If the Elf was to be believed, they were on an island. There were a few islands in the East River, and swimming through those dangerous waters was not a very enticing prospect, especially with a broken arm.

Spieler had his back to Jacob. He was talking about the Fairies, about their vengefulness, about human ingratitude. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice. Who else would listen to him? He’d mentioned others. How many had escaped? Jacob’s eyes were drawn to a mirror leaning against the wall near the sculpture of the Elf frozen into the tree. The mirror was even larger than the one in his father’s study. The frame sprouted the same silver roses, though this one had magpies sitting among the thorny vines.

Spieler was still looking out the window, and the mirror was just a few steps away. Jacob reached it before the Elf could turn. The glass was as warm as an animal, but no matter how hard he pressed his hand over the reflection of his face, the mirror still showed the same room.

Spieler turned around.

“Even your kind can make a sheer endless number of all sorts of mirrors. Do you really believe we are any less inventive?” He went to the desk under the window and leafed through some papers. “Fairy and Alderelf. They once belonged together, like day and night. Did you know that? Our children were mortal, but always exceptional. They would be crowned, declared geniuses, revered as gods. In this world, we can have children with mortal women, but those are often shockingly mediocre.”

Jacob stayed standing in front of the mirror. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn away from it. It was as though the glass were peeling layers off his soul.

“It’s stealing your face,” he heard Spieler say. “Ironically, it was a mortal who came up with the idea to use our mirrors to create more reliable helpers than your kind seemed able to provide. Show yourself.”

The air in the room grew warmer, and the sunlight coming through the window broke around two figures of mirrored glass. The whole room was reflected in these figures—the white wall, the desk, the chair, the frame of the window. Their bodies became clearer as the faces took on the color of human skin and the reflections turned into clothes. The illusion was perfect, except for the hands. This time the girl wasn’t even wearing gloves: Glassy fingers with silver fingernails rose to touch Clara’s face. The boy by her side looked younger than Will, but who could tell how old they were?

“Just a few weeks old,” Spieler said.

Could the Alderelf read all his thoughts?

“You’ve met Sixteen. Seventeen has even more faces than she does, but I thought it might be useful to give him yours as well.”

Jacob pushed the girl away as she reached out to him. Her brother, if he could be called that, didn’t like it, but Spieler shot him a warning glance, and Seventeen’s body turned reflective again until it was as invisible as polished glass. Sixteen did the same, but only after giving Jacob a parting smile from Clara’s lips.

“It’s an interesting place, that hospital where I stole your brother’s bride’s face. A good place to watch Death at work. Mortality is such a mystery.” Spieler pulled a medallion from his pocket. It contained two mirrors, each the size of a clock face. One was clear, the other much darker. “All I had to do was put the medallion on the table in the nurses’ station. You humans love mirrors. You have to constantly make sure you still have the same face. Nothing scares you more than if someone changes it.”

Spieler changed into the man whom Jacob had met in Chicago. Norebo Johann Earlking. “The stunted growth, the green eyes…Oberon, the Elf whose Dwarf-sized body was the result of a Fairy curse. I admit I had expected you to catch that allusion. The name was so obvious. I stole the face from an actor who played Oberon on stage. I’ve always found it entertaining to play with the images your kind has created of us, and of yourselves.”

The Alderelf’s faces came and went. Some were familiar to Jacob; some weren’t. Until he was suddenly looking at a face that for a long time he’d known only from photographs.

Spieler brushed John Reckless’s graying hair from his forehead. “Your mother never noticed the difference. I was very fond of her. Too much, I have to admit. But I fear that I, like your father, failed to make her happy.”

6

A VISITORFOR CLARA

Clara first noticed the girl as she was talking to one of the doctors about a child with an inflamed appendix. The face seemed familiar, but she had too much on her mind to pay close attention to the stranger.

Will had not slept again, and he still didn’t want to talk about what was really keeping him awake. He found excuses, for her and for himself. The moon. Something he ate. A book he’d wanted to finish. He tended to hide worries, wishes, or feelings he was ashamed of from himself and others. It had taken Clara a long time to see that. Her invisible Will. So hard to pin down. Sometimes she imagined a locked room deep in his heart, which even he never entered. Except in his sleep.

But it wasn’t just Will. These past weeks she’d felt quite strange herself. As though someone had been inside her head and had taken something away. The feeling was particularly strong when she looked in the mirror in the morning. Sometimes her own face seemed alien to her, or she felt as though her childhood face, or that of her mother, was looking back at her from the misted glass. She’d started to remember things she hadn’t thought about in years. Her entire past life seemed to be coming back to her, as though someone had stirred up the tea leaves of her memories. She had not told Will, of course, or anyone. What could she say? Someone was inside my head and stole something—a ridiculous diagnosis for a would-be doctor.

Still, she’d been tempted to talk to Jacob about it. It was silly how much she looked forward to seeing him. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t Jacob she missed, but the life he lived and the world he lived in, but it was no good. It pained her that she couldn’t hear enough of the stories Jacob and Fox told her and Will. Didn’t she do everything to avoid reminding Will of the other world? Hadn’t she wished the mirror to hell a thousand times over? And yet far too often she caught herself sneaking into that dusty room when Will was out, staring into the glass as though it could show her the world waiting on the other side like a forbidden fruit. Did Will feel the same? If he did, he didn’t show it.

Clara was sitting at the nurses’ station, finishing some charts the doctors would need the next morning, when the girl she’d noticed before was suddenly standing right in front of her. Clara hadn’t even heard her approach.

“Clara Ferber?” The girl smiled. Clara noticed she was wearing gloves, even though it was a hot day. They were made of pale yellow leather. “I’m to give this to you. From an admirer.”

The girl took a box from her bag. She opened it before offering it to Clara. On a bed of silver fabric lay a brooch in the shape of a moth, the wings fashioned from black lacquer. Clara had never seen a more beautiful thing. Before she knew it, she was holding the brooch in her hand. She could barely resist the temptation to pin it to her scrubs.

“What admirer?” she asked. Will would never buy her anything so expensive. They barely had enough money for their apartment. Will’s mother had left it to her sons, but with a hefty unpaid mortgage.

The pin pricked her finger as she returned the brooch to its box. “I cannot accept this.”