Reckless

"Yes. Awful." Valiant gave her a theatrical smile of sympathy. "Once you've drunk from it, you happily jump on even the ugliest girl. Doesn't really work on Dwarfs. Pity it was he, not I," he added with a sardonic glance at Jacob.



"How long will it last?" Clara's voice was barely audible.



"Some say it wears off after one attack. But there are those who believe it lasts for months. The Witches" — Valiant gave Jacob a salacious smile — "believe it only brings out what's already in your heart."



"You seem to know a lot about Larks' Water. Do you bottle the stuff and sell it?" Jacob barked at the Dwarf.



Valiant shrugged regretfully. "It doesn't keep. And the effect is too unpredictable. Shame. Can you imagine what a fantastic business that would be?"



Jacob felt Clara's eyes on him, but she turned her head away when he looked at her. He still felt her skin under his fingers.



Stop it, Jacob.



"Did you find the entrance?" he asked Fox.



"Yes." She turned her back on him. "It reeks of death."



"Nonsense." Valiant waved his hand dismissively. "It's a natural tunnel that leads to one of their underground roads. Most of them are well guarded these days, but this one's fairly safe."



"Fairly safe?" Jacob could feel the scars on his back. "And how do you know about it?"



Valiant rolled his eyes, despairing of such distrust. "Their King has banned the trade in a number of very popular semiprecious stones. Fortunately, some of his subjects are still as interested as I in a healthy trade."



"I'm telling you, it smells of death." Fox's voice sounded even more hoarse than usual.



"You're welcome to try the main entrance!" Valiant sneered. "Maybe Jacob Reckless can become the first human to saunter into the King's fortress without ending up cast in amber."



Clara his her hands behind her back as if she could make them forget whom they'd touched.



Jacob avoided looking at her. He reloaded his pistol and fetched a few things from his saddlebags: the snuffbox, the green glass vial, the looking glass, and Chanute's knife. Then he filled his pockets with bullets.



Fox was sitting under the bushes. As Jacob approached her, she cowered, as she'd done when he first found her caught in the trap.



"Keep a lookout for Goyl patrols," he said. "Better hide the horses between the rocks. And if I'm not back by tomorrow evening, you take her back to the tower."



Her. He didn't even dare say her name.



"I don't want to stay with her."



"Please, Fox."



"You won't come back. Not this time."



She bared her fangs, but she didn't bite. Her bites had always carried love.



"Reckless." The Dwarf poked him impatiently in the back with the butt of his rifle. "I thought you were in a hurry."



Valiant had refashioned the rifle into a rather bizarre weapon. There were rumors that in Dwarf hands, metal could even grow roots.



Jacob got up.



Clara was till standing by the stream. She turned away as he approached, but Jacob pulled her with him. Away from the Dwarf. Away from Fox and her anger.



"Look at me."



She wanted to free herself, but he held on to her, even though it set his heart racing once again.



"It meant nothing, Clara! Nothing!"



Her eyes were dark with shame.



"You love Will. Do you hear me? If you forget that, we can't help him. Nobody can."



She nodded, but in her eyes he saw the same madness he still felt himself. How long would it last?



He took her hands. "You wanted to know what I'm planning to do. I'm going to find the Dark Fairy and get her to give Will his skin back."



He saw the shock in her eyes and put his finger on her lips. "Fox can't know about this," he whispered. "She'll just try to follow me. But I swear to you, I will find her, you will wake Will, and everything will be okay."



He wanted to hold her. He'd never wanted anything so badly. But he let go.



Jacob didn't look back as he followed the Dwarf into the night. And Fox did not come after him.



35



In The Earth's Womb



Fox had been right. The cave Valiant led Jacob to smelled of death, and you didn't need a vixen's delicate nose to detect it. Jacob took just one glance inside and knew immediately what creature dwelled there. The floor was littered with bones. Ogres dwelled surrounded by their leftovers and, contrary to popular belief, not only ate humans but also gorged themselves on Dwarfs and Goyl. Items strewn among the bones hinted at the people who had died here; a pocket watch; the torn sleeve of a dress; a child's shoe, heart-wrenchingly small; a notebook, the writing rendered illegible by dried blood.



Jacob's first instinct was to return and warn Clara, but Valiant made him go on. "Don't worry," he whispered. "The Goyl took care of all the Ogres around here a long time ago. But, lucky for us, they never found this tunnel."



The crack in the rock through which Valiant disappeared was wide enough for a Dwarf, but Jacob had to squeeze himself through it. The tunnel was so low that he could barely walk upright through the first few yards, and soon it descended quite steeply. Jacob had trouble breathing in the confined space and was very relieved when they finally came upon one of the underground roads that connected the Goyl fortresses. It was as wide as a human road and paved with fluorescent stones, which glowed when Valiant shone the flashlight on them. Jacob thought he could hear machines and a constant hum, like the sound of a swarm of wasps in an orchard.



"What is that?" he asked the Dwarf, in a lowered voice.



"Insects. They clean the Goyls' sewage. Goyl cities smell much better than ours." Valiant pulled a pen from his pocket. "Bend down! It's time for your slave mark. P for Prussan," he whispered, drawing the Goyl letter onto Jacob's forehead. "That's your owner's name, should anybody ask you. He's a merchant I do business with. Come to think of it, Prussan's slaves are much cleaner than you, and they definitely don't wear weapons belts. You'd better give that to me."



"No, thanks," Jacob hissed back, buttoning his coat over the belt. "If they stop me, I'd rather not have to rely on you."



The next road they came to was as wide as the grand boulevards of the Empress's capital. This one, however, was lined not with trees but with walls of solid rock. As Valiant pointed the flashlight at them, faces emerged from the darkness. Jacob had always thought it was a myth that the Goyl honored their heroes by cutting off their heads and building them into the walls of their cities. But like all such stories, this one clearly had a grain of very dark truth to it. Staring down at them were hundreds of heads, set side by side, like monstrous flagstones. The faces were, as with all Goyl, unchanged by death, except that the decayed eyes had been replaced with golden topaz.



Valiant didn't stay on the Boulevard of the Dead for long. Instead, he chose tunnels that were narrow, like mountain roads, and that led farther into the depths. More and more often, Jacob saw dim lights at the end of some passage. He felt the activity of machinery like a subtle vibration on his skin. A few times they heard the sound of hooves or wheels approaching, but they always found dark nooks where they could hide in thickets of stalagmites or behind curtains of dripstone.