Reckless

51



Bring Him To Me



When Amalie of Austry stepped out of the cathedral, her dress was covered in flowers. The Fairy had made white roses from the blood of the Goyl and red ones from that of the humans. She had turned the stains on the bridegroom's uniform into rubies and moonstones, and the waiting crowd cheered. Some of the onlookers may have wondered why so few of the wedding guests followed the happy couple, and some may even have noticed the fear on the faces of the remaining guests, but the noise on the streets had drowned out the shots from the cathedral, the dead were silent, and the King of the Goyl and his human bride climbed into the golden carriage that had long ago taken Amalie's great-grandmother to her own wedding.



An endless parade of coaches and carriages was waiting in front of the cathedral. The Fairy remained at the top of the steps, like a threat, while the surviving Goyl formed a cordon from which there could be no escape. Not one of the imperial soldiers managing the crowds noticed that the carriages were being filled with hostages and that one of them was their Empress.



She was shaking as Donnersmarck helped her into the carriage. He'd survived the carnage, together with two of her Dwarfs. One of them was Auberon, her favorite. His bearded face was swollen from the stings of the moths. Jacob knew only too well how the Dwarf felt. He was numb himself. Clara wasn't looking any better, and Valiant tripped over his own feet as they descended the steps of the cathedral. Jacob was carrying Fox in his arms so that the Goyl wouldn't chase her away. They were all hostages, human decoration, a camouflaged escort for the Fairy's lover, whose troops were standing by barely a day's march away.



What have you done, Jacob?



He had protected his brother. And Will was alive. His skin was jade, but he lived. Jacob only regretted that he had lost the willow leaves, and, with them, any hope of protecting them from the Fairy. She watched him as he followed Clara and Fox into the carriage. Her anger still burned on Jacob's skin. He had gambled everything on keeping his brother alive, and in the process he'd turned the Empress and with her half of the Mirrorworld into his enemies.



Each coachman was joined by a Goyl before setting off, and as soon as the carriages reached one of the bridges leading out of the city, the drivers were summarily shoved off their boxes. The guards escorting the wedding couple tried to intervene, but the Dark Fairy unleashed her moths, and the Goyl steered the carriages unimpeded across the bridge, and from there into one of the streets on the other side.



A dozen carriages. Forty soldiers. A Fairy protecting the man she loved. A princess who had said "I do" among the dead. And a King who had trusted his enemies and would surely take revenge for their betrayal.



As they rattled along the cobbled streets, Jacob kept repeating to himself: Your brother is alive, Jacob. Nothing else matters. All the while, Valiant was cursing himself for wanting to go to a royal wedding.



Dark clouds drifted across the sky like bad omens as the convoy rumbled through a gate, behind which a group of plain buildings surrounded a wide courtyard. Everyone in Vena knew about the old munitions factory — enough to avoid it. The factory had been abandoned after the river flooded the area a few years earlier, leaving the buildings filled with water and foul-smelling mud. During the last cholera epidemic, the sick had been brought there to die. Not that the Goyl would have been bothered by that. They were immune to most human diseases.



"What are they going to do with us?" Clara whispered as their carriage stopped next to the redbrick wall.



"I don't know," Jacob answered.



Valiant, however, clambered onto the seat and peered out into the deserted yard. "I think I might," he muttered.



Will climbed out of the golden carriage first, followed by the King and his bride. The Goyl pulled their hostages from the other carriages. One of them shoved the Empress back as she tried to reach her daughter, and Donnersmarck quickly drew her to his side.



The Dark Fairy stood alone in the middle of the yard, looking around vigilantly. She was not about to let her beloved stumble into another ambush. Five moths fluttered up from her dress and into the crumbling buildings. Silent spies. Winged death.



The Goyl looked at their King. Forty soldier who had all narrowly escaped death and were now isolated in the heart of their enemies' territory. What now? their faces asked. They struggle to hide their fear under their helpless rage. Kami’en waved three of them to him. They had the alabaster skin of Goyl spies.



"Make sure the tunnel is safe." The King's voice sounded relaxed. If he was afraid, he managed to hide it better than his soldiers.



"I bet you my gold tree I know where they're trying to go," Valiant whispered as the three alabaster Goyl vanished between the buildings. "One of our more dim-witted ministers built a tunnel from here to Vena some years ago because he didn't believe there was a future in trains. The tunnel was to supply this factory. I did hear rumors that the Goyl connected it with their western fortress and that their spies like to use it."



A tunnel. Back underground, Jacob. If they didn't shoot their hostages first.



The Goyl were herding the prisoners together. Jacob leaned down to grab Fox before she could get lost between all the shuffling feet, but one of the Goyl pulled him roughly out of the crowd. Jasper and amethyst. Nesser. Jacob remembered all too well how she had put the scorpions on his chest. Fox wanted to jump after him, but Clara quickly lifted the vixen into her arms as the She-Goyl cocked her pistol.



"Hentzau's more dead than alive!" she hissed at Jacob as she led him away. "Why are you still breathing?"



She shoved him across the courtyard, past the King, who was standing with Will by the carriages and was conferring with the two Goyl officers who had survived the carnage. They did not have much time. By now someone had surely found the dead in the cathedral.



The Dark Fairy was standing at the bottom of a flight of steps that led down to the river. The stone arm of a jetty reached out into the water, which the refuse of the city covered like a grimy skin, but the Fairy was looking across the river as if she could see the lilies among which she had been born. She's going to kill you, Jacob.



"Leave me alone with him, Nesser," she said.



The She-Goyl hesitated, but then she left, giving Jacob one last scathing look.



The Fairy rubbed her white arms. Jacob saw traces of bark on her wrist. "You gambled everything, and you lost."



"My brother is the one who lost."



He was so tired. How was she going to kill him? With her moths? With some curse?



The Fairy looked up at Will. More than ever, he and the King seemed to belong together.



"He was everything I hoped for," she said. "Look at him. All that petrified flesh, sown just for him."



She brushed some bark off her arm.



"I will give him back to you," she said. "But I have one condition: that you take him away from here, far, far away. So far that I won't be able to find him. For if I do, I will kill him."



He was dreaming. Yes. He must be. Some kind of fevered hallucination. He was probably still lying in the cathedral, her moths pumping venom into his skin.



"Why?" He barely even managed to say that one word.



Why are you asking her, Jacob? Do you really want to know if this is a dream? If it is, it's a good one. She's giving you your brother back.



The Fairy didn't answer him right anyway.