Reckless (Free Preview) (29 page)

Donnersmarck
knew all that as well, but it was so much easier to blame the Fairy.
 
He struggled to his feet and walked to the
window.

"Every
evening just after sunset she walks in the palace gardens.
 
Kami’en has them searched beforehand, of
course, but his men aren't very thorough.
 
They know there's no one who can harm her."

He turned to
Jacob.

"What if
nothing can help your brother?
 
What if
he stays like them?"

"One of
them will soon be married to your Empress's daughter."

Donnersmarck
didn't reply to that.
 
There were voices
in the corridor.
 
He waited until they'd
receded.

"As soon
as it gets dark, I will send you two men.
 
They will take you to the gardens."

He hobbled
past Jacob to the door.
 
At the door he
stopped again.
 
"Did I ever show
this to you?"
 
He stroked one of the
medals on his chest, a star with the Empress's crest in the center.
 
"They gave me this after we found the
glass slipper.
 
After
you
found the glass slipper."

He looked at
Jacob.

"I came
here in my uniform, and I hope you're aware of what that means.
 
But I call myself your friend, thought I know
you don't like to use that word.
 
Whatever it is you know about the Dark Fairy, this is suicide.
 
You ran out on her sister and got away with
it, but this one is different.
 
She's
more dangerous than anything you've ever encountered.
 
Just go and find the hourglass, or the Tree
of Life, the Fire Horse, or a Man-Swan.
 
Anything.
 
Send me
back to the palace to convey the message that you've changed your mind.
 
Make peace!
 
As we all should."

Jacob saw a
warning in his eyes, and a pledge, but still he shook his head.

"I'll be
here at dusk."

"Of
course you will."
 
Donnersmarck
smiled wearily.
 
And then he was gone.

46

The Dark Sister

An hour had
passed since sunset, but there were still no footsteps in the corridor.
 
Jacob was beginning to suspect that
Donnersmarck was trying to protect him from himself, when he finally heard a
knock on his door.
 
There were no
imperial guards, however, but a woman.

Jacob barely
recognized Fox.
 
She was wearing a black
coat over her dress, and her red hair was pinned up.

Clara wanted
to see your brother one last time."
 
Her voice sounded not of brightly lit streets but more of the forest and
the fur of the vixen.
 
"She
convinced the Dwarf to take her to the wedding tomorrow."

She smoothed
her coat.
 
"Looks silly, doesn't
it?"

Jacob pulled
her into the room and closed the door.

"Why
didn't you talk Clara out of it?"

"Why
should I?"

He flinched as
she touched his injured arm.

"What
happened?"

"Nothing."

"Clara
says you went to find the Dark Fairy.
 
Jacob?"
 
She took his face
between her hands.
 
Such
slender hands, those of a girl.
 
"Is that true?"

Her brown eyes
looked straight into his heart.
 
Fox always
sensed when he was lying, butt his time he had to manage to deceive her, or she
would follow him, and Jacob knew he could forgive himself for a lot of things,
but not for losing her.

"Yes, I
was going to," he said, "but I saw Will.
 
You were right.
 
It's over."

Believe me, Fox.
 
Please.

Another knock.
 
This
time it was Donnersmarck's men.

"Jacob Reckless?"
 
The two soldiers standing in the doorway were barely older than Will.

Jacob pulled
Fox with him out into the corridor.
 
"I'm getting drunk with Donnersmarck.
 
If you want to go with Clara to the wedding
tomorrow, fine, but I am taking the first train back to Schwanstein."

Her eyes went
from him to the two soldiers.
 
The Fairy
was probably already in the palace gardens.

She didn't
believe him; Jacob saw it in her face.
 
How could she?
 
Nobody knew him
better, not even
he
himself.
 
She looked so vulnerable in her human
clothes, but she would try to come with him, whatever he said.

Fox didn't say
a word as they followed the soldiers to the elevator.
 
She was still upset about the Larks'
Water.
 
And now she was about to get even
angrier.

"You
don't look at all silly in that coat," he said as they waited for the
elevator.
 
"You look beautiful.
 
But I still wish you hadn't come."

"She
cannot follow me," he said to the soldiers.
 
"I need one of you to stay with her to
make sure of that."

Fox tried to
shift her shape, but Jacob quickly grabbed her arm.
 
Skin on skin kept the fur at bay.
 
She tried desperately to wriggle free, but
Jacob didn't let go.
 
He pressed his room
key into the hand of one of the soldiers.
 
Despite his boyish face, he was as broad as a wardrobe.
 
He should be able to keep an eye on her.

"Make
sure she doesn't leave the room before the morning," Jacob told him.
 
"And be careful.
 
She's a shape-shifter."

The soldier
didn't look too happy about his task, but he nodded and took Fox's arm.
 
The despair in her eyes was painful, but
losing her would have hurt much more.

"She will
kill you!"
 
Her eyes were drowning
in tears and anger.

"Maybe,"
Jacob replied.
 
"But it won't make
it any better if she does the same to you."

The soldier
dragged her back to the room.
 
She fought
like a vixen, and before they reached the door she nearly broke free.

"Jacob!
 
Don't go!"

He could still
hear her voice as the elevator opened into the lobby.
 
For one moment he actually wanted to go back
up, just to wipe the anger and fear from her face.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The other
soldier was clearly relieved that Jacob hadn't picked him to look after
Fox.
 
On their way to the palace, Jacob
learned that he came from a village in the south, that he still thought his
life as a soldier was exciting, and that he obviously had no idea whom Jacob
was hoping to find in the imperial gardens.

The large gate
on the rear side of the palace was open to the public only once a year.
 
His guide took forever opening the lock.
 
Jacob once again missed his magic key and all
the other items he had lost in the fortress of the Goyl.
 
The soldier chained the gate again as soon as
Jacob had slipped past him.
 
Then he took
up his position with his back to the gate.
 
Donnersmarck, of course, would want to know whether Jacob ever came out
again.

The sounds of
the city could be heard in the distance — the horses and carriages, the
drunkards, the street vendors, and the calls of the night watchmen — but in the
Empress's garden, fountains gurgled peacefully, and from the trees came the
songs of the artificial nightingales — which Therese had gotten for her last
birthday form one of her sisters.
 
A few
of the palace windows still had light behind them.
 
The stairs and balconies, however, were
eerily quiet for the eve of an imperial wedding.
 
Jacob tried not to think about where Will
was.

It was a cold
night, and his boots left dark prints on the frost-glazed lawn, but the grass
absorbed the sound of his steps better than the gravel paths did.
 
Jacob didn't have to look for the Dark
Fairy's footprints.
 
He knew where she'd
gone.
 
The centerpiece of the imperial
gardens was a pond, which was as densely covered with water lilies as the Fairy
lake
.
 
And here,
too, there were willow trees leaning out over the dark water.

The Fairy was
standing by the shore, the light of the stars on her hair.
 
The two moons caressed her skin, and Jacob
felt his hatred drown in her beauty, but the memory of Will's stone face
quickly brought it back.

She spun
around as she heard his steps approaching, and he pulled open his black coat,
exposing the white shirt beneath, just as her sister had instructed him.
 
"White as snow.
 
Red as blood.
 
Black as ebony."
 
One color was missing.

The Dark Fairy
swiftly unfastened her hair, but as the moths emerged, Jacob pulled the blade
of his knife across his arm.
 
He smeared
blood onto his white shirt, and the moths tumbled down as if he'd singed their
wings.

"White,
red, black..." he said, wiping the blade clean on his sleeve.
 
"Snow-White colors.
 
That's what my brother used to call
them.
 
He liked that story a lot, but who
would've thought they had such power?"

"How do
you know about the colors?"
 
The
Fairy took a step back.

"Your
sister told me."

"She
thanks you for abandoning her by telling you our secrets?"

Don't look at her, Jacob.
 
She's too beautiful
.

The Fairy
slipped off her shoes and walked toward the water.
 
Jacob felt her power as clearly as the cold
night air.

"It seems
what you did is even harder to forgive," he said.

"Yes,
they are still offended because I left them."
 
She laughed quietly.
 
The moths slid back into her hair.
 
"Still, I can't imagine what my sister
thought she'd gain by telling you about the three colors.
 
It's not that I need my moths to kill
you."

She took a
step back.
 
The water of the pond closed
over her naked feet.
 
The night began to
whir, as if she were turning the air itself into black water.

Jacob could
barely breathe.

"I want
my brother back."

"Why?
 
I simply made him what he was meant to
be."
 
The Fairy brushed her hand
through her shimmering hair.
 
"Do
you want to know what I think?
 
I think
my sister is still too much in love with you to kill you herself.
 
So she sent you to me."

He felt her
beauty washing away everything, the hatred that had brought him here, the love
for his brother, and himself.
 
Do not look at her, Jacob!
 
He clutched his injured arm so that the pain
would protect him.
 
The wound caused by
his brother's sword.
 
He squeezed it so
hard that blood began to run over his hand, and he remembered.
 
Will's face distorted into hatred.
 
His lost brother.

The Dark Fairy
stepped toward him.

Yes.
 
Closer.

"Are you
really so arrogant as to believe that you could come here and make demands of
me?" she said, stopping right in front of him.
 
"Did you really think that just because
one Fairy couldn't resist you, we're all doomed to fall for you?"

"No, it's
not that," Jacob said.

Her eyes
widened as he touched her white arm.
 
The
night began to weave a web around his mouth, but Jacob uttered her name before
she could silence his tongue.

The Dark Fairy
pushed him from her and raised her hands, as though she could still fend off
the fatal syllables.
 
But her fingers
were already transforming into twigs, and her feet were pushing roots into the
soil.
 
Her hair turned to leaves, and her
skin to bark, and her cry sounded like the wind rushing through the branches of
a willow.

"It is a
beautiful name," Jacob said, stepping under the hanging branches.
 
"Such a pity it may only be uttered in
your realm.
 
Did you ever tell it to your
lover?"

The willow
groaned, and its trunk bent over the pond, weeping over its own reflection.

"You gave
my brother a skin of stone, and I give you a skin of bark.
 
Sounds like a fair trade, don't you
think?"
 
Jacob buttoned his coat
over the bloody shirt.
 
"Now I'm
going to go and look for Will.
 
And if I
find that his skin is made of jade, I'll come back and set a fire to your
roots."