"He didn't say!" Threefingers stammered.
Hentzau nodded to the only She-Goyl in his squad. He didn't enjoy striking human flesh. He could kill them, yes, but he avoided touching them. Nesser had no such qualms.
She kicked Threefingers in the face, and Hentzau gave her a look of warning. Her sister had been killed by humans, and so Nesser tended to overdo it. For a brief moment, Nesser held his gaze, full of defiance, but then she lowered her head. Hatred had by now engulfed them all like slime.
"He didn't say," Threefingers stammered again. "I swear."
His flesh was as pale and as soft as a snail's. Hentzau turned away in disgust. He was certain they had told him all they knew, and it was because of them that the Jade Goyl had gotten away.
"Shoot them!" he ordered, and went outside.
The shots sounded strange in the silence, like something that didn't belong in this world. Guns, steam engines, trains; to Hentzau it still all felt unnatural. He was getting old — that was the trouble. The sunlight had clouded his eyes, and his hearing had been so damaged by all the battle noise that Nesser had to raise her voice whenever she addressed him. Kami’en acted as if he didn't notice. But the Dark Fairy would make sure everybody else knew — as soon as she found out that a bunch of plunderers had made him lose the Jade Goyl.
Hentzau could still picture him standing there. The face, half Goyl, half human, the skin suffused with their holiest of stones. He wasn't the Jade Goyl. He couldn't be. He was as fake as one of those wooden fetishes, covered with gold leaf and sold to old women as solid gold. "Behold, the Jade Goyl has come to make our King invincible. But don't cut too deep, or you will find human flesh." Yes, that's what it was. Nothing but another attempt by the Fairy to make herself indispensable.
Hentzau squinted into the gathering night. Even the darkness turned to jade.
What if you're wrong, Hentzau? What if he is the real thing? What if your King's destiny depends on him? And he had let him get away.
When the scout finally returned, even Hentzau's dimmed eyes could see from his face that he had lost the trail. Once he would have killed the scout on the spot, but he'd learned to control the rage that lurked in all of them, although not half as well as his King.
That meant all he had to go on was what Threefingers had said about the Red Fairy. He would have to swallow his pride once more and send a messenger to the Dark Fairy to ask her for directions. The prospect pained him more than the cold night air.
"You will find me their tracks!" he barked at the scout. "As soon as it gets light. Three horses and a fox. Can't be that hard!"
He was just asking himself whom he should send to the Dark Fairy, when Nesser approached him. She was just thirteen years old. At that age Goyl were fully grown, but most of them didn't join the army until they were at least fourteen. Nesser was not very good with the saber, nor was she a particularly good shot, but her courage more than made up for those shortcomings. At her age, fear was an unfamiliar concept; you felt immortal, even without the blood of a Fairy coursing through your veins. Hentzau remembered the feeling all too well.
"Commander?"
He loved the reverence in her young voice. It was still the best antidote for the doubts the Dark Fairy had sown in him.
"What?"
"I know how to get to the Fairies. Not the island... but to the valley from where it can be reached."
"Is that so?" Hentzau did not show his relief. He was fond of the girl, and that made him even more strict with her. Like his own skin, Nesser's resembled brown jasper, thought, as in all Goyl females, hers was suffused with amethyst.
"I was part of the escort the King sends with the Fairy when she goes traveling. I accompanied her on her last visit to her sisters. She left us to wait for her at the entrance to the valley, but..."
This was too good to be true. He would not have to beg for help. And nobody would need to know that the Jade Goyl had eluded him. Hentzau clenched his fist, but Nesser saw only his impassive face.
"All right," he said, his tone studiously uninterested. "Tell the scout you'll be leading the way from now on. But you'd better not get us lost."
"I won't, Commander!" Nesser's golden eyes glistened with confidence as she quickly walked away.
Hentzau just stared down the unpaved road in the direction the Jade Goyl had escaped. One of the looters had claimed that the brother was injured, and they would have to stop somewhere to sleep. Hentzau could go for days without sleep. He would be waiting for them.
16
Not Ever
It was still dark when Jacob made them break camp. He desperately needed sleep, but not even Fox could convince him to rest longer, and Clara had to admit that she was glad to get away from all those sleeping dead.
It was a clear night. Black velvet, studded with stars. The trees and hills like silhouettes, and Will beside her but only seemingly close. So familiar and yet so strange.
Clara looked across at him, and he smiled back as his eyes met hers. But it was a mere shadow of the smile she knew. It had always been so easy to get a smile from him. Will gave love so freely. And it was so easy to love him back. Nothing had ever been as easy. She didn't want to lose him, but the world around her whispered, "He belongs to me." And they were riding deeper and deeper into it, as if they needed to find its heart to make it release his brother again.
Let him go!