Trapped
When Jacob rode into the gorge through which he had once before entered the valley of the Fairies, he felt as if her were riding into his own past. Nothing seemed to have changed in three years: the creek running along the bottom, the spruces clawing into the slopes, the silence between the rocks... Only his shoulder reminded him of how much had happened since. It still felt as if the Tailor was stitching seams through his skin.
Valiant was sitting in front of him. He kept turning, clearly delighted at how awful Jacob was feeling.
"Oh, you really look terrible, Reckless!" he observed for the umpteenth time, with undisguised glee. "That poor girl is staring at you again. She's probably terrified you'll fall off your horse before her boyfriend can get his skin back. Don't you worry, though. After you're dead and your brother has turned into a Goyl, I'll console her. I'm quite partial to human women."
It had been like that ever since they set out, but Jacob was too dazed by the fever to reply. Even the words Will had said to him in the cave no longer penetrated his agony, and by now he longed for the healing air of the Fairy's realm as much for his own sake as for his brother's.
Not far now, Jacob. You just have to get through the gorge, and then you're in their valley.
Clara was riding right behind him. Every now and then, Will rode up next to her, as if trying to make her forget what had happened in the cave. Love and fear were battling each other on her face. But she rode on. Like him. Like Will.
And the Dwarf could still betray them all.
The sun was already standing quite low, and the shadows between the rocks were growing. The foaming creek along which they rode was so dark it looked like it was carrying the night into the gorge, and they had not gotten very far when Will suddenly reined in his horse.
"What is it?" Valiant asked anxiously.
"There are Goyl here." There was not a trace of doubt in Will's voice.
"Goyl?" Valiant cast a malicious glance at Jacob. "Excellent. I get on great with the Goyl."
Jacob put his hand on the Dwarf's mouth. He slackened the mare's reins and listened, but the rush of the water drowned out all other sounds. "Act as if we're watering the horses," he whispered to Clara and Will.
"I smell them, too!" Fox hissed. "Dead ahead."
"But why are they hiding?" Will shuddered, like an animal catching the scent of its pride.
Valiant looked at him as if he saw him for the first time. Then he spun around so abruptly that he nearly fell off the horse.
"You cunning dog!" he hissed at Jacob. "What's the color of the stone in your skin? Green, right?"
"So what?"
"So what? Don't take me for a fool! It's jade. The Goyl are offering two pounds of red moonstone for him. Your brother, indeed! Don't make me laugh!" The Dwarf gave him a conspiratorial wink. "You found him — just like you found the glass slipper and the wishing table. But why are you taking him to the Fairies?"
Jade.
Jacob stared at Will's pale green skin. He had, of course, heard the stories. The Goyl King and his invincible bodyguard. Chanute had once fantasized about finding him and selling him to the Empress. But they couldn't seriously think his brother was the Jade Goyl.
He could see the mist-shrouded valley at the end of the gorge. So close.
"Let's take him to one of their fortresses and split the reward!" Valiant hissed again. "If they capture him here, they won't give us anything for him."
But Jacob ignored him.
He saw Will shudder.
"Is there another way into the valley?" Jacob asked the Dwarf.
"Sure," Valiant replied with a smirk, "if you think your so-called brother has time to go the long way around... not to mention yourself."
Will looked around like a caged animal.
Clara steered her horse next to Jacob's. "Get him away from here!" she whispered. "Please!"
But then what?