Reckless (Mirrorworld 1)

"Fox thought you'd forgotten about us." Will stepped out from under the willows, and for an instant Jacob thought he'd stayed too long on the island. The jade had darkened. It merged with the green of the trees. The world behind the mirror had finally turned Will into a part of it. It had sown its seed in his flesh, and now it stared at Jacob with golden eyes, gripping his brother in its fangs. But he would free him with the same weapon the Mirrorworld had used against him: the words of a Fairy.

"We have to find a rose," Jacob said.

"A rose? That's it?" The jade face was impassive. So familiar and yet so strange.

"Yes, it grows not far from here." And then, brother, you will sleep, and I'll have to find the Dark Fairy.

"You can't just make it disappear." The way Will looked at him! As if he'd forgotten and yet remembered everything that had driven them apart.

"Can't I?" Jacob replied. "I know that she can help you. Just do what I tell you, and everything will be all right."

Fox wouldn't take her eyes off him. They were saying, What are you trying to do, Jacob Reckless? You are scared.

So what, Fox? he wanted to reply. It's a feeling I've gotten quite used to by now.

29

In The Heart

They rode northward along the lakeshore. Time drowned in the scent of the blossoms, in the light breaking on the water, and for the first time Clara felt ready to forgive this world for all the fear and all the gloom. Everything would be all right. Everything.

Jacob soon turned his back to the lake. The horses sank deep into the vines of the brambles and the fronds of the ferns. Above them the leaves were again turning yellow. A cool wind rushed through the branches, and beyond the trees Clara could already see the valley where the Unicorns grazed. They were still far, barely visible in the mist that hung between the mountains. But their dead kin lay at Clara's feet in the yellow grass.

Their skeletons were everywhere, moss and grass between their ribs, spiderwebs spanning their hollow eye sockets, the white horns still on their bare-boned foreheads. The Unicorns' graveyard. Maybe they came her to die because it was easier under the canopy of the branches, or because in death they sough to be near the Fairies. Vines with tiny white blossoms wove their tendrils through the bleached bones, like a final salute from the Fairies to their faithful guards.

Jacob dismounted and approached one of the skeletons. A single red rose was growing out of its chest.

"Will, come here." He waved his brother to his side.

Fox ran under the trees and peered toward the Unicorns, her muzzle raised in the breeze.

"I smell Goyl."

"So? Will's right behind you." Jacob turned his back to the valley. "Pick the rose, Will."

Will put out his hand — and drew it back again. He looked at his jade-green fingers. Then he looked at Clara, searching her face for the one he had once been.

Please, Will. She didn't say it, but she thought it, again and again. Do what your brother says! And here, among the flowers and the dead, for one precious moment, he looked at her as he once used to. All will be well.

He picked the rose, and Clara heard the woody stem snap. One of its thorns pricked his finger, and Will looked in surprise at the pale amber blood oozing from his petrified skin.

He dropped the rose and rubbed his forehead.

"What is this?" he said, faltering and looking at his brother. "What have you done?"

Clara reached out to him, but Will flinched away from her, stumbling over one of the skeletons. The bones cracked like rotten wood under his boots.

"Will, listen!" Jacob grabbed his arm. "You have to sleep. I need more time. When you wake up, all this will be over. I promise."

But Will shoved him away with such violence that Jacob staggered back, out of the shelter of the trees into the open expanse of the autumnal meadow.

"Jacob!" Fox yelped. "Come back under the trees!"

The image would stay with Clara forever. Jacob, looking back. And then the gunshot.

Such a sharp sound. Like wood splintering.

The bullet struck Jacob's chest.