Reckless (Mirrorworld 1)

He felt a searing impatience, as if death had only increased his old restlessness.

Ride, Jacob. Onward, just as you've done for years. The wind drove into the flames, and he buttoned his coat over his bloody shirt.

"Jacob?"

Clara was standing behind him. She had wrapped a horse blanket around her shoulders, and he noticed that her hair had grown longer.

"How are you feeling?" In her voice Jacob still heard the disbelief that he was actually alive.

"Fine," he answered. "Would you like to check my pulse? Just to make sure?"

She had to smile, but the concern in her eyes remained.

An owl was screaming above them. In this world, owls were regarded as the souls of dead Witches. Clara knelt next to him on the cold earth and held her hands above the warming flames.

"Do you still think we can help Will?"

She looked terribly tired.

"Yes," he said. "And trust me, you don't want to know more than that. It would just scare you."

When she looked at him, her eyes were as blue as Will's. Before they had been drowned in gold.

"Is that the reason you didn't tell Will why he had to pick that rose?" The wind blew sparks into her hair. "I think your brother knows more about fear than you do."

Words. Nothing more. But they turned the night into dark glass in which Jacob saw himself.

"I know why you're here." Clara's voice sounded distant, as though she were speaking not about him but about herself. "This world doesn't frighten you half as much as the other one. You have nothing and nobody to lose here. Except Fox, and she clearly worries more about you than you do about her. You've left all that could frighten you in the other world. But then Will came here and brought it all with him."

She got up again and wiped the earth off her knees.

"Whatever you're planning, please be careful. Getting yourself killed for Will won't make up for anything. But if there is a way, any way, to turn him back into who he was, then let me help! Even if you think it'll frighten me. You're not the only one who doesn't want to lose him. Why else would I still be here?"

;Three brothers."

Fox rubbed her head against Jacob's lifeless hand. A last moth rose from his chest. Suddenly she flinched. His body shuddered — his lips gasped for air, and his hands clawed into the grass.

Jacob!

Fox impulsively jumped on his chest, causing him to groan with pain.

No grave. No damp soil on his face! She bit his chin and his cheeks. Oh, she just wanted to eat him up with love.

"Fox. What are you doing?" He grabbed her and sat up.

Clara backed away from him as if from a ghost. The Dwarf dropped his shovel.

But Jacob sat there and looked at his bloody shirt.

"Whose blood is this?"

"Yours!" Fox nestled against his chest to feel his heartbeat. "The Goyl shot you."

Jacob looked at her incredulously. Then he unbuttoned his blood-soaked shirt. But instead of a wound, there was only the pale red imprint of a moth on the skin above his heart.

"You were dead, Jacob." Clara struggled with the words, as if her tongue had to search for every syllable. "Dead."

Jacob touched the mark on his chest. He wasn't all there yet; Fox could see it in his eyes. But finally he looked around.