“Look at that. It’s all so primitive. Nothing but dirt and decay. The other world is so much better.”
“The other world?”
Nerron forgot about the crossbow. His revenge. The Pup.
“Yes. You’ve never been?” A fly was stupid enough to land on Seventeen’s brow. His hand caught it as quickly as a toad’s tongue.
“Show me how to get there and I’ll find the Dark Fairy for you.” Nerron hated the obvious longing in his voice. Another world. His greatest desire, for as long as he could remember. And the reason why Jacob Reckless had been able to steal from him. Because of his silly boyhood dream.
Seventeen had noticed. Pull yourself together, Nerron.
“It’s behind the mirror, right?” At least he had his voice under control again.
“Yes.” Seventeen opened his hand. The fly was now silver. “You said you’re different on the inside. What about your soul? Sixteen is worried she doesn’t have one. Do you have one?”
This was getting better and better.
“Admit it, you don’t know.” Seventeen dropped the fly in the grass. “Because there’s no such thing as a soul. I keep telling her, but she won’t believe me.”
He listened into the night as though the wind were whispering a message. Then he turned to black glass.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Watch out for Sixteen. She has quite a temper.”
Then he was gone. Or was he? Nerron couldn’t be sure. He stared into the night, but his eyes found nothing. He bent down and picked up the silver fly. The frozen insect was so perfect it would have made any silversmith give up his trade in shame. Nerron threw it in the dwindling fire.
“Watch out for Sixteen.”
He hesitated, but then he went to the hut.
***
Nerron was used to his skin making him invisible, but Sixteen immediately looked up as he stepped through the door.
She was kneeling next to Will.
“I thought my brother killed you. He likes to kill.”
Brother. Nerron doubted very much that these two had come from a mother’s womb.
Sixteen’s silver fingernails were sheathed in leather gloves. She touched Will’s face.
Eyes of glass.
“Your…brother and I have an arrangement.”
She just looked at him. Nerron felt like he was talking to a knife. A perfectly wrought dagger in a scabbard of colored glass.
She leaned over Will. She eyed him like a cat eyes a bowl of milk. “It’s too bad. I’m supposed to show him only her face. But I have so many that are much prettier.”
The face she was wearing now was so beautiful it made him forget her silver fingernails.
“Go,” she said. “I want to be alone with him.”
Nerron decided to heed Seventeen’s warning. He turned around in the doorway and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Sixteen lean down to kiss Will. The Pup was going to have pleasant dreams.
War
Three days. The mountains on the horizon were already part of Ukraina, and Fox and Jacob still hadn’t caught up with Will. Fox had found what she suspected were Will’s and the Bastard’s tracks, hidden among many others on the unpaved road, and they’d been less than twenty-four hours old.