The Golden Yarn (Mirrorworld 3)

Fly, carpet, fly!”

The carpet rose as gently as Jacob’s voice had coaxed it. Not even the horses shied as it left the ground, rising higher and higher. The night swallowed Ludmilla and the Wolfling below, Chanute and Sylvain...and the dead in the Ghost Garden.

Orlando stretched out on the carpet and closed his eyes. He was already asleep when they left Moskva’s lights behind, and Brunel spared no glance for the stars, which would have told him Jacob wasn’t steering the carpet toward Albion.

The Wrong Dead

For Hentzau, there was no clearer proof that humans were a thoroughly absurd species than their graveyards. Burying their rotting bodies in wooden boxes that would then rot along with them, while erecting stones and statues on top to bemoan the transience of all flesh, truly was absurd. The Goyl had so much more dignity in death. The boulevards beneath the earth, lined with the heads of their heroes, unchanged, stone in death as in life. The rest of their bodies left behind wherever death had found them, so they could again become one with the rocks and the earth that had borne them... Now, that was how to end it.

Hentzau saw his own uneasiness reflected on the faces of his soldiers as they entered the cemetery from where, according to the icon painter, Brunel’s liberators were planning to sneak him out of Moskva. Why this cemetery of all places, Tchiourak hadn’t been able to explain, but he’d sworn that the Wolfling, who was in charge of the whole operation, had mentioned this cemetery several times.

Hentzau suspected an underground escape route—a natural assumption for a Goyl—or a carriage sent by the Albian secret service. An automobile would have been too conspicuous. Yet all they’d found were graves.

They’d already been hiding for two hours behind the amateurishly hewn stones and sentimental statues that would’ve made every Goyl sculptor destroy them in shame. Finally, a white dove settled on one of the gravestones. Tied to her leg was one of the gold capsules the Moskovites used to invite each other to balls and dinners.

Nesser caught the dove and brought the capsule to Hentzau.

The message inside was written in Goyl:

The painter didnt know better. He is a gullible man and as clumsy in his spycraft as he is with his brushes. Leave him alive. Better luck next time, Lieutenant Hentzau.

L. A.

The basement workshop was, of course, empty, except for the trembling, useless icon painter.

Hentzau left him alive, though Ashamed Tchiourak couldn’t even tell him who L.A. was.

Lying Mountains

Onyx skin offered little help in staying undetected when there was nothing for miles but grass. Nerron wished he had Seventeen’s mirror skin. He only dared follow the Pup within eyeshot during the night. The boy seemed to need as little sleep as a Goyl. He is a Goyl, Nerron, even if he looks like a glass of milk. All those days and nights of him playing nanny—forgotten. Betrayed by both brothers... But why was he more willing to forgive this one? Why was he still riding after the Pup even though the mere thought of his mirrored guardians sent silver shudders down his spine?

Ah, to hell with the why.

“Ah, the mirrors. Believe me, you’ll never see them, or those who are waiting on the other side.”

Really? He wanted what was his. He’d been cheated out of his loot too many times these past months.

Around him the grass finally began to give way to stone. Mountains began to rise, higher and higher, until they gathered snow on their flanks and cast shadows to finally make him invisible again. Through onyx-dark ravines, following a baby face who was trying to kill an immortal Fairy... If he could find her.

What if he succeeded? Would Kami’en cry after his dead love? Would anyone miss her and her sisters? All the lovesick idiots who’d drowned themselves for them, princesses who’d slept themselves to death, their murderous swarms of moths...Let him kill her, Nerron. You can still have your revenge once his Elf task is completed. After that, the Mirrorlings would no longer protect him, and what would be lost with the Dark One?

Yes, what?

The jade.

Nerron hated that he had to just think the word to feel its power—and his longing. For what?

For what, damn it?

Around him the slopes grew steeper, and the Pup’s progress slowed. His guardians wouldn’t like that, nor the ever-damper shade cast by the mountains. Yet Nerron had the feeling the Pup was closing in on the Fairy. Black blossoms filled the rocky crevices with a heavy scent. Birds circled the ravines in excited flocks. And then there was that trail of a stag... Nerron couldn’t make sense of it all, but that was usually a good indication of the presence of some powerful magic. What if he stole the crossbow before the Pup found the Fairy? Maybe he could cut him off in this rough terrain? Provoke him, call the jade. That the Pup didn’t want it was a lie, a damn lie! His skin would protect him from the Mirrorlings—for a few seconds, anyway. They’d noticed that, and they hadn’t liked it. Nerron pictured snapping their woody fingers, throwing their mirror eyes into the fire, grimacing at their faces as they turned to bark.

“Bastard... Bastard... Bastard...”

He reined in his horse.

Voices. Stone voices.

He heard them echo through underground streets, through malachite palaces, on plazas and stairs of deep green.