Reckless (Mirrorworld 1)

Jacob turned his back to him. Just shoot already, he thought.

The cell, the Goyl, the hanging palace. Everything around him seemed so unreal. The whole underground city. Fairies, enchanted forests, a vixen who was a girl — nothing but the feverish dreams of a twelve-year-old. He saw himself standing in the doorway of his father's study, Will inquisitively staring past him at the dusty model planes, the old revolvers. And the mirror.

"Turn around." Hentzau's voice was impatient. Their rage was so easily stirred, constantly burning just beneath their stone skin.

Jacob still didn't move. Then he heard the Goyl laugh out loud.

"The same arrogance! Your brother doesn't look like him. That's why I didn't realize right away why your face looks so familiar. The same eyes. The same mouth. But your father never could hide his fear as well as you do."

Jacob turned around. You're such an idiot, Jacob Reckless.

"The Goyl have better engineers." How often Jacob had heard that sentence in the mirror — be it in Schwanstein or uttered by a despairing imperial officer — and he had never thought twice about it.

The father found, the brother lost.

"Where is he?" he asked.

Hentzau raised his eyebrows. "I had hoped you'd tell me. We caught him five years ago in Blenheim. He'd been hired to build a bridge because the townspeople had grown tired of being eaten by the Lorelei. The river has always been teeming with them. It's a lie that the Fairy put them in there. John Reckless. That's what he called himself. Always had a photograph of his sons with him. The King had him build us a camera, long before the Empress's scientists came up with anything like that. He built many things for us. Who would’ve thought that one of his sons would become the jade Goyl."

Hentzau ran his fingers along the old-fashioned barrel. "He wasn't half as stubborn as you when it came to answering our questions. What he taught us turned out to be very useful in the war. But then he disappeared. I searched for him for months but never found a trace of him. And now I have his sons."

He turned to the guards.

"Keep him alive until I get back from the wedding," he said. "There are a lot of questions I want to ask him."

"And the girl?" The guard who was pointing at Clara had a skin of moonstone as pale as if it had never seen the sun.

"Keep her as well," Hentzau replied. "And the fox girl, too. The two of them will probably loosen his tongue much faster than the scorpions."

Hentzau's steps receded into the darkness. Through the barred windows came the sounds of the underground city. But Jacob was far away, in his father's room, touching the frame of the mirror with a child's hands.

40

The Strength of Dwarfs

Jacob heard Clara's breathing in the darkness — and her crying. They were still separated by iron bars, but even more by their thoughts of Will. In Jacob's mind, the kisses Clara had given him merged with the kiss that had awoken his brother. And he kept seeing Will opening his eyes and drowning in jade.

He choked on his own despair. The Dark Fairy had been so close, just a few steps away. Had Miranda watched it in her dreams? Seen how miserably he had failed?

Jacob slammed his manacles against the bars, though all that had gotten him so far were more kicks from the guards.

Clara wiped the tears from her face. How she melted his heart. It's nothing, Jacob. Nothing but the Larks' Water.

Through the barred window, the hanging palace shimmered like a forbidden fruit. Will was probably there already...

Clara lifted her head. From outside the window came a scraping sound, a dull grinding, the sound of something climbing up the wall. A hairy face squeezed through the bars of the cell's window.

Valiant's beard was already sprouting as luxuriantly as in the old days, when he'd still worn it with pride. His short fingers easily bent the iron bars apart.

"You're lucky the Goyl haven't had many Dwarf prisoners yet!" he whispered as he climbed through the warped bars. "The Empress has silver added to all bars in her cells."

He dropped down from the window as nimbly as a weasel and took a deep bow in front of Clara.

"What are you looking at?" he said to Jacob. "It really was too funny when the snakes grabbed you. Absolutely priceless."

"I'm sure the Goyl paid you quite well for that show." Jacob got to his feet and quickly checked the corridor, but there were no guards in sight. "And just when did you sell me out? While I spent hours waiting in front of the jeweler's shop? Or was it at the tailor, who supplies the palace?"

Valiant just shook his head while he pulled open Clara's manacles as easily as he'd bent the window bars. "Will you listen to that!" he whispered to Clara. "Can't trust a soul. I told him it was an imbecile idea to go crawling all over the King's palace like a roach. Did he listen to me? No."