The Golden Yarn (Mirrorworld 3)

“You know where she is?” Will asked.

The Heinzel started squabbling. They sounded like angry crickets.

“Even if I knew, why should I tell a snail face? Read your newspapers. They’ve been full of nothing else since the Dark One left Vena.”

“And her spells went with her!” Wenzel raised his empty glass to the Goyl. “The Man-Goyl are changing back. Your King will soon be out of soldiers.”

The Bastard ran his claws across the counter. “There will be enough left. And who says the Man-Goyl will start fighting for you just because they have their soft skin back? Maybe they’d rather fight for a King who won’t let his soldiers be captured like cattle and who doesn’t send them to war in some faraway colony.”

To die for a King. Will couldn’t stop staring at the black claws. Claws like that, as sharp as steel, had torn into his neck. Time opened up like a well. He was back in the cathedral, shielding Kami’en with his own body.

The Goyl was watching him. “Well, good luck.” He reached across the counter, and before Wenzel could stop him, he’d grabbed one of the schnapps bottles. “You’ll have a lot of competition. Amalie has promised the rubies she wore at her wedding to anyone who catches the Fairy.” The Bastard put the bottle in his knapsack and dropped a couple of coins on the bar. “Those stones are worth more than all of Austry. Her mother had them stolen from one of the onyx lords.”

Two men stepped into the taproom.

They eyed the Goyl with the usual disgusted fear. The Bastard scowled at them as he pushed past them toward the door. He turned around once more and, with his eyes fixed on Will, slammed his fist to his chest.

Will quickly jammed his hands into his pockets as his fingers clenched in response. Behind him he heard Wenzel cursing the stonefaces to his new guests. The three men started to conjure a glorious future in which they’d drive the stonefaces back into the earth and let them suffocate like rats. One of the men, whose pale skin actually did make him look like a snail, was going on about how handy it was that the Goyl turned to stone after death so that their corpses could be mined for gems.

“I always find what I seek.”

Will stepped outside. It was market day, and the farmers were putting up their stalls: fruits and vegetables, chickens and geese, but there were also Heinzel and—supposedly—talking donkeys for sale. Will looked around. He needed a horse. And supplies.

The Goyl was leaning in a doorway on the other side of the square. Above him, the head of a unicorn stared down on the people of Schwanstein, who were all giving the Bastard a wide berth. He seemed to be enjoying himself tremendously.

“What? I still can’t tell you where the Fairy is,” he said as Will approached him. Malachite—that’s what was tainting his dark onyx skin. Will had no idea how he knew that.

“I am Jacob Reckless’s brother.”

“And I’m supposed to be surprised?” The Bastard winked. “He carries a picture of you. Touching. I admit, I’ve always been grateful that my mother spared me the competition of a brother.”

“My brother is not a thief. Why do you say he stole from you?”

The Goyl gave him such a taunting look that Will thought he could feel it pierce his skin. To find what? Jade?

“I don’t want to rob you of your illusions. I’m sure you’re carrying a sack-load of them. But Jacob Reckless is a thief and a liar, though of course he wouldn’t rub his little brother’s nose in it.”

Will turned his back on the Goyl. He preferred to hide his rage, which was so like a scorpion crawling from the darkest recess of his heart that it frightened him. Nothing had made the stone more terrifying than the feeling that his rage and hatred had become uncontrollable. The Goyl savored both, like a rush.

“Well, by my heart of stone!” The Bastard laughed behind him. “You’re much more sensitive than your brother. Shall I help you find the Dark Fairy?”

Will turned again.

“I have no money.”

“I don’t want your money. Only Kings can afford the services of Nerron the Bastard.” He pushed himself off the wall. “I want what your brother stole from me. You think you can get that for me?”

“What is it?”

The Bastard looked at a passing girl. She quickened her steps when she noticed his golden stare. “A swindlesack. It looks empty, but what’s inside it is mine.”

Will suppressed the urge to feel for the sack under his shirt. “What’s inside it?”

Two women walked past. They stared daggers at Will as if he were talking to the Devil himself, but the Bastard clicked his tongue at them and they quickly stalked away.

“A crossbow. Nothing special. A family heirloom.” He wasn’t a very good liar. Maybe he wasn’t even trying. “I think I know what you want from the Dark Fairy,” he whispered to Will. “I’ve heard a few interesting stories about the brother of Jacob Reckless. He supposedly gained the most sacred skin a Goyl can have, yet his brother purged him of it.”

Will’s heart began to beat at a ridiculous speed.