The Golden Yarn (Mirrorworld 3)

So many men.

Look at them, Fox. There are more fish in the sea.

But her eyes wandered back to Jacob. He seemed to have seen something he didn’t like. Fox followed his eyes. Five gray uniforms. Goyl. Baryatinsky had told Chanute that Kami’en was in Moskva. Not, as his aides never forgot to stress, because his former lover was expected to come here but to forge an alliance with the Tzar.

Three of the Goyl were unknown to Fox, but two of them were old acquaintances. Hentzau’s presence was not surprising. Kami’en never went on a state visit without his Jasper Bloodhound. And the soldier at Hentzau’s side—Fox had last met her in a Goyl dungeon. Not a pleasant memory.

Hentzau had also noticed Jacob. He stared at him as though he couldn’t believe his eyes, the left of which was already as white as snow, blinded by the sunlight. Hentzau said something to the other soldiers, then came toward them. His female shadow followed him.

Fox saw Jacob’s shoulders tighten. Not many men got the chance to meet their murderer. Hentzau smiled as he approached Jacob, as though savoring the memory of his well-aimed shot through his heart. Jacob had nearly killed Hentzau’s uniformed shadow in the valley of the Fairies, for which she had put scorpions on his chest. But Nesser’s face showed no emotions. Fox sensed the effort she was putting into concealing them.

Memories. Jacob’s show of calmness seemed as effortless as the Goyl’s, but he couldn’t fool Fox. Hentzau had delivered Will to the Dark Fairy, and he had humiliated him, tried to break him. Jacob’s response to such offenses was belligerence, arrogance, and the coldness Fox used to fear so much before she got to know him well enough to see the vulnerability it meant to conceal.

“Ah, the plane thief. Or should I say the man who simply refuses to die?” Hentzau greeted Jacob in Goyl-fashion, with his fist pressed to his chest. Or maybe he wanted to remind him of the bullet he’d once put there. “And I had already toasted to your drowning in the Channel with the Albian fleet. The Bastard swears he saw it with his own eyes, but I always knew he was a liar.”

“Ah, yes, the Bastard. How is he?” Jacob’s voice expressed nothing but politely masked boredom.

“How would I know? He comes and goes. I don’t trust him. Too much onyx blood in his veins.”

It sounded to Fox as though Hentzau really didn’t know who the Bastard had with him. The Goyl had been searching for the Jade Goyl since the Blood Wedding. Nerron hadn’t delivered Will, which could mean many things. Had the Bastard recognized him? Did he have his own plans for revenge? Or was Hentzau just a good actor? Fox wasn’t sure which would be more comforting. She just knew that even the vixen found it hard to read Goyl faces.

The quick glance Hentzau shot at her confirmed he hadn’t recognized her. She had looked very different the last time they met: younger, filthy, tear-stained, convinced that the Goyl had shot Jacob dead. She would never forgive Hentzau for that pain.

“And?” He scanned the crowd of guests. “What brings Jacob Reckless to Moskva?”

“I haven’t changed my trade,” Jacob replied. “Just like you. But I see you now have a bodyguard. All that time in the sun is taking its toll, I assume. And you’re no spring chicken.”

Oh, how they would’ve loved to jump at each other’s throats, like two dogs who still hadn’t established which was the stronger one. Nesser stared at Jacob with such hatred that Fox was tempted to place herself between them.

“Gospodin Reckless?” The officer who snapped to attention behind them had pronounced his last name with barely an accent. “His Highness, Nicolaij the Third, Tzar of all Varangians, would like to talk with you about the limitless magic of our land.”

Hentzau looked after Jacob as he walked off with the officer. The Goyl had forgotten Fox. The memories Jacob had brought back to

him were almost as humiliating as the one he’d just given Jacob: escaped prisoners; a stolen plane; the Blood Wedding, which he’d barely survived...

The orchestra began to play a waltz. Hentzau turned around abruptly, without another glance at Fox, and disappeared into the crowd with his female shadow. Fox was glad not to have to see him—or Nesser—anymore.

Jacob was already standing next to Tzar Nicolaij, who was holding court on a garlanded gallery at one end of the hall. With him was his current favorite. The rumor around the capital was that she had Rusalka blood in her veins. The slight green tinge of her hair made that seem probable. She was laughing with a man whom Fox had never before seen out of uniform: Kami’en, first King of the Goyl. He’d undoubtedly chosen the dress coat to stress his peaceful intentions. His carnelian skin shimmered like copper in the candlelight. Fox would so have loved to hear what he was saying. The Goyl’s bodyguards seemed a little nervous about the crowds at the bottom of the gallery. The onyx lords had just recently made another attempt to kill Kami’en but had only managed to kill three of his protectors instead. Whether he really had come here to forge an alliance with Varangia, or whether he feared his former mistress might make Varangia an offer the Tzar couldn’t refuse, Kami’en didn’t really know the meaning of fear. Even his enemies said that about him. But what about love? Jealousy? Anger toward the murderess of his son? If she was the murderess. Jacob doubted it, and he wasn’t alone—though, of course, in just these past weeks, many men had paid with their lives for running into her.

Moskva seemed to be expecting the Dark One with bated breath, even that night, even in this hall. And what would have given her a better entrance than the Tzar’s ball? Every time the master of ceremonies banged his staff on the floor, all eyes went to the door, even Kami’en’s.

The Varangian officer bowing and proffering his hand in front of Fox was picture-perfect beautiful. More fish in the sea, Fox. She placed her hand on his proffered arm. Maybe she’d learn more about the Fairy on the dance floor than Jacob could from a Tzar who only wanted to speak about magical treasures. It wouldn’t have been the first time truth left its trail in a most unexpected place.

The orchestra started again, and music filled the hall like an enchanting scent neither Celeste nor the vixen could resist. The officer spoke neither her mother tongue nor the language of Austry or Albion. No answers from him, just smiles and the kind of silences that reminded Fox she was in a faraway and strange land. He didn’t dance as well as Ludovik Rensman, who’d shown her the latest dance steps from Vena at his father’s ball, so it was all Fox could do to try and keep her feet and the hem of her dress out from under his shiny boots. And Jacob was still standing between Kami’en and the Tzar...

The minister who asked Fox for the next dance was a much better dancer than the officer, and he spoke fluent Lotharainian, but he had nothing more to offer than court gossip: the Tzar’s newest mistress (apparently not the woman next to him), the best tailor in Moskva, the most in-demand hatmaker…He was clearly convinced the topics of interest to women were very few and limited. Fox wished the orchestra would play louder and drown out the nullities pouring from his mouth. His voice was like a badly tuned instrument among the strings and clarinets.

Her third suitor was an admiral whose sweaty hands left damp imprints on the red silk of her dress. After he pressed a moist kiss on her hand and asked for her address, Fox truly regretted she couldn’t have left the dancing to Jacob and instead conversed with the Tzar about treasures.

Someone next to her cleared his throat.

“I shall not presume that my dancing skills do justice to the dress or the lady wearing it, but I promise I will give it my utmost.”

The Windhound had barely changed. He still didn’t look like a spy. The Barsoi—Fox definitely preferred his Russian nickname. He’d addressed her in her own language, the Lotharainian rolling off his tongue quite naturally (Fox recalled that he spoke more than a dozen languages fluently), though he tinted every word in Caledonian colors: gray and green, stony mountains, oxblood housefronts, valleys scarred with the footprints of Giants, and salty lakes that blurred the reflections of crumbled castles and in which monsters with iron scales prowled for fish. Nowhere else were the beaches as white from naiad tears, and nowhere else could one find valleys where the fog created rain warriors. Fox loved Caledonia. And she liked the Windhound. She’d been looking forward to meeting him again.

He was good-looking and yet not quite so, as slender as a reed (which gave rise to the misunderstanding that his figure had something to do with his nickname), with stubborn ash-blond hair that he had to keep brushing away from his eyes as he spoke. His eyes were brown, unusual for Caledonia, and they were almost as disconcertingly bright and as fearless as Jacob’s.

“Pray, what name goes with such a beautiful face and that wonderful dress?”