Fox felt Jacob’s breath on her neck, warm and familiar. He was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t wake up when she gently eased out of his embrace. Whatever he was encountering in his dreams made him smile, and Fox ran her fingers over his lips as if she could read what he was dreaming. The two moons that shone on her world dappled his forehead with rusty red and pale silver, and birds whose names she didn’t know cried outside the inn.
Doryeong… Her tongue could barely pronounce the name of the port city where they had arrived the day before. They had given up. Maybe that was why Jacob was sleeping so deeply. After all the months in which they had lost his brother’s trail and picked it up again countless times. A time or two, they had almost caught up with Will. But by now they had been searching in vain for weeks for any sign of him, and yesterday, as the sun had set over a strange sea, they had finally decided to call it off. Even Jacob believed that his brother did not want to be found after all that had happened, and that it was time to go their separate ways. So why could she still not sleep? Was it because she wasn’t used to being so blissfully happy?
Fox pulled the quilt over Jacob’s shoulder. Their own path. Finally. A sprig of white blossoms filled the room they were sleeping in with lush, sweet fragrance. Two more travelers were sleeping on the mats the landlady had wordlessly rolled out for them. The ferry to Aotearoa ran out of Doryeong. An old friend of Jacob’s, Robert Dunbar, kept sending enthusiastic telegrams from there, which told of three-eyed lizards, of enchanted whale bones, and of wild kings who had the fern forests of their homeland tattooed on their skin.
Their own path. Fox kissed the moonlight off Jacob’s face and carefully slipped out from under the quilt that warmed them both. The night lured the vixen outside. Maybe if she wore the fur, all this human happiness wouldn’t make her heart overflow so much.
She stole past the two stone dragons that guarded the entrance to the modest inn, and under trees that swayed their branches in the breeze from the nearby sea, she changed. The inn stood on an unpaved road, and the flat wooden houses that lined it wore their roofs like wooden cowls. Doryeong was nothing like the seaside village where Fox had grown up. Even the fishing boats on the dark waves that lined the harbor just a few houses away seemed to come from a fairy tale she had never heard of before.
The vixen looked up at the stars, and in their constellations she found images of all the roads she had traveled with Jacob these past months. Varangia, Kasakh, Mongol, Zhonggua… A year ago, all these names had meant nothing. Now they were tied to unforgettable memories—of the time when she no longer had to hide her love. They had soon lost count of how many weeks they had traveled farther and farther southeast. At some point, they had even almost forgotten that they were searching for Jacob’s brother. Perhaps, in the end, they had simply wanted to leave everything behind them that might cast a shadow on their newfound happiness: the renewed treachery of Jacob’s father, the death of the Dark Fairy and the role Will had played in it—and the Alderelf who wanted their child and sent hunters of glass and silver after them. In a foreign land, all of this was so much easier to brush aside.
The vixen paused. Sniffing, she raised her nose. Even the sea smelled different from that of her homeland. The wind carried the biting scent of pepper from the ships and coaxed a gentle chime from the little bells that hung in the branches everywhere. Like the inn, the empty square in front of the ship docks was guarded by stone dragons. They crouched everywhere, between the harbor barracks and in front of the jetties. Most of them were garlanded with flowers. In the past few months, they had seen many dragons: made of stone, of wood, of clay, so small that they could be carried around for good luck, and so large that you had to crane your neck to look at them. But even in Zhonggua, where swarms of Dragons had once darkened the sky, they had only encountered their lifeless effigies. ‘Somewhere,’ Jacob had whispered to her as they’d made love in the shadow of a stone dragon looking down on them with eyes of lapis lazuli, ‘there must be a magic thing that brings statues to life. And when we find it, we’ll come back and wake them all up.’
Fox took human form and stroked the scales of one of the dragons. He wore a wreath of red and yellow flowers. A petal clung to the gold yarn that snaked around her wrist. So much in the world was lost for all time. The Dragons, the Giants, and now the Fairies. She had found the golden thread next to the motionless body of the Dark One. Fox had hated and feared her so much. But now, it seemed that without her and her sisters, the world suddenly lacked rain.
As Fox crossed the empty dock to study the ferries’ departure times, the moons gave her two shadows. Very fitting for a shapeshifter. Aotearoa… Yes, she was looking forward to meeting three-eyed lizards and searching for carved whale bones that gave one the shape of a fish. She wanted to continue traveling like this with Jacob for all time, searching for magical things that they fantasized about during long nights of lying side by side.
The first ferry, whose passenger list hung by the first jetty, departed for Tasmania. The second one sailed to Nihon. The Islands of the Foxes… Maybe that’s what made her stop and glance at the passenger list.
Will’s name was the third on the list. He had also entered a wife. The Goyl had put “The Bastard” after his name.
Fox stepped out onto the empty dock. The ferry to Aotearoa was leaving from the next pier. There was a flag flying on the shack where tickets were bought, showing the giant ferns that grew only there.
Nihon’s flag showed a flying crane against a red sun.
What if she didn’t tell Jacob about the names she had seen on the passenger list? Surely there was a ferry to Aotearoa that left later than the one to Nihon, and the list would be long gone by the time they got to the port. Stop it, Fox. Who was she kidding? Jacob could read any lie from her face, and this one he would not forgive, even if she told it to protect him.
She made her way back to the inn in human form. Not even the fur would have made her heart any lighter. It will make Jacob happy to see his brother, Fox. Yes, it probably would, but what about the Goyl? The Bastard hated Jacob. And the wife Will had put on the list… was that Sixteen, Spieler’s glass and silver assassin? As far as Fox knew, Will’s girlfriend Clara was in the other world, and Jacob’s brother had slain the most powerful of all the fairies for the Alderelf. What if Will was still doing his bidding?
Spieler… His name nestled in the chime of the bells moving on the wind. It whispered in the wind, in the rustle of the trees and the murmur of the sea.
No, they had not escaped the shadows.
Fox climbed the shallow steps in front of the inn, past the dragons and the trees whose branches whispered Spieler’s name. You have to tell Jacob, Fox. You have to wipe the smile from his lips.
She slipped off her shoes, as her landlady demanded, and opened the sliding wall of wood and milk-white paper through which lay the bedroom. The two other guests were a man and a woman. When they stirred behind the partition the landlady had put up, they looked like figures in a shadow play.
Jacob was still sleeping as soundly as when Fox had left him. She stroked his sleeping face. She liked to read his familiar features with her fingers as much as with her eyes. Why had she gone to the harbor?
He woke as she lay down beside him.
“The vixen went wandering.” He reached for her hand. “Didn’t you hear what the landlady said? There are undead out there that look like humans, and—”
Fox closed his mouth with a kiss. “And Bulyeowoos, fox demons who like to pretend they’re women. I feel right at home!”
It still felt like something deliciously forbidden to her when she kissed him. He was so happy. Why didn’t she just keep quiet, and they could simply forget about his brother and instead go back to doing what they were so good at together—treasure hunting? All the magical artifacts they still wanted to find, all the places they hadn’t seen yet… Aotearoa… There, no one knew anything about Elves and Fairies, did they?
“What is it?”
No. He knew her too well.
He sat up and stroked her fingers, one by one. Love could manifest itself in such inconspicuous gestures.
“I was down at the docks. I wanted to see when the ferries were leaving for Aotearoa. Your brother is registered to sail for Nihon tomorrow morning.”
Yes, for a moment, she could see that he was thinking the same thing she had thought at the harbor: if only she hadn’t spotted Will’s name, if only they could have finally given up the search. Of course, he was ashamed of the thought. Older brothers probably never stopped feeling responsible, especially when they had left their little brothers alone for years. And yes, there was joy too, the relief that Will was alive—even though he had gotten caught up in the war of immortals.
“What about the Bastard and the Mirror Girl? Are they still with him?”
“Will is traveling with a woman. And yes, the Bastard is with him.”
Jacob stared into the alien night. Yes, the smile was gone. He was probably asking himself the same question that had haunted Fox on the way back to the inn. Was his brother now on Spieler’s side?
During their search, they had passed through villages where they heard stories about a man whose skin turned into pale green stone. It seemed to happen only when Will was angry, but there was no doubt. He was the Jade Goyl again, though Jacob had risked his life to save him from becoming that. And he was traveling with two of their fiercest enemies.
“When does the ferry leave?”
“In six hours. Just after daybreak.”
They made love, but the peace she had felt so often in the past months was gone. They lay awake next to each other afterward, listening to each other’s silence. It would all be all right. Fox simply would not allow any other thought. And no matter how Jacob’s encounter with his brother turned out, hopefully it would finally absolve him of the responsibility of being Will’s keeper. She wrapped her arms around him and felt his warmth ease her to sleep. But Will was waiting in her dreams. He had a face of jade, and by his side was not the girl made of glass or the Goyl who had sworn revenge on Jacob. The man at Will’s side had no face. It was an empty mirror, and Fox whispered his name in her sleep.
Spiele
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
