Reckless (Free Preview) (28 page)

Blade struck
against blade, sharpened metal instead of the toy swords with which they had
fought as children.
 
So
long ago.
 
Above them the sunlight
was caught in the crystal blossoms of the chandelier, and the carpet beneath
their feet bore the symbols on which the Witches danced to summon spring.
 
Will was panting.
 
Both of them were breathing so heavily that
they noticed the imperial guards only when they cocked their rifles.
 
Will backed away from the white uniforms, and
Jacob instinctively stood in front of him, protecting his little brother as
he'd always done, but his brother no longer needed his help.
 
The Goyl had also caught up with them.
 
They were coming through the hidden
door.
 
Gray uniforms behind them, white
ones in front.
 
Will only lowered his
sword after one of the Goyl barked an order at him.

Brothers.

"That man
tried to enter the King's chambers!"

The officer
was an onyx Goyl, and he spoke the language of Austry with barely an
accent.
 
Will didn't take his eyes off
Jacob as he stepped back to the officer's side.
 
Still the same face, and yet as different from his brother as a wolf was
from a dog.
 
Jacob turned his back on
him; he could no longer bear to look at him.

"Jacob Reckless."
 
He offered his saber to the guards.
 
"I have come to speak with the Empress."

The guard who
took the saber whispered something to his officer.
 
Jacob's portrait, which the Empress had
ordered after he brought her the glass slipper, was probably still hanging
somewhere in the palace.

Will still had
his eyes on him as the guards led Jacob away.
 
Forget you ever had a brother, Jacob.
 
He already has.

44

The Empress

It had been a
long time since Jacob had last stood in the Empress's audience chamber.
 
Even when he or Chanute delivered something
she'd been eager to get for years, it was usually one of her Dwarfs who'd
negotiate the reward or give the next assignment.
 
The Empress only granted personal audiences
when an item had been particularly dangerous to acquire, as had been the case
with the glass slipper and wishing table, and when the story attached to it had
sufficient blood and death in it.
 
Therese of Austry would have made a great treasure hunter if she hadn't
been born the daughter of an Emperor.

She was
sitting behind her desk when the guards brought Jacob to her.
 
The silk of her bright dress was embroidered
with elven glass, and it was as yellow as the roses on her desk.
 
Her beauty was legendary, but war and defeat
marked her face.
 
The lines around her
brows were more defined, the shadows under her eyes darker, and her gaze had
grown even colder.

One of her
generals and two of her ministers were standing by the windows through which
there was a clear view of the roofs and towers of the city and of the distant
mountains the Goyl had already conquered.
 
Jacob turned, and only then did he notice the adjutant standing next to
the bust of a previous Emperor.
 
Donnersmarck had accompanied him on three of his expeditions for the
Empress.
 
Two of them had been successes
and had brought Jacob a lot of money, and Donnersmarck a medal and a
promotion.
 
They were friends, though the
look Donnersmarck gave Jacob didn't show it.
 
There were a few more medals on his uniform than on their last
encounter, and when he walked over to join the general, Jacob noticed he was
dragging one leg.
 
Compared to war,
treasure hunting was a harmless pastime.

"Unauthorized entry to the palace.
 
Threatening my guests.
 
One of my spies knocked
unconscious."
 
The Empress put down
her quill and waved one of her Dwarfs to her side.
 
The servant kept his eyes firmly on Jacob
while he pulled back his mistress's chair.
 
The imperial Dwarfs of Austry.
 
Over the centuries, they had thwarted dozens of assassination attempts,
two on Therese's father, and the Empress had always had at least three of them
by her side.
 
Rumor had it they could
even take on Giantlings.

Auberon,
Therese's favorite among the Dwarfs, smoothed the Empress's dress as she
stepped out from behind her desk.
 
She
was still as slender as a young girl.

"What is
this, Jacob?
 
Did I not order you to find
the hourglass?
 
Instead I have to learn
that you're in my palace, dueling with my future son-in-law's bodyguard."

Jacob bowed
his head.
 
She didn't like it when you
looked her in the eyes.
 
"I had no
choice.
 
He attacked me, and I defended
myself."
 
His arm was still
bleeding.
 
His
brother's new signature.

"Surrender
him, Your Majesty," one of the ministers said.
 
"Or better yet, have him shot yourself,
to prove your desire for peace."

"Nonsense,"
the Empress replied testily.
 
"As if the war hasn't cost me enough already.
 
He's one of my best treasure hunters — even
better than Chanute."

She stepped so
close to Jacob that he could smell her perfume.
 
There was a rumor that she had magic poppy-juice mixed into it.
 
If you inhaled too deeply, you did whatever
she told you.

"Did
someone pay you?
 
Someone who doesn't
like this peace?
 
Well, give him a
message from me:
 
I don't much like it,
either."

"Majesty!"
 
One of the ministers glanced at the door as if the Goyl were listening
on the other side.

"Oh, be
quiet!" the Empress snapped at him.
 
"I'm already paying for it with my daughter."

Jacob looked
at Donnersmarck, but his glance was not returned.

"Nobody
paid me," he said.
 
"And it has
nothing to do with your peace.
 
I'm here
for the Fairy."

The Empress's
face went as blank as her daughter's.

"The Fairy?"

She tried
valiantly to sound unconcerned, but her voice gave her away.
 
Hatred and disgust — Jacob heard them
both.
 
And anger.
 
Anger that she feared the
Fairy so much.
 
"What do you
want from her?"

"Give me
five minutes alone with her.
 
You won't
regret it.
 
Or is your daughter happy her
groom brought his dark mistress to the wedding?"

Careful, Jacob
.
 
But he was too desperate to be careful.
 
She had stolen his brother.
 
And he wanted him back.

The Empress
exchanged a glance with the general.

"He's as disrespectful
as his former master," she said.
 
"Chanute used that same impertinent tone with my father."

"Five
minutes," Jacob repeated.
 
"Her
curse cost you your victory.
 
And
thousands of your subjects."

She looked at
him pensively.

"Majesty!"
the general said, but kept his mouth shut after she shot him a warning
look.
 
She turned around and returned to
her desk.

"You're
too late," she said over her shoulder.
 
"I've already signed the treaty.
 
Tell the Goyl he inhaled elven dust or something," she ordered.
 
One of the guards took Jacob's arm.
 
"Take him to the gate, and give orders
not to let him in again."

"And,
Jacob!" she called as the Dwarfs opened the door.
 
"Forget about the hourglass!
 
I want a wishing sack!"

45

Past Times

Jacob had no
idea how he found his way back to the hotel.
 
In every window he passed, he saw his brother's contorted face, and
every woman passing him looked like the Dark Fairy.

It couldn't be
over.
 
He would find her.
 
At the wedding.
 
At the station, when she'd board the King's
onyx-black train.
 
Or
in the hanging palace, despite her snakes.
 
He could no longer tell what was driving
him:
 
the hope of somehow getting
Will
back, the hunger for revenge, or simply his injured
pride.

The hall of
the hotel was crowded with newly arrived guests, their luggage, and harried
bellboys.
 
Everybody had come for the
wedding.
 
There were even some Goyl who
attracted more looks and whispers than the Empress's younger sister.
 
She had arrived without her potentate husband
from the east and was clad in black fur, as though in mourning over her niece's
wedding.

The ceremony
would take place the next
day, that
much Jacob had
found out, in the cathedral where Therese of Austry had also been wed, just
like her father before her.

The
chambermaid had mended and washed Jacob's clothes, and he was holding them
under his arm as he unlocked his room.
 
He dropped them as soon as he saw the man standing by the window.
 
Donnersmarck turned around before Jacob could
draw his pistol.
 
His uniform was
pristine white, as if to blot out the fact that the more usual colors of a
soldier were mud and blood.

"Is there
any room to which the adjutant to the Empress does not have access?
"
Jacob asked as he gathered up his garments and closed
the door behind him.

"The secret chamber of a Bluebeard.
 
That's where your talents are more useful
than my uniform."

Donnersmarck
walked haltingly toward Jacob.

"What's
your business with the Dark Fairy?"

They hadn't
seen each other for nearly a year, but escaping the clutches of a Bluebeard or
searching for the hair of a Devil forges a bond not easily broken.
 
Donnersmarck and Jacob had done that and more
together.
 
They'd never found the Devil's
hair, but Donnersmarck had kept down the Brown Wolf that had guarded the glass
slipper, and Jacob had saved him from being clubbed to death by a
cudgel-in-the-sack.

"What
happened to your leg?"

Donnersmarck
stood in front of him.

"What do
you think?
 
There was a war on."

From outside
the window came the din of carriages, whinnying horses, and cursing
coachmen.
 
Not so different from the
other world.
 
But next to Jacob's bed,
fluttering above a small bouquet of flowers, were two elves, barely larger than
bumblebees.
 
Many hotels put them in the
rooms because their dust helped the guests sleep.

"I am
here to ask you a question, and you can probably guess on whose behalf I am
asking."

Donnersmarck
brushed a fly off his white tunic.

"If you
were to get your five minutes, would the King of the Goyl ever see his lover
again?"

It took Jacob
a few minutes to absorb what he had heard.

"No,"
he answered.
 
"Never."

Donnersmarck
scrutinized him as if he were trying to read from his face what his friend was
planning.
 
Finally he pointed at Jacob's
neck.

"You're
no longer wearing that medallion.
 
Have
you made peace with her red sister?"

"I
have.
 
And it was she who told me how to
bind the dark one."

Donnersmarck
adjusted his saber.
 
He had been quite a
swordsman, though his leg injury had probably changed that.

"You make
peace with one sister only to declare war on the other.
 
It's always like that with peace, isn't
it?
 
Always to someone's detriment,
already sowing the seed for the next war."

He hobbled to
the bed.

"
Which just leaves the why.
 
I know you don't care about this war.
 
So why risk getting killed by the Dark Fairy?"

"The Jade
Goyl guarding the King is my brother."

The words
seemed to make it even truer.

Donnersmarck
rubbed his stiff leg.
 
"I didn't
know you had a brother.
 
Come to think of
it, there's probably a lot I don't know about you."

He looked at
the window.
 
"If it hadn't been for
the Fairy, we would have won this war."

No, you wouldn't
, Jacob thought.
 
Because their King is the better general.
 
Because my father showed him how to build better rifles.
 
Because they made the
Dwarfs their allies.
 
And because you’ve been stoking their rage for centuries
.