She ignored Chanute’s appalled glance as she handed him her knife and weapons belt. These were useless against a Baba Yaga. All she carried was the embroidered cloth that had saved her.
The skulls speckled her clothes with fiery light, but they didn’t attack her as she walked up to the fence. She reached out, and the gate opened by itself.
Was this good or bad? Don’t get caught in your own thoughts, Fox. They would make her deaf and blind.
The wooden faces stared down at her, and, no, Jacob was not among them. What difference did that make? He could be in the smoke rising from the chimney, or the black earth beneath her boots. Flowers blossomed wherever she stepped. Fox avoided stepping on them. She also avoided the snails dragging their mottled houses through the Witch’s garden, as well as the grubs, the millipedes, and anything else in her path.
“Bring death to the Baba Yagas’s house, and death is what you shall receive,” the birds were singing. The vixen understood them, but human ears wouldn’t have heard the warning. She didn’t want to become that deaf again. She wanted her dress. And Jacob.
The carved flowers on the door closed their blossoms as soon as she knocked. She was tempted to try the handle, but she waited. Finally, the door opened.
A child stood in front of her. It was a girl, maybe eight or nine years old (if her age could be counted in human years). Her dress was as colorful as the cloth in Fox’s arms. Witches could take any form they wanted.
“If you’re looking for my grandmother,” the child said, as if she’d heard Fox’s thoughts, “she’s not here. Oh, she was angry. He tricked her, and that does not happen often.”
The child’s bright laughter was in stark contrast to the gloomy hut.
She reached into the air, and her fingers caught a thread of golden yarn, not as fine as a spider’s silk, but strong, like wool. The child traced it with her fingers until it led her to Fox’s heart.
“I knew it.” The thread vanished as soon as she dropped her hand. “He’s yours.”
She took the rushnyk from Fox and pulled her across the threshold into the hut. The room beyond was dark, but the girl clapped her hands.
“What are you waiting for?” she called. “We have a visitor. Make light!”
A dozen candles flared up, as if lit by invisible hands.
“Bring milk and bread!” the girl called. The invisible servants obeyed. Fox sat on the chair that had been moved toward her.
“Where is Jacob?” her tongue wanted to ask. “What have you done to him?” Instead, she drank the milk and ate the sweet bread that appeared before her. All the while, the girl was watching her through eyes as green as a cat’s. She waited until Fox had drunk the last drop and eaten the last crumb. Then she took her hand again.
She led her to a chamber even darker than the rest of the hut. The wooden chains that fettered Jacob to the wall were wrapped around his arms, his neck, his legs. His face was bloody, and he was unconscious. The wounds on his cheeks and brow were deep.
“She set her ravens on him,” the girl said, “but he didn’t tell where your dress is. He just made it vanish, in front of her eyes!”
The chains tightened as Fox tried to pull them off Jacob, but when the child touched them, they fell to the ground. Fox caught Jacob in her arms. He came to, but he was dazed. She wasn’t sure he recognized her.
“Quick, take him,” the girl urged. “Before my grandmother comes back.”
Fox needed all her strength to support Jacob. She didn’t ask him about the dress. She could see he barely remembered where or who he was.
“Why are you helping us?” she asked the child at the doorway.
The girl held out her hand until the shimmering golden thread again appeared in her fingers.
“Even my grandmother has to heed the Golden Yarn. But she so wanted your dress.”
Jacob leaned his head against Fox’s shoulder. He could barely stand.
“Give him time,” the girl said. “His soul had to go into hiding, or the ravens would’ve picked it apart.”
She plucked a thistle growing next to the door and filled Fox’s hand with its prickly harvest. Then she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Scatter the thistle seeds behind you when you hear the raven’s scream. If the raven keeps following you, spit into the handkerchief and throw it behind you. And now go! You have to reach the gate by yourself. She knows when I leave the hut.”
The fence with the skulls looked so close, but Fox could barely hold on to Jacob, and every step made the gate seem more distant. She kept whispering his name for fear he might leave it behind. Chanute was waiting with Sylvain under the trees. “Stay where you are,” Fox pleaded with her eyes. The vixen often had to speak without words. Chanute took Sylvain’s arm and pulled him back.
Just a few more steps.
Fox looked over her shoulder.
The Baba Yaga’s granddaughter was standing in the doorway, looking at the surrounding trees as though she could hear her grandmother’s approach.
One more step. Just one more, Jacob. But he was so far away, and Fox was worried he’d never find his way out of that dark hut even if they managed to escape the Baba Yaga.
Her fingers found the gate. She kicked it open, wrapping her arms so tightly around Jacob she could feel his heartbeat.
The girl was still standing in the doorway, but when Fox pulled the gate shut behind her, the child vanished into the carvings as if she’d never been anything but a slender figure between a carved old woman and a carved raven.
Chanute’s brow was damp with sweat, but he waited until Fox reached the trees. Without a word, Sylvain lifted Jacob onto his shoulders.
They turned northeast, toward where the woods thinned out. Soon enough, they heard the raven. Fox scattered the thistle seeds behind her, and they instantly grew into a thorny hedge as tall as the trees. They could hear the Baba Yaga’s angry screams. They pushed on, through creeks and morass, across meadows where lush green circles marked the dancing grounds of the Rusalkas. Fox had once seen one of those creatures at a village fair in Lotharaine. Its captor had put a bucket of water in the cage, but the naiad’s green skin had been brittle like wilted leaves. Fox’s stepfather had poked a stick through the bars, but Fox had torn it from his hand and run away, away from the caged naiads, matagots, Woodmen, and the half-starved follets.
Onward. Through the strange forest, pursued by the angry screams of the Baba Yaga.
Jacob was still unconscious. Fox couldn’t shake the terrible thought that she’d left his soul in the hut and Sylvain was carrying nothing but an empty shell.
The raven found them a second time, just as the Baba Yaga’s granddaughter had foretold. Fox spat into the handkerchief and threw it behind her, and it turned into a vast lake. The raven tried to fly over it, but its mistress called it back. The Baba Yaga was standing on the shore in a dress as colorful as the rushnyk that had saved Fox’s life. She looked at them, then turned away, the raven on her shoulder, and disappeared into the trees. Maybe she’d seen her granddaughter in that lake, and the reproach on her little face.
Fox kept going until they’d left the woods well behind. Only when there was nothing but fields and meadows around them did she let them stop. Chanute was coughing so badly, he dropped on his back like a bug. And Jacob slept. And slept. And slept, while around them the farmers came and went. Fox sat next to him, wondering whether that forest had taken everything from her.
The fields lay deserted in the moonlight. Sylvain was cursing in his sleep when Jacob finally opened his eyes. At first Fox didn’t dare look him in the eyes, fearing she might find nothing there. But they’d brought him back. Maybe his eyes now contained a little more understanding of the darkness of this world. Maybe the Baba Yaga had kept a few years of his life, but she hadn’t kept his soul, as she supposedly so often did.
With trembling fingers, Jacob pulled a feather from his jacket. Fox recognized it, though the white down was covered in blood: It was a Man-Swan feather.
She herself had stolen it from its nest a few months back. And had paid for it with a scar on her shoulder.
Jacob put the feather in her lap.
The fur dress appeared as though conjured by her deepest wish. With one hand, Fox stroked the fur that felt so much more familiar than her own skin; the other hand wiped the tears from her face.
All lost. And all gained.
“You never should have gone back,” she said. “It’s just a dress.”
Jacob rubbed the cuts on his cheek.
“Sure!” he said. “Just a dress.”
Fox could’ve kissed him on the mouth just to taste the smile on his lips. Forbidden. She’d almost forgotten.
Gone
The Dark One was gone. Without a trace. As though swallowed by the river she’d just filled with dead Cossacks. It was like she’d never crossed the border to Varangia! But after two days of fruitless searching for her trail, a stagecoachman whom Nerron asked swore, just like the blacksmith in the last village and the river boatmen they’d met that morning, that the Dark One was on her way to Moskva to give the Tzar an army of bears—and Wolfmen. Varangia was going to defeat the Goyl, and greedy Albion, and the crooked King of Lotharaine. Oh, golden times! The gout-ridden coachman turned into a happily babbling child as he described it. Even the boatmen, squatting by the river with their shoulders scraped raw, half dead from the strenuous work of dragging barges across the sluggish waters, looked rapturous as the coachman described the glory the Dark Fairy would bring to their motherland.
They said...One heard...Supposedly...Nerron would’ve preferred actual evidence that the Fairy was indeed on her way to Moskva, but Seventeen was getting more and more impatient, waking him every damn morning before sunrise. Nerron’s shoulders already had permanent silver spots from the Mirrorling’s fingers.
The stagecoach disappeared between the trees. Will was staring down the empty road. The Pup was very quiet this morning, even more so than usual. He must’ve been having hot dreams. Sixteen still sat with him every night. One could’ve almost felt jealous. He was again carrying the sack with the crossbow under his shirt sometimes, and sometimes in his jacket pocket. His brother had obviously not told him about the devious temperament of magic weapons. An onyx lord had once stabbed his two children with a magic dagger. But Nerron didn’t tell that to the Pup, nor did he talk about the magic sword that had quartered the wife of an Albian count. He was trying to stick to his own resolution not to get too soft toward Milk-face. Instead, he amused himself by picturing how he’d tell Jacob Reckless that, thanks to the Bastard, his brother was back in his jade skin. It was quickly becoming his favorite daydream. Closely followed by the one where he presented the brother as a silver statue.
“I don’t think she’s going to Moskva,” the Pup finally said.
This was a surprise.
“Indeed? She told you that herself? Or did you hear it in a dream?”
Jacob would’ve parried his sarcasm with some of his own, but his younger brother was so serious! It really took all the fun out of it.
“I can feel her, just like one feels the sun even if you can’t see it.” The Pup actually put his hand over his heart. “Maybe she’s closer than we think.”
That would be too good to be true. Nerron didn’t want to know what Seventeen was like when he really got impatient. He thought he’d spotted the Mirrorling among the trees. The light there was producing some suspicious glints.
“Water the horses. I’ll shoot us some dinner.”
Will nodded. He kept looking down the empty road as though he could see the Fairy. “Have you ever heard of the Long Sleep?”
“Have I ever seen a Thumbling?” Nerron retorted. “Sure. The Fairies like to use it.”
“And only true love can wake you. Did you ever hear of it not working?”
What the devil..?
“There’s no true love. How old are you? It’s what we call our lust when we explain it to children.” Nerron put the reins in Will’s hands. “I’ll be back soon.”
Will looked after him as though he hadn’t said all he wanted to say. He stood there looking so lost that Nerron wanted to go back and ply him with the Goyl wine he always carried for such occasions. Did Milk-face really feel the location of the Fairy?
Nerron went to the trees and stopped when he was sure he couldn’t be seen from the road.
“Seventeen!”
It got warm, pleasantly warm for his Goyl skin, but the ferns around him began to wilt as leaves and shadows turned into clothes and faces. How the devil did that work? Mirrors that chose which image to show. Did they collect the pictures? Like memories?
Seventeen’s face was younger than any he’d shown before, but he changed it as he stepped out from the ferns. Seventeen what? Faces? He had more. The Knife, as Nerron had secretly named Sixteen, eyed him as though her stare alone could turn him into precious metal. Maybe she’d gotten over the fact that he’d seen how much she liked the Pup. She had a bark-like spot on her cheek, which she quickly hid with her gloved hand. Bark. Seventeen had a similar spot on his forehead. The curse… They were not immune! No wonder they were in a hurry.
“Not a trace of the Fairy. Rumor has it she’s headed to Moskva, but the Pup says he knows better.”
“You should believe him.” Seventeen picked a caterpillar from the tree next to him. “The Fairy did put a spell on him. There’s a connection.” He changed his face again. This new one looked eerily familiar.
“Where did you get that face?”
Seventeen looked at the silver caterpillar in his palm. “From his brother. Why?”
“When did you meet him?”
“He was following us. Very careless.”
Jacob Reckless had followed them? “And? Where is he now?”
Seventeen held up the silver caterpillar.
What a stew of emotions! Nerron felt surprise, and glee, and—sharp and painful—disappointment. What about his revenge plans?
“You killed him?”
Seventeen dropped the caterpillar with a sigh. “That was the plan, but he survived. Some Witch magic. This world is irritating. Too much magic. Too much dirt. Pathetic roads. And trees everywhere.” He eyed the oak next to him with obvious loathing. “Don’t worry. He’s lost your trail.”
Oh, but you always had to worry when Jacob Reckless was on your trail. Still, Nerron was glad his foe had survived Seventeen’s silver fingers. He was fond of his revenge fantasies. Maybe Jacob just wanted the crossbow back. But the possibility that he might be fooling them because he knew exactly who his brother’s guide was? Well, that was very satisfying.
Oh, life was beautiful.
Unfortunately, high spirits always made Nerron reckless.
“You don’t like trees?” he said, pointing at Seventeen’s brow. The bark even stained Jacob Reckless’s stolen face.
“Looks like you’ll be one yourself soon enough. Your mirror-sister is also looking a little...bark-y?”
The fingers that gripped his arm felt like blades slicing into his stone skin.
“Careful,” Seventeen whispered. “If Milk-face knows where the Fairy is, what do we need you for, Stone-man?”
Yes, he’d been aware they might be having that thought. But offense was still his best defense.
“What do you need the Bastard for? To keep your precious messenger alive! Or are you going to turn everything into silver that stands in his way? That could attract quite a bit of attention.” Nerron picked up the silver caterpillar Seventeen had dropped. “You can’t leave these things lying around. You’re right. This world is full of irritating things, and something so irresistibly shiny could attract a number of them.”
Seventeen took the caterpillar from Nerron. He studied it as though he’d only now realized how perfect it was. “You’re right. I shall start collecting them.” The belt pouch into which he dropped the dead grub showed a perfect reflection of Nerron’s lizard-skin shirt.
“Why do you show yourselves to me
but not to him?” Nerron asked.
“The Fairy cannot see us!” Sixteen replied curtly. She really didn’t like him. Don’t worry, my pretty one, the feeling is entirely mutual. It seemed like she was going to melt every time she looked at Will. Actually melt. Was that how they reacted to their own feelings? An interesting thought...
***
When Nerron returned with a bloody rabbit, he found Will rubbing down the horses. They should’ve had one of those newfangled photographs made before they left: the Pup and the Bastard. He could’ve left a print at The Ogre for Jacob.
“So, where do you think the Fairy is really headed?”
Will hesitated, as though he wasn’t convinced Nerron believed him. Then he pointed southeast.
That wasn’t very precise.
But it was definitely not where Moskva was.
The Other Sister
The silver days, running from the Baba Yaga... Jacob couldn’t remember ever having been more tired. He felt as though he’d left the best of himself in that dark hut. But Fox was alive, and he’d gotten her fur dress back. Why did he still feel defeated? Of course, he knew the answer. They’d lost Will’s trail, and he had no idea how he was going to find his brother and the Bastard again.
“I don’t know,” Chanute grumbled as they were purchasing new horses in a village across the Varangian border. “Maybe we’re in over our heads. Challenging an immortal never gets you anywhere, and your brother is grown up enough to look after himself. How about we show Sylvain l’Arcadie and Ontario? Manitoba and Saskatchewan also sound nice. I’ve heard they’re full of treasure, and I’d rather be turned into a bug by some savage than die in my bed in Schwanstein.”
Give up?
Chanute had never had a problem with quitting. A hunt became too dangerous, or it took them to a place the old hunter didn’t like? For Albert, there was always a point of return.
Jacob looked at Fox. Sylvain was having her explain the carvings on the houses in the village. Almost all of Varangia’s magic creatures were represented there: Wolflings, Bearskins, the Birds of Pain and Pleasure, Flying Horses, Dragons (long gone here, like everywhere else), Baba Yagas, and Rusalkas.