The Tzar’s troops were parading on the courtyard beneath the window. His allies. Kami’en and Nicolaij had signed the accord that morning. Varangia was a powerful ally in the East, and it was satisfying to know Albion had paid for this alliance, though he’d again had to give up the engineer who’d built his planes and underground railroads. But the Goyl had learned a lot from him before he ran to become Isambard Brunel.
“Was Therese questioned about the whereabouts of my son?”
“Yes. She claims she has nothing to do with the prince’s disappearance. I think she was smart enough to make sure not even she knows his location, just in case we’d question her more...intensely.”
“Did you let her know I will have her daughter executed if I don’t get him back?”
“Yes. She wants you to know that you’re a monster.”
Coming from Therese, that sounded almost like a compliment. It takes one to know one. Inside him, his rage was whispering: Have them both shot. Have their corpses mounted and put on display, like they used to do with your ancestors. But Kami’en knew his greatest successes had been fueled not by his rage but by his ability to control it.
“Spread the word we’re closing in on the Dwarf. And make sure Amalie knows what game her mother is playing.”
Hentzau thumped his fist to his chest. He’d rather have received the order to execute both women, but he was smart enough to know that would’ve meant the death of the prince. And, of course, Therese of Austry knew that as well.
“You should return to Vena, Your Majesty. Albion may soon have a new king. Two more Man-Goyl commanders are offering to return to your banner, and the anarchists in Lotharaine want to cooperate with us. The wind is turning in our favor.” Despite what your Fairy lover is up to. Kami’en knew Hentzau was adding that in his thoughts.
Kami’en looked over the roofs of Moskva.
Why hadn’t she come? Because she knew he was here?
He felt a brief sharp pain—as though he’d lost something he desired more than the soldiers in the courtyard or the son who was alive because of her. But he was afraid to name that something.
Ridiculous
Ever onward, following a trail only the Pup could read. Nerron had followed many trails, but this was the first time he’d had to rely on the eyes of another. Eyes, Nerron? No. Will Reckless was tracking the Dark Fairy without ever looking at the ground. Maybe she was washing away her tracks with the rain that had been falling for days from the endless gray skies. However she was doing it, she wasn’t leaving a single sign, neither on the ground nor in the grass that grew like shaggy hair all over this infernal country. But she couldn’t hide from the boy in whose body her magic had lived.
If it hadn’t been for the occasional lone spire or the outline of a village on the horizon, Nerron would’ve thought she was luring them into a land that belonged only to animals. They were everywhere—deer, boars, beavers, martens, hares, snakes, and toads, as though it were they who were covering the Dark One’s tracks. Nerron and Will’s own trail, in contrast, was very visible and obviously also quite enticing. A pack of wolves, a black bear, and finally a rather oversize Ogre—all had made the mistake of taking Will to be easy prey. But the glassy guardians took care of them so silently that the Pup didn’t even look around. Nerron’s treasure-hunting heart ached from having to leave all that precious metal in the Varangian taiga, but Seventeen had taken his advice to hide at least his larger victims. Nerron marked the places on a map. His personal stash of silver... Not bad. The bear and the Ogre were worth a fortune, for they were still alive. Nerron had reached into one of the wolves’ frozen jaws and had felt warm breath. For how long, who could say?
Will once nearly saw his guardians. Sixteen was getting sloppy. The bark was now all over her body, and at one point she forgot her camouflage when she scraped the wood off her arms. Nerron only just managed to distract the Pup by throwing a stone at his horse. Will’s ignorance gave Nerron confidence that things were still moving according to his plan, but he did feel a little uneasy about how much he was beginning to enjoy the Pup’s company.
The Bastard was a maverick. The last companion he’d grudgingly accepted had been a Waterman, and Nerron had been only too happy to be rid of him again. He definitely hadn’t missed having someone by his side who stopped his horse for every nightingale and who thought it wrong to shoot a deer when it looked at you. Yet he felt he was getting used to Milk-face. Maybe it was the way the Pup asked him about Goyl history. Nerron was the first to admit he loved holding forth about the lost cities and the forgotten wars, about the settling of the Deadly Caves or the expeditions to the Shoreless Lake. He’d never found anyone who would actually listen to his long lectures. He’d even caught himself thinking that he’d like to show it all to Milk-face one day. What was the matter with him? Was he not eating enough? Was it the cold? The rain? Some human virus eating away at his stone heart?
Will turned to him as though he’d heard Nerron’s internal curses.
Yes, the Bastard curses you, Milk-face. And he will sell you. Steal from you. Betray you. It is his nature. You can’t expect the wolf to turn vegetarian because of one Pup.
He gave Will his most devious smile.
And the Pup smiled back with his princeling face. No, his was the face of the poor, noble shepherd boy who, despite being slightly dim, always got the princess in the end. Oh, that sweet icing of innocence—it still made Nerron nauseous. But something in his heart, a tiny, barely nut-sized spot, turned as soft as snail skin when Will asked him when he’d met his first human, or at what age Goyl usually came to the surface. Milk-face seemed to remember more every day—the King’s palace, the Boulevard of the Dead, the Bridge of the Guardians. And he took Nerron with him into his memories, back under the earth, home. In return, Nerron told Milk-face about the things that he hadn’t seen: the living stalactites, the Mirror Caves, the Blue Meadows...and the Pup listened like a child.
Ridiculous.
Dangerous.
“You talk too much. Do I have to remind you we’re in a rush?” Seventeen, wearing his angriest face, had hissed to him last night.
No. Nerron had not forgotten. And yes, this excursion couldn’t be over soon enough. Not just because of the bark that was eating their shimmering companions.
The Bastard liked his stone heart. He had used every blow, every pain and injury, to harden it. Every humiliation, every defeat, and every betrayal life had dealt him—and there had been many. Even a nut-sized soft-spot was more than he could afford.
A Part of Her
The moth fluttered into the carriage like a shred of night. Absurd, how her sister dressed them in red. Black was so much more appropriate for the souls of men who’d chosen this shadow of an existence in the name of love. The Dark One wondered who this one had once been. There were so many who’d drowned themselves for her and her sisters in village ponds or castle fountains. It seemed only just that she was now feeling the same pain she’d inflicted so often. Just...The Dark One wasn’t sure she’d ever used that word before.
Pain bore interesting fruit.
Just like love.
Why did she still need to know what had become of the infant? She wanted to swat the moth away, since it might be bringing her images of the boy. She’d visited the baby a few times in secret, at night, when only the wet nurse was sleeping next to the crib. She’d gently pushed her finger into the tiny fists, and she’d touched his brow to give him the protection of her magic. And she’d been scared of what moved inside her. It would stop as soon as she severed the bond connecting her to the father. Wouldn’t it?
The Dark One caught the moth, and the images came.
A river surrounded by steep and densely wooded slopes. A building, big, old, with whitewashed walls. The Fairy heard the chime of a bell. And the cry of a child. She heard it so clearly, as if it were calling her. A woman stepped out of the gate in front of the building. She was wearing the black habit of a nun. A convent? In contrast to he
r mother, Amalie despised churches. Therese of Austry still prostrated herself every morning in the underground cell where the Goyl were keeping her prisoner. She worshipped her god like she treated her servants: “Look, I am lighting candles for you. Protect me. Grant all my wishes. Destroy my enemies.” Why a convent? Maybe because of the superstition that Fairies dissolved into water if they ever crossed the threshold of a church. Had Amalie forgotten that a Fairy had attended her wedding in the cathedral?
The building had many windows, but the moth took the Fairy to the one from where the cries were coming. And there was the infant. Wrapped in layers of pale blue cloth and white lace, he was barely visible in the arms of the young nun. But the tiny hand grabbing the black habit was the pale color of red moonstone.
Though dawn was still hours away, the Dark One had Chithira stop the carriage. She didn’t want to feel what she was feeling. Relief, as though she’d recovered a piece of herself.
She stepped down from the carriage. The countryside around her was very different from the wooded riverbank she’d just seen through the moth. Lotharaine? No. The convents there looked different.
She was still holding the moth between her hands. What should she do? She’d kept that child alive. She owed him her protection, even if what she felt for him scared her.
She let the moth fly.
She told it to find Kami’en and to show him the images she’d just seen. He loved the child. He loved him so much. He would find him.
The night was lit brightly by the two moons. They both hung in the sky so large they looked as though they might descend to earth at any moment. Donnersmarck was looking up at them. He’s getting stronger, his eyes said when they met hers. Please! Protect me! She should’ve also protected the child that lived only through her. Instead, she’d sat in a glass cage and bemoaned her lost love.
Should she tell Donnersmarck that nothing he’d learned as a soldier was going to help him in this fight with the stag, nothing he knew about himself or this world? He probably sensed it. His fear looked so alien on his face, as alien as what was stirring inside him.
She went to his horse, took the reins, and looked up at him.
“What exactly are you afraid of?” she asked. “That he’ll make you forget who you are? And? Look at your memories. Most of them are of pain, struggle, fear. He won’t take your joy or your love or your strength. He won’t let you forget to eat, sleep, or breathe. True, he knows nothing of yesterday or tomorrow, but might that not be a good thing? You’ll see, he knows much more about the now.”
Donnersmarck didn’t understand what she was saying, but soon he would.
“Stay with him,” she said to Chithira. The dead, she’d learned, knew much more about this world than the living.
Donnersmarck peered after her as she stepped into the night.
If she wanted to find the strength they all needed of her, she would have to be alone. The wide countryside around her seemed to know nothing of time. It made her feel young again. And the Dark Fairy let herself grow until she could feel the clouds in her hair. For far too long she’d made herself small, made herself fit into their world.
There art Others
The Goyl was hiding behind an advertising column on the other side of the street. Jacob had told Fox that Hentzau was having them followed, but this Goyl was new. His skin was pale yellow citrine.
Fox hadn’t asked Jacob how he’d lost the Goyl who’d been tailing him—they each had their very different methods—but while she was waiting for the guards to open the gate, Sylvain suddenly stood behind her.
“I’m coming with you,” he whispered, “because of that one.”
He pointed not very inconspicuously at the Goyl. Nothing Sylvain did was inconspicuous, even when he tried to be. Fox was touched that he’d gotten it into his head to protect her, but she had no idea how to deal with such attention. She wasn’t used to someone looking out for her. Jacob rarely did it because he knew she could very well take care of herself, and he knew how it irritated her when someone doubted that.
“Sylvain,” she said, “I am grown up. I don’t need a father.” The father I needed is long dead.
Sylvain sheepishly rubbed his perpetually unshaved chin. The dark stubble sprouting barely an hour after he’d scraped his skin, the curly hair, and even the bushy eyebrows—he really did look like a faun with his soft lips and brown eyes. Even his ears were a little pointy at the top, not to mention his insatiable appetite for good food and any kind of alcohol. Sylvain was such a strange mix of strength and vulnerability, of grown-up man and naughty boy. Sometimes Fox thought all the men she knew had the dreams and wishes of nine-year-old boys—at least all the men she liked.
“I apologize. It’s the red hair.” The sinister look he shot across the street was probably meant for the Goyl. “Reminds me of my daughter. One of them. I have three. Tabarnak—I’ve told you, non?” His eyes followed a taxi, as though he wanted it to drive him away from his memories. Sylvain had something on his mind, that much was very clear.
The guard gave her an irritated look when she stopped in the middle of the open gate.
“Is there something else, Sylvain?”
He studied the knuckles of his right hand. “I don’t know how to say... You and Jacob, you know about all these magic treasures. Do you know, maybe, of a magic something that brings back love?”
He was trying really hard to sound nonchalant, but Fox heard the yearning through his words, of many sad days filled with longing. She would’ve loved to answer yes, but she knew of no such magic.
“You should ask Chanute,” she said. “He knows more about magic than me and Jacob combined.”
But Sylvain shook his head. “Non!” he muttered. “That would be too embarrassing. Albert would make fun of me.”
“Nonsense! When it comes to love, Albert Chanute is much more sentimental than you think. He’ll probably go off to find something for you right away. Ask him!”
Sylvain looked dubious as he glanced up at the window of Chanute’s bedroom. He was still standing there when the guard closed the gate behind Fox. “A magic something that brings back love.” As she crossed the street, Fox wondered about the love Sylvain had lost. And how it must be not to feel it anymore. She’d felt the same love for so long now...
Fox shook off the Goyl by shape-shifting behind a flower stall. Before he realized the woman he’d been shadowing had shifted, the vixen was long gone.
***
The church where Orlando was expecting to meet Fox looked rather plain compared with the gold-encrusted churches around the Tzar’s palace. And Orlando himself also looked much more sensible and harmless in his gray suit than he had in his black tailcoat. But the eyes still gave him away. Fox could almost hear those eyes filing their report: dress from a Lotharainian tailor, not cheap but well worn...hair naturally red...two rings, one probably magical...concealed knife in coat sleeve...
She still liked the Barsoi. Maybe she liked him even better in gray.
Like so many churches she’d seen on her way to Moskva, this church was built of wood. The view from its tower was worth all the steps she’d had to climb for it. The roofs of Moskva surrounded her like a landscape of shingles, towers, and mythical stone creatures. But Orlando hadn’t asked her here to admire the view.
The eagle sitting on the tower’s balustrade had two heads, like the one on Varangia’s crest. On his back sat a Bolysoj. Apart from the hat and the tiny deer-leather coat, the only thing distinguishing him from the Thumblings of Austry was the color of his hair. He wore a gold tooth on a cord around his neck, and he accepted an Albian coin as payment. Even before Orlando had translated the tiny spy’s words, his face had told Fox they weren’t getting much for their money. There were just the usual rumors: The Dark One was on her way to Moskva in the shape of a black horse; she was already there and had fluttered into the Kremlin as a moth; she was in the Tzar’s palace and was conjuring an army of bears...
Fox could see that
Orlando didn’t believe a word of it, and so could the Bolysoj, who quickly flew off on his eagle before Orlando could ask for his money back.
“I hope my next source is a little more productive,” Orlando said as he flagged down a taxi in front of the church. “Ludmilla Akhmatova is one of the best spies in Moskva. We’re meeting at my apartment. There were some other things she was looking into for me, but I will also ask her about the Dark Fairy. Do you want to be there, or shall I ask the driver to drop you at Baryatinsky’s?”
Fox hesitated. It was still early, and she’d just be sitting in Baryatinsky’s salon waiting for Jacob and listening to Sylvain and Chanute debate whether wine or potato liquor gave you the better buzz.
“I’d like to be there,” she said.
Orlando tried to hide how much her answer pleased him.
Fox enjoyed his company very much, but when he opened the taxi door, her mind was flooded with the memory of a different face, one so beautiful that it could hide all the darkness of the world. She felt ashamed for her racing heart as she stepped away from the taxi, but those memories were so much stronger than anything her mind could set against them. The last man (were Bluebeards really men?) she’d followed home had filled a carafe with her fear.
Orlando signaled the driver to drive on without them.
“Why don’t we walk?” he said. “It’s such a beautiful day, and those are so much rarer here than in Metagirta.”
Fox was grateful to him for pretending nothing had happened. They walked in silence for a while, past houses and palaces, churches and shops. Even silence was easy with Orlando.
“How often do you shift shape?”
The question came so out of the blue that Fox was unsure whether she should answer it truthfully. She never talked with Jacob about how often she missed the fur. It felt like treason to be talking about it with someone else. But something in her wanted to answer, to give voice to her yearning to be both.