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.