He looked into her eyes, but she could not read his glance.
"Yes. He's not there."
The Empress stroked the Dragon's claw in her hand.
"Find him. You know what he's like. You can let him go again as soon as the wedding is over."
"It'll be too late for his brother by then."
"It's already too late. He is a Goyl."
The Dwarf returned with her breakfast. The sun had risen. The night had taken the Dark Fairy with it. Time to claim back what her magic had stolen from her.
Who wants peace when you can have victory?
49
One of Them
Will tried not to listen. He was the King's shadow, and shadows are deaf and dumb. But Hentzau was speaking so loudly that he was hard to ignore.
"With the Fairy gone, I cannot protect you. The additional troops I summoned won't get here before tonight, and the Empress knows that!"
Kami’en buttoned up his jacket. No dress coat for this groom, just the dark gray uniform, his second skin. He had defeated them in it, and he would marry one of them in it. The first Goyl to take a human wife.
"Your Majesty. It's not like her to just vanish like that!" Hentzau's voice betrayed something Will had never heard in it before. Fear.
"On the contrary. It is very much like her." The King let Will hand him his saber. "She hates our custom of having several wives, though I've told her often enough that it also gives her the right to have other husbands."
He fastened the saber to his silver-studded belt and stepped up to the mirror that hung next to the window. The shimmering glass reminded Will of something. But what was it?
"She probably planned this from the start. That's why she had you find the Jade Goyl for me. And if she is right," the King added, looking at Will, "then all I need to be safe is to keep him close by."
"Never leave his side." The Fairy had told him that so often that Will heard the words in his dreams.
"Even if he dismisses you, do not obey him."
She was so beautiful, but Hentzau despised her. Yet he'd trained Will on her orders, sometimes so hard it had seemed he wanted to kill him. Fortunately, Goyl skin healed fast, and fear had only made Will fight harder. Just yesterday he had managed to strike the saber from Hentzau's hand. "What did I tell you?" the Fairy had whispered in his ear. "You were born to be a guardian angel. Maybe one day I'll grow you a pair of wings."
"But who was I before?" Will had asked.
"Since when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?" she'd answered. "He forgets. And revels in what he is."
And yes, he did. Will loved the resilience of his skin and the strength and the tiredlessness of his limbs that set the Goyl apart from the Doughskins, though he knew that he'd been made from their flesh. He still blamed himself for letting the one get away who'd snuck into the walls like a rat. Will couldn't forget his face, the gray eyes, goldless eyes, the hair as fine as cobwebs, and the soft skin that betrayed his frailty. Will ran his fingers reassuringly over his own smooth jade skin.
had to bang on the door so hard that two guests poked their heads out of their rooms before the soldier finally opened up. Jacob stumbled past him into the bathroom and vomited. Fox was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is she?" Jacob asked as he came out of the bathroom. He had to lean against the wall so his knees would not give out.
"I locked her in the wardrobe!" The soldier held up a hand wrapped in a bloody handkerchief like a piece of incriminating evidence. "She bit me!"
Jacob pushed him into the hall. "Tell Donnersmarck that what I promised has been done."
Exhausted, Jacob leaned against the door. One of the Elves that were still fluttering around the room dropped some silvery dust on his shoulder. Sweet dreams, Jacob.
Fox was wearing her fur, and she bared her teeth when Jacob opened the wardrobe. Whatever relief she might have felt at seeing him, she hid it quite well.
"Did the Fairy do that?" she simply asked, eyeing his bloodstained shirt. She watched impassively as he struggled to take it off. His fingers were like wood by now.