Finding the Dwarf had not been hard, and for a sizable amount of gold, he actually led Jacob to the valley where the Fairies lived. But his guide had neglected to tell Jacob about the creatures that guarded the valley, and Jacob had nearly paid with his life for that little excursion. Valiant, however, sold the lily to the Empress, and it turned her daughter, Amalie, into an acclaimed beauty, and him into a purveyor to the court.
Jacob had imagined many times who he would settle his score with the Dwarf, but after he returned from the Fairies, he had lost his taste for revenge. He'd won the imperial gold through another assignment, and finally he had managed to push out of his mind any memory of Evanaugh Valiant or the island, where he had been so happy that he had nearly forgotten himself. So what does that teach you, Jacob Reckless? he wondered as the first Dwarf dwellings appeared among the fields and hedgerows. That, on the whole, revenge is not such a great idea. All the same, his heart clenched at the prospect of meeting the Dwarf again.
Not even the hood could conceal the stone on Will's face any longer, and Jacob decided to leave him and Clara behind with Fox while he rode into Terpevas (which, in the language of its inhabitants, means nothing else but ‘Dwarf City’). In a little wood, Fox found a cave that the local shepherds used as a shelter. Will followed his brother into its shade as if he couldn't wait to get out of the daylight. There was only a small patch of human skin left on his right cheek, and with every passing day Jacob found it harder to look at him. The eyes were the worst. Both were drowning in gold, and Jacob had to struggle ever harder against the fear that he might have already lost his race against time. Sometimes Will would return his glance as if he had already forgotten who he was, and Jacob thought he could see their shared past fading from his brother's eyes.
Clara had not followed them into the cave. When Jacob walked with Fox back to the horses, he saw her standing among the trees, still wearing men's clothes and looking so lost that for a moment Jacob mistook her for one of the orphan boys found everywhere in this world, waiting by the roadside, ready to do any kind of work. The autumn grass growing between the trees was the same color as her hair, and he could barely see the other world in her anymore. The memories of the streets and houses where they all had grown up, of the lights and the noise, and of the girl she had been there — all but faded, far away. The present swiftly became the past, and the future suddenly wore strange clothes.
"Will doesn't have much time left."
She didn't phrase it as a question. She faced things, even if they scared her. Jacob liked that about her.
"And you need a doctor," she said, seeing him flinch with pain as he swung himself onto the mare. All the flowers, leaves and roots Fox had shown her had done nothing to check the infection in his shoulder. It was already making him feverish.
"She's right," said Fox. "Go to one of the Dwarf doctors. They're supposed to be even better than the Empress's personal physicians."
"Yes, if you're a Dwarf. Their only ambition with human patients is to make them pay and then send them to an early grave. Dwarfs don't think very highly of us," he added in response to Clara's puzzled look, "even those who serve the Empress. Nothing earns a Dwarf more prestige than having successfully fleeced a human."
"But you still know one you can trust?"
Fox uttered a scornful growl. She brushed around Clara's legs. Forging an alliance. "Trust? The Dwarf he's going to see is even less trustworthy than the others! Ask him where he got the scars on his back."
"That was a long time ago."
"And? Why should he have changed?" Anger had replaced the fear in Fox's voice.
Clara looked at Jacob with even more concern.
"Why don't you at least take Fox with you?"
For that, the vixen brushed around Clara's legs even more affectionately. She now always sought Clara's company, and for Clara she had even begun to shift into her human form more often.
Jacob turned the horse about.
"No. Fox stays here," he said.
Fox lowered her head and did not protest. She knew just as well as he did that neither Will nor Clara understood this world well enough to be left alone in it.
As Jacob reached the first bend in the road, he looked back and saw her, still sitting beside Clara, watching him ride away. His brother hadn't even asked him where he was going. Will was hiding from the sun.
18
Whispering Stone
Will heard the stone. He heard it as clearly as his own breathing. The sounds came from the cave walls, from the jagged ground beneath his feet, from the rocky ceiling above... vibrations to which his body responded as if it were made of them. He no longer had a name, only the new skin that cocooned him, cool and protective, and the new strength in his muscles, and the pain in his eyes when he looked at the sunlight.
He ran his hands over the rock, reading its age from its stony folds. They whispered to him about what was hidden beneath the innocuous gray surface: striped agate, pale white moonstone, golden citrine, black onyx. They showed him images: of underground cities, of petrified water, of dim light reflecting in windows of malachite...
"Will?"
He turned around, and the rock fell silent.
A woman was standing in the cave's entrance, the sunlight clinging to her hair as if she were made of it.
Clara. Her face brought memories of another world, where stone had meant nothing more than walls and dead streets.
"Are you hungry? Fox caught a rabbit, and she showed me how to make a fire."
She stepped toward him and took his face between her hands, such soft hands, and so colorless against the green that was spreading through his skin. Her touch made him shudder, though Will tried to hide that from her. He loved her, didn't he?
If only her skin weren't so soft and pale.
"Can you hear anything?" he asked.
She looked at him, puzzled.
"Never mind," he said. And he kissed her, trying to forget how he suddenly longed to find amethyst in her skin. Her lips brought back more memories: of a house as high as a tower, of nights lit by artificial light and not by the gold in his eyes...
"I love you, Will." Clara whispered the words as if she wanted to banish the stone with them. But the stone whispered louder, and Will wanted to forget the name she'd called him.
I love you, too. He wanted to say it, because he knew he'd said it so many times before. But he was no longer sure what it meant or whether it could be felt by a heart of stone.
"It will be okay," she whispered. She stroked his face, as if trying to feel his old flesh under the new skin. "Jacob will be back soon."
Jacob. Another name. pain clung to it, and he remembered how all too often he had called that name without receiving an answer. Empty rooms. Empty days.
Jacob. Clara. Will.
He wanted to forget them all.
He pushed away the soft hands.
"Don't," he said. "Don't touch me."
How she looked at him. Pain. Love. Blame. He'd seen it all before, on another face: his mother's. Too much pain. Too much love. He didn't want all that anymore. He wanted the stone, cool and firm, so different from all the softness, the yielding, the vulnerability, and the lachrymose flesh.
He turned his back to her. "Go away," he said. "Just leave already."