"Sure!" Jacob managed to sound so casual, he could’ve even convinced himself.
"How on earth?"
Fox jumped up and barked a warning. The voices from the tunnels grew louder. They were coming.
Clara quickly lifted the Dwarf onto one of the wings. Fox backed away from the plane, but Clara just swooped her up and carried her into the cockpit.
Jacob's fingers found the ignition switch. The engine sputtered to life, and the propeller began to turn. As he made his final checks, Jacob saw his father's hands going through the same motions. In another world. In another life.
"Look at this, Jacob! Aluminum body on a steel frame. Only the rudder is still made of wood." John Reckless had never sounded more passionate than when he spoke about old airplanes. Or weapons.
Fox ducked under the front seat, shivering behind Jacob's legs.
Machines. The sound of metal. Engineered motion. Mechanical magic for those who had neither fur nor wings.
Jacob steered the plane toward the large tunnel. Yes, it certainly was unwieldy on the ground. He could only hope flying it would be easier.
Shots rang out behind them as the plane rolled into the tunnel. The roar of the engine reverberated between the walls. Oil splattered into Jacob's face, and one of the wings nearly grazed the side of the tunnel. More speed, Jacob. He accelerated, which made it only harder to keep the wings clear of the tunnel walls, and he took a deep breath as the clumsy plane shot out of the tunnel and onto a gravel runway. Above them, a pale sun was drifting among white clouds. The noise of the engine tore through the silence, and a few crows rose from the nearby trees but, luckily, stayed clear of the propeller.
Pull her up, Jacob! Fox has her fur, your brother has a skin of stone, and now you have a pair of wings.
Engineered magic.
John Reckless had brought metal Dragons through the mirror, and, just like the sheet of paper Jacob had found in one of his father's books, the planes seemed like something else John Reckless had left behind for his elder son.
The plane took off and rose, higher and higher. Below, Jacob saw roads and railways disappear through massive arches into the mountain. A few years ago, the entrance to the Goyl fortress had been just a natural fissure at the bottom of the mountain. Now jade lizards adorned the arched gates, and the mountainside above them was emblazoned with the coat of arms Kami’en had chosen for himself: a black moth on a shield of carnelian.
The sun drew the plane's silhouette under the moth's wings as Jacob flew past the coat of arms.
He was stealing the King's Dragon, but not even that could give him back his brother.
42
Two Paths
Back. Over the river where the Lorelei lurked, the mountains where Jacob had died, and the plundered land where the beauty was still sleeping in her overgrown castle and where Will had first seen his new kin by the abandoned farm... Within hours, the Junkers covered all the miles that it had taken them more than a week to travel. To Jacob the journey seemed just as long, for every mile made it more irrevocable that he no longer had a brother.
"Jacob, where's Will?" He'd lost Will so many times when they were children, while shopping our out in the park, where he'd felt embarrassed to be seen holding his stubby fingers, Will would be off stalking a squirrel, a stray dog, or a crow... One time Jacob had searched for hours before he found Will in a shop entrance, his face swollen with tears. But this time there were no more places to look for him, no path he could retrace, no way to undo his mistake, his one moment of carelessness.
Jacob flew south along the railway tracks, hoping they would lead him to Schwanstein. It was bitterly cold in the open cockpit, though he was quite sure flying quite close to the ground, and the wind kept grabbing the aluminum-clad wings, forcing him to forget his self-reproach as he fought to keep the wobbling contraption under control. The Dwarf had started to curse behind him every time the plane lurched, even though he probably enjoyed sharing the narrow rear seat with Clara, and Fox uttered an occasional yelp. Only Clara was silent, letting the wind blow away everything that had happened in the past days.
Flying.
It was as though the two worlds had merged, as if there were no longer a mirror. When Dragons turned into machines, what came next?
Such thoughts were not conducive to controlling a biplane, especially not for someone doing it for the first time. The rising steam of a locomotive suddenly robbed his vision, and Jacob pulled up too abruptly. The Junkers tumbled toward the earth as if it had remembered that it wasn't supposed to be in this world. Fox cowered with a whimper, and the Dwarf's curses became louder than the sputtering motor.
Of course, Jacob. How could you have trusted anything your father built?
He felt Clara clawing her hands into his shoulders. What will be his last thought? Will's jaded face, or the dead larks?
He didn’t get to find out.
A lucky gust of wind cushioned the fall of the groaning plane, and he regained control in time to avoid crashing into the trees. The Junkers pitched like a wounded bird, but Jacob managed to put the wheels onto a muddy ridge. The rudder broke on impact, one of the wings shattered against a tree, and the fuselage was ripped open by the rocky terrain, but finally they came to a halt. The engine died with one last stutter — but they were alive.
Valiant scampered down the remaining wing and immediately vomited beneath a tree. The Dwarf's nose was bleeding, and a branch had grazed Clara's hand, but apart from that everybody was unharmed. Fox was so happy to feel solid ground beneath her paws that she jumped after the first rabbit that stuck its head out of the grass.
Fox cast a relieved glance at Jacob as she noticed the hill with the ruin to their left. They were, in fact, not far from Schwanstein. But Jacob was eyeing the railway tracks running southward to Schwanstein and farther beyond... much farther... all the way to Vena, the Empress's capital city. In his mind's eye, Jacob saw the five bridges, the imperial palace, the towers of the cathedral...
"Reckless, are you listening?" Valiant was wiping the blood from his nose. "How much farther?"
"What?" Jacob was still looking at the rails.
"To your house? My gold tree?"
Jacob didn't answer. He turned eastward to where the train that had caused their crash was now coming over the hills. White smoke. Black iron.
"Fox." He knelt next to her. Her fur was still disheveled from the wind. "I want you to take Clara back to the ruin. I'll be there in a few days."
She didn't ask him where he was going. Fox looked at him as if she had known this would happen all along. This was how it had always been. Fox knew him better than he knew himself. But Jacob could see that she was tired of worrying about him. And the anger was back. She had not forgiven him for the Larks' Water, nor for not taking her along to the fortress. And now he was leaving her behind again. Give up! her eyes said.
You know I can't, Fox.
He stood.
The train grew toward them, devouring the fields and meadows in its path. Fox looked at the locomotive as if its cargo were death itself.
Ten hours to Vena. And then what, Jacob? He didn't even know when the wedding was supposed to take place, but he didn’t want to think anymore. All his thoughts had turned to jade.
He stumbled down the slope. Valiant shouted something after him, but Jacob didn't look back. The air filled with the smoke and the noise of the train. He broke into a run, his hands gripped metal, his feet found a footboard.