Jacob 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.
"I smell waneslime." Fox was licking her fur as if she could still feel where the soldier had tried to grab her.
Jacob sat down on the bed while he still could. His knees were also getting stiff.
"Help me, Fox. I have to go to the wedding tomorrow, and I can barely move."
She looked at him for such a long time that Jacob began to suspect she'd forgotten how to speak.
"A good bite might help," she said finally. "And it would be my pleasure to give one. But first you'll tell me what you're up to."
48
Wedding Plans
The first red of dawn reached out across the sky above the city. Therese of Austry had not slept. She had waited, hour after hour, but by the time one of her Dwarfs finally led Donnersmarck into her audience chamber, she'd hidden all the waiting and hoping behind a mask of powder.
"He did it. Kami’en has already called a search for her, but if Jacob told us the truth, they will not find her."
Donnersmarck didn't look too happy about the news he was delivering. But the Empress's heart beat faster, for this was exactly what she'd been hoping for.
"Good." She touched her tightly coiffed hair. It was turning gray, but she had it dyed golden, like Amalie's. Now she would get to keep her daughter. And her throne. And her pride.
"Give the order."
Donnersmarck lowered his head, as was his habit whenever he disliked one of her commands.
"What?"
"You can kill their King, but their armies are still barely twenty miles away."
"They'll be lost without Kami’en and the Fairy."
"One of the onyx Goyl will replace him."
"And bargain for peace. The onyx Goyl just want to rule underground." She heard the impatience in her own voice. She didn't want to think; she wanted to act. Before her opportunity passed.
"Their underground cities are overflowing. And his subjects will want revenge. They adore their King!"
He was so obstinate, and he was obviously tired of war, but nobody was smarter than him, or less corruptible.
"I won't say it again: Give the order."
She waved to one of her Dwarfs. "Bring my breakfast. I'm hungry."
The Dwarf scuttled away. Donnersmarck still had not moved."
"What about the brother?"
"What about him? He's the King's bodyguard, so I expect that he will die with his King. Did you get those items for my daughter?"
Donnersmarck placed them on the table where she often had sat as a child and watched her father put his seal on treaties and death warrants. Now it was she who wore the signet ring.
A healing needle, a Dragon's claw, and the skin of a Waterman. Therese approached the table and stroked the pale green scales that had once covered the Waterman's hand.
"Have the claw sewn into my daughter's wedding dress," she said to a maid waiting by the door. "And give the needle to the doctor who will be standing by the sacristy."
Donnersmarck handed her the second claw.
"I brought this one for you."
He saluted and was about to leave.
"What about Jacob? Did you have him arrested?"
Donnersmarck stopped short, as if she had thrown a corpse in his path. He turned around, keeping his face as expressionless as hers.
"The soldier who was waiting for him by the gate reported that he didn't come out again. But we couldn’t find him in the palace, either."
"You're having his hotel watched, I presume?"
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.