Reckless (Free Preview) Read Online Free PDF

This one was wearing trousers, and her hair
was as short as a boy’s.
    The howl of a wolf pierced the darkness, and Will pulled
Clara away.   He talked at her, but she
just took his arm and traced the stone veins in his skin with her fingers.
    You’re no longer the only one looking after Will, Jacob.
    Clara looked at him, and her face briefly reminded Jacob of
his mother.   Why hadn’t he ever told her
about the mirror?   What if the world
behind it could have wiped at least some of the sadness off her face?
    Too late, Jacob.   Much too late.
    Fox hadn’t taken her eyes off the girl.   Jacob sometimes forgot she was one, as well.
    A second wolf howled.   They
were usually quite peaceful, but there was always a chance that there was a
brown one among them, and those did like to eat human flesh.
    Will listened anxiously into the night; then he again pleaded
with Clara.
    Fox lifted her muzzle.   “We should leave,” she whispered at Jacob.
    “Not before he sends her back.”
    Fox looked at him.   Eyes of pure amber.
    “Take her along.”
    “No!”
    She’d only slow them down.   Fox knew as well as he that his brother was
running out of time, though Jacob hadn’t explained that to Will yet.
    Fox turned.
    “Take her along!” she said again.   “Your brother will need her.   And you will, too.   Or don’t you trust my nose anymore?”
    With that, she disappeared into the night as if she was tired
of waiting for him.
           

7
    The House of The Witch
     
    A thicket of roots, thorns, and leaves.   Giant trees, and
saplings stretching toward what scant light trickled through the thick canopy.   Swarms of will-o’-the-wisps above putrid
ponds, and clearings where toadstools drew their poisonous circles.   Jacob had last been in the
Hungry
Forest
four months earlier, to find a Man-Swan wearing a shirt of nettles over his
feathers.   But after three days he’d
abandoned the search, for he had not been able to breathe under the dark trees.
    It took them until midday to reach the edge of the forest,
because Will had been in pain again.   The
stone had now spread all over his neck, though Clara pretended not to see it.   Love makes you blind — she seemed intent on proving that proverb.   She never budged from Will’s side; she wrapped
her arms around him whenever the stone grew a little further and he doubled
over in the saddle with pain.   But when
she felt unobserved, Jacob saw his own fear on her face.   When she asked him what he knew about the
stone, he gave her the same lies he had given his brother:   that it was only Will’s skin that was changing, and that it would be simple enough to heal him in this
world.   She hadn’t taken much convincing.   Both she and Will were only too happy to
believe whatever comforting lies he told them.
    Clara rode better than he’d
expected.   Jacob had bought her a dress
from a market they had passed along the way, but she made him swap it for a man’s
clothes after trying in vain to mount her horse in the wide skirt.   A girl in men’s clothes, and the stone on
Will’s skin — Jacob was glad when they finally left the villages and
highways behind and could ride under the trees, even though he knew what would
be awaiting there.
    Barkbiters, Mushroom-Wights, Trappers, Crow-Men.   The
Hungry
Forest
had many
unpleasant inhabitants, though the Empress had been trying for years to clear
it of its terrors.   Despite the dangers,
there was a lively trade in horns, teeth, skins, and other body parts of the
Hungry
Forest
’s
creatures.   Jacob had never earned his
money that way, but there were many who made quite a decent living of it:
fifteen silver dollars for a Mushroom-Wight (a two-dollar bonus if it spat real
fly-agaric poison), thirty for a Barkbiter (not a lot, considering the hunt
could easily leave the hunter dead), and forty for a Crow-Man (who at least
only went for the eyes).
    Many trees were already shedding their leaves, but the