The Treachery of Beautiful Things (24 page)

Dawn crept through the trees and fell, dappled, on her face. Jenny woke and there he was. Jack. Sitting across from her, watching her, his gaze troubled. She tried to smile at him, tried to give him the thing he needed most—proof of her trust.

But her smile wavered. She felt it, right before she saw the effect on his face.

And in that instant she knew the damage was done.

“You came after me,” she said. Her eyes stung. There was a tingling across the bridge of her nose, tightening her skin and closing her throat.

I will not cry,
she told herself.

“I’m bound to protect you,” Jack said.
Nothing more.
The words were unspoken but hung between them. She was nothing but a weight around his neck. He’d told her as much already.

She tried to think of something to say but Jack beat her to it.

“We wouldn’t have got out if it hadn’t been for you. You thought quickly, and you were strong.” He hesitated, staring down at her, his features emotionless. “You did well.”

Jenny swallowed. His gruff praise should have made her proud, but instead she felt wretched. All she could think of was the expression on his face a moment earlier, and the stiffness there now.

Silence dragged out between them, the long, agonizing death of Jack’s trust. She had to say something. Anything.

“Where did you get the sword?”

Jack flinched at the mention, glancing behind himself at the weapon still strapped across his back. It looked old, even by the standards of the Realm. Saxon, perhaps. She’d seen them in the British Museum on various school visits, studied them in history class, and they had fascinated her. This one was different, more ornate, special somehow. She’d seen what it could do.

Well, not seen, exactly. But she knew; she had watched it all unfold before her, through his eyes.

“Wayland,” he grunted, looking away from her.

“Wayland’s a legend.” Her laugh made its escape and he glared at her. But the sound made that expression melt to a smile.

Such a wonderful smile. It sparked in his eyes, crinkled the skin around them, and made him handsome.

“Yes. He is. And more.”

She shook her head, still smiling. Well, why not? Why not any number of old gods and forgotten stories? She looked at him again. “Can I see it? The sword?”

His face fell again into that stone-cold seriousness, and her heart fell with it. He pulled the sword out of the scabbard. Though he held it out to her hilt-first, she hesitated to take it. Light glinted off its edge, razor sharp. Most of the weapons she had ever seen—apart from being safely locked behind glass—were blunted and marked, nicks taken out of the edges, the metal tarnished and dull. This sword didn’t just gleam, it dazzled.

“Is it magic?”

“It’s one of Wayland’s, so…” He shrugged, and came closer, hunkering down beside her, back to the bier. They sat there, side by side, studying the weapon. “I suppose it is,” he said finally.

“And this?” Jenny uncurled her fingers to reveal the tiny star of iron he had given her. She lifted it in her palm and, seeing it again, felt a smile overtake her face. It was the smile she should have given Jack in the first place. She raised her eyes and offered it to him now.

But he was staring at the thing in her hand, eyeing it as if it might jump from her palm and bite him. “I’m not sure what that is. But Wayland said it would make you smile.”

It did. Or rather he did. “It’s a jack,” she said. “That’s probably what he meant. You play a game with them. Throw
them on the ground, bounce a ball and see how many you can pick up before the ball stops bouncing. But you need more than one.”

Jack dipped his head, dark hair hiding his eyes a moment. Then he turned to face her. “Puck told you what I am. There are always more than one of me.” One green eye, one blue. Both searched her face now. “Jacks…Jacks are endless, identical. Someone’s creations.”

Oberon’s. He couldn’t say the name.

Jenny looked at him steadily. “What is a Kobold, Jack?”

He drew in a breath and his eyes grew distant, as if focusing on something far away. “I’m a…a servant. What he made me to be. A slave.”

“A slave?” she asked.

His eyebrows drew in, the skin between them knotting. “I don’t know what else to call it. He made me. I live on his whim, act according to his will. I’m bound to obey him. He has power over whether I guard the Edge or toil beneath the earth, or if I’m simply locked away for the rest of my days. What else would you call me?”

Jack looked up at her and Jenny’s heart twisted. She reached out, her fingertips touching his cheek. His skin was warm, smooth over the cheekbone, speckled with a faint roughness across his jaw. He shuddered and turned toward her again. His mouth was inches from hers, her fingers millimeters from his lips. So very warm. His skin moved,
tightening beneath her touch, and he stared at her, eyes blazing, blue and green rings encircling his pupils, huge and black. Her face was reflected there.

Jenny leaned forward, pressed her lips to his. A startled breath warmed her skin, but he didn’t pull away. The sword fell between them, forgotten now.

“Jack,” she whispered, and he kissed her, making her head swim, making her want to press closer. No, not want.
Need
. She leaned in against him and his hand closed on her shoulder, his thumb brushing the skin at the collar of her shirt.

Deep in his throat Jack gave a muffled groan, something between submission and resignation, and he gathered her into his arms, deepening his kiss, while his hands moved to her hair, her shoulders, the curve of her side. She could smell him—forest and sunlight—taste him—salt and sap. Her body melted against him, something unknown awakening within her. It unfurled at the base of her stomach, spreading through her body like electricity until her fingers tingled against his skin.

“Jenny…” His lips fumbled against hers. “We can’t…We shouldn’t…”

No. Something in her rebelled. Something she didn’t want to control. And for that one moment she would have done anything. A blinding disappointment crashed over her, and the longing in her sharpened to a point of pain.

He was right, or at least determined enough. And it almost broke her heart.

“You came for me,” she said, though her voice wavered, betraying her. She tried to smile. “Don’t I even get to reward you with a kiss?”

Jack withdrew a few inches, his manner at once chivalrous and profoundly cold. The fire inside her dimmed. She stared at him. He couldn’t be doing this to her. Not now.

“Beware a kiss,” he told her. “Kisses are powerful things. You expose part of your soul. Have you learned nothing?”

Of course she had. She’d kissed the Nix.

A weight around my neck.

His words were meant to hurt her, to drive her back. She knew that. Her fingers still lingered on his face and as she pressed them a little closer, he shuddered, his eyelids half closing until his will reasserted itself and he opened them. She looked into those fascinating eyes, steady, asking him to believe her. “I know what you are, Jack. I’m not afraid of you.”

The frown came back, with eyebrows raised. Such a strange combination of an expression—infuriated and confused—and the same feelings flooded her in a second. Was he going to deny it, then? Was he going to deny what he was feeling too? Because he had to be feeling it. He couldn’t kiss her like that and not—

“You may not be afraid now, Jenny Wren. But you will
be. I saw your face. I saw what you felt in those moments, before…before I lost all knowledge of myself. Because that’s what happens. I’m not
me
anymore. Or rather I am…the real me. I’m not this. Not a sentient, feeling creature but a—a wild
thing
.”

Jenny wrapped both hands around his and found them trembling. “I’ve been in your mind, Jack. I don’t believe that.”

“But you must. For your own safety. I hurt you already. I attacked Puck.” He swallowed hard as he said the words. “I could have killed him. Or you. And you came after me, and anything could have happened. I could have hurt you—worse, I could have
killed
you,
Jenny. Don’t you understand? I didn’t want to, I didn’t even know it, but…”

He brushed his fingers over the cuts and grazes on her arms and hands, and her skin shivered. She’d almost forgotten they were there. She’d almost forgotten the encounter with the greenman that had sent her running to the river.

She narrowed her eyes, as if focusing more sharply on him would help her understand. When she lifted his hand to her mouth, he didn’t resist, but he shut his eyes, as if he couldn’t look. Jenny kissed his fingers while still holding them. His grip tightened, almost to the point of pain, but not quite.

“But you didn’t. You’d never hurt me, Jack. I know that.”

“
I
don’t know that. How could you?”

She pressed his hand to her cheek and he relaxed. “I just know. It wasn’t you, that night at the Edge. Puck was lying.”

He gave a growl of frustration, even as he put his hand over hers. “It was me, Jenny. That night. It must have been. Because when I came back to myself the next morning, there was Tom. His music had woken the forest and it took him. He was too dangerous to leave walking around, so I took him to the queen. And that’s where he’s been ever since.”

Jenny flinched, pulling her hand away. “Puck told me—” she whispered, her voice failing her.

“He told you the truth.” Jack let his arm fall to his side, but kept his eyes fixed on her, like shining knots of polished wood. He stared at her, watching her reaction. “It was my duty. And Oberon had no use for him. He isn’t—he isn’t kind to those he has no use for, you see?”

“But he— I saw it happen. I saw you. You! Jack, it—it destroyed my life. It shattered my family. It—” She drew back. Then reached for him again. It couldn’t be real, but what else made sense? Only he patrolled the Edge, that’s what Puck said, its guardian, its Jack. She wanted it to be a lie, or a mistake. But no. It had been him.

It had been him.

Oh God, it had been him.

Jenny scrambled to her feet. She wanted to hit something, wanted to scream, wanted to—

“It was for the best,” he said, bowing his head, unable to look at her.

She turned, her shoulders sagging. With an effort, she straightened. “Then keep your promise. Take me to him and help me get him back.”

T
hey stepped out from among the trees, and the forest fell away. The sky stretched everywhere, so brightly blue, and meadows dotted with wildflowers unfurled before them. The long grasses swayed and butterflies danced at their tips. In the distance, where the river ran down to a lake like a pool of molten silver in the sunlight, the glittering towers of a palace rose.

It was so beautiful, she should have gasped, but Jenny couldn’t. After a day of walking through dark tree cover and brambles and briar, under a leaden silence that not even Puck dared disturb, she could only stare at the fairy-tale structure before her, squinting in the bright sunlight. So impossibly graceful, it hardly looked real; rather, it appeared to have been spun from dew drops and gossamer. Ash trees lined the path leading toward it, slender and pale as beautiful maidens bending as if to tend it. Jenny and Jack walked between them, like vagabonds coming to the feast.

It hadn’t taken long to get here, and in truth, she wasn’t
ready for it now that she’d arrived. Her stomach twisted with dread, and Jack wasn’t helping. He kept his gaze straight ahead, or looked past her, never meeting her eyes. Not that she helped either. She didn’t know what to say, or how to feel, or how she’d explain it if she did.

It didn’t matter. She would get Tom and get home. That was it. That was everything. That was all that mattered now.

The gates to the palace stood open, and Jack hurried her inside, nodding at the guards as he did so. He seemed to dart from place to place, moving almost too fast for the eye. Puck clung to the shadows, trailing behind them. Perhaps he blamed himself for telling her. Jenny didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything now but Tom.

“Bringing up the rear,” Puck grunted as they passed through a courtyard.

“Ready to be first out the gate as soon as there’s trouble,” Jack replied without humor.

Not “
if
there’s trouble,” Jenny noticed. But she let it pass.

It was for the best,
he’d said.
The best for whom?

Not the best for her. Not the best for her parents. He couldn’t possibly mean it was best for Tom.

Jenny closed her eyes a moment. It was exhausting, this pinwheel of doubts. She turned her thoughts away from Jack and traced her hand along the nearest wall, smooth and iridescent as mother-of-pearl. The castle bustled quietly with
the life of an early morning. She could smell bread baking, and all around them, strangely silent servants, dressed in the muted gray of a dove, moved from place to place, carrying trays, pitchers, and whatever else the queen and her court wanted.

They passed the stables where the long-legged white horses they had seen out hunting snorted and stamped. Jack skirted around the far side of the next courtyard. Close behind him, Jenny heard dogs snapping and snarling, and turned to stare at a group of stone buildings.