Reckless (Free Preview) Read Online Free Page A

Jacob had received it years earlier from a
Witch in exchange for a kiss that had burned his lips for weeks.   The other items he packed into his knapsack
looked just as innocuous:   a silver
snuffbox, a brass key, a tin plate, and a small bottle made of green glass.   Each of these items had saved his life on more
than one occasion.
    When Jacob came back down the stairs, he found the taproom
empty.   Chanute was sitting at one of the
tables.   He pushed a mug of wine toward
him as Jacob joined him.
    “So?   What kind of
trouble are you in this time?”   Chanute
looked longingly at Jacob’s wine; he only had a glass of water in front of him.   In the past, he’d often been so drunk
that Jacob had started hiding the bottles, though Chanute would always beat him
for it.   The old treasure hunter had
often beaten Jacob, even when he was sober — until Jacob had one
day pointed his own pistol at him.   Chanute
had also been drunk in the Ogre’s cave.   He
would have probably kept his arm had he been able to see straight, but after
that he had quit drinking.   The treasure
hunter had been a miserable replacement father, and Jacob was always on his
guard with him, but if anyone knew what could save Will, then Albert Chanute
most definitely did.
    “What would you do if a friend of yours had been clawed by
the Goyl?”
    Chanute choked on his water and eyed him closely, as if to
make sure Jacob was not talking about himself.
    “I have no friends,” he grunted.   “And you don’t, either.   You have to trust friends, and neither of us
is very good at that.   So, who is it?”
    Jacob shook his head.
    “Of course . Jacob Reckless likes it
mysterious.   How could I forget?”   Chanute’s voice sounded bitter.   Despite everything, he thought of Jacob as the
son he had never had.   “When did they get
him?”
    “Four days ago.”
    The Goyl had attacked them not far from a village where Jacob
had been looking for the hourglass.   He
had underestimated how far their patrols were already venturing into imperial
territory, and after Will had been clawed, he’d been in such pain that the
journey back took them days.   Back where?   There was no “back” anymore, but Jacob had not
had the courage yet to tell Will.
    Chanute brushed his hand through his spiky hair.   “Four days?   Forget it.   He’s already half one of them.   You remember the time when the Empress was
collecting all their colors?   And that
farmer tried to peddle us a dead moonstone he had covered in lamp soot as an
onyx Goyl?”
    Yes, Jacob remembered.   The stone faces.   That’s what they were still called back then,
and children were told stories about them to teach them to fear the night.   When Chanute and he were still traveling
together, the Goyl had only just begun to populate the caves aboveground, and
every village used to organize Goyl hunts.   But now they had a King, and he had turned the
hunted into hunters.
    There was a rustling near the back door, and Chanute drew his
knife.   He threw it so quickly that it
nailed the rat in mid-jump against the wall.
    “This world is going down the toilet,” he growled, pushing
back his chair.   “Rats as big as dogs.   The air on the street stinks like a Troll’s
cave from all the factories, and the Goyl are standing
just a couple of miles from here.”
    He picked up the dead rat and threw it onto the table.
    “There’s nothing that helps against the petrified flesh.   But if they’d gotten me, I’d ride to one of
them Witches’ houses and look in the garden for a bush with black berries.”   Chanute wiped the bloody knife on his sleeve.   “It’s got to be the garden of a child-eater,
though.”
    “I thought the child-eating Witches all moved to Lotharaine
since the other Witches started hunting them.”
    “But their houses are still there.   The bush grows where they buried their
leftovers.   Those berries are the
strongest antidote to curses I know