chapter SEVEN
IN VAIN
The Dark Fairy flinched. Jacob Reckless. She didn’t want to see his face any more. All the fear on it, the pain . . . she could feel death, drawn to him by her name, like a wound on his white skin.
This was not her revenge. Even though the pond that showed her his fear was the same one where he had turned her skin to bark.
Her red sister was probably seeing the same images, on the lake that had spawned them both. What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn’t know much about love.
The pond turned dark, like the sky it reflected, and then her face was all she saw trembling on the waves. They distorted it, as though her beauty was dissolving. So? Kami’en no longer saw her anyway. All he saw was the swollen belly of his human wife.
The sounds of the city drifted into the nocturnal garden.
The Dark One turned around. She no longer wanted to see; not herself, nor her sister’s unfaithful lover. At times she even longed for the leaves and the bark he’d put on her.
He looked nothing like his brother.
The moth that landed on her shoulder was like a sliver of night on her white skin. Yet even the night now belonged to the other. Kami’en now slept more and more often by the side of his doll-faced princess.
What did her sister want with all that fear and pain? They would never bring back the love.