User:OberMegaTrans/ss2022/Reckless III - The Golden Yarn

Reckless. Das goldene Garn (in English: Reckless. The Golden Yarn) is a fantasy novel by German author Cornelia Funke and filmmaker Lionel Wigram. Following the volumes Reckless. Steinernes Fleisch (in English: Reckless. The Petrified Flesh) and Reckless. Lebendige Schatten (in English: Reckless. Living Shadows), this is the third installment of a series of novels, each of which aims to take up the fairy tale tradition of a different country. In this installment, Russian fairy tales are part of the plot. The book was published on February 20, 2015, but had originally been scheduled to be published in October 2014 already and had actually been supposed to be titled Reckless. Teuflisches Silber (in English: Reckless. Devilish Silver.)

Plot

Kami'ens son is born to Amalie, the Princess of Austria, in Vena. His skin is made of moonstone and is transparent. The child, who could only survive through the magic of the Dark Fairy, Kami'ens former lover, disappears the next day without a trace. The Dark Fairy, being now suspected, flees to the east with Donnersmarck, who now hopes for healing due to the curse of the fawn after having returned from the child-eater. She intends to find the Fate Weaver there, who is able to cut the golden yarn made of love that binds her to Kami'en.

Jacob and Fox have returned safely to the human world with the Witch Slaughterer's crossbow. While Fox goes back to the other side after only a few days, Jacob still wants to find a safe place for the crossbow. His attempt to hide it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art fails. He is captured by Johann Norebo Earlking, who turns out to be one of the many personas of the Alder Elf Gambler. Gambler demands from Jacob the price for showing him the right way in the Bluebeard's Labyrinth; he wants his first child, which Jacob will have together with Fox. During this encounter, Jacob learns that the elves have succeeded in creating living mirror creatures that can take on the faces of people, mirror themselves in them and turn people and things into silver.

With the help of a brooch, one of the mirror creatures puts Clara into a magical sleep from which she is unable to wake up. Will, who visits her in the hospital, is stopped by Gambler. Gambler blames the Dark Fairy for Clara's magical sleep and asks Will to kill the Dark Fairy with the crossbow so that everything will be as it has to be. Will goes behind the mirror and follows, together with the Goyl Nerron and under the guard of the mirror creatures Sixteen and Seventeen, the Dark Fairy to Varangia, the Russia in our world. Nerron hopes to find Jacob through Will, who he wants to take revenge on for stealing the crossbow in the lost city. Furthermore, Nerron wants to find the mirror through which Will has come into the mirror world and bring back the Jadegoyl fireplace with the prospect of fame and recognition.

After Fox goes through the mirror again, she finds Jacob and another prisoner of the Alder Elves, Sylvain Fowler, and is able to free both. Together they go through the mirror again and also travel eastward to find Will.

John Reckless, Jacob's father, worked as an Albic engineer for years after escaping from the prisons of the Goyl. He worked under the code name Isambard Brunel, but he was captured in Lorraine by Hentzau and taken to Varangia to the Tsar's prison.

Nerron finds the crossbow in Will's deception bag but is prevented from stealing it by the mirror creatures Sixteen and Seventeen. It turns out that, in dangerous situations, Will can call the jade and thus become a Goyl again.

Jacob and Fox are attacked by a mirror creature and turned into silver. They are found by Jacob's former teacher Albert Chanute and his new friend and companion Sylvain Fowler, who followed them on the advice of the witch Alma. He can only heal Jacob with Alma's magic potion; Fox has been silvered with closed lips and so the magic potion cannot be administered to her.

Jacob seeks out a Baba Jaga who cures him permanently and gives him a Rushnyky, a witch blanket with healing powers, in exchange for Fox’s fur dress. Even before Fox is free of the silver, Jacob returns to the Baba Jaga’s house to retrieve the fur dress, but is caught and has to be saved by Fox. The journey continues.

Beyond the Varangian border, the Red Fairy appears to Jacob imploring him to find her dark sister before his brother kills her.

In the Varangian capital Moskva, the friends spend some days at a friend’s of Chanute’s to find the Dark Fairy who is rumoured to be staying in Moskva. At the Tsar’s ball Fox dances with an Albion spy called Orlando and finds herself tormented by conflicting emotions. She goes out with him and sleeps with him two days later. Meanwhile Jacob has an audience with the Tsar, asking for the fastest flying carpet from his collection – ostensibly to find treasure but really to follow Will. Before they can set off, Orlando is arrested during a spy mission for trying to steal a treasure from the Tsar’s collection. Jacob extricates him for Fox’s sake. With Orlando, John Reckless is freed as well, though fear keeps him from revealing his identity to his son.

The mirror creatures chase away Nerron, deeming him useless. He keeps following Will until mysterious voices throw him off his trail.

Jacob, Orlando, John Reckless aka Brunel and their helpers hide in the workshop of a painter. Several days later they depart on the magic carpet to find Will, although only Fox and Jacob know the real destination of the journey. When they rest, John Reckless reveals his identity to his son but is met only with fury. A desperate Jacob runs off and into Fox. They kiss. Out of cowardice, John seizes the carpet and takes flight, naming Alberica as his destination. Orlando leaves Fox and Jacob, not without giving them a hint as to how they can find the Dark Fairy. The latter, however, has found the Weaver and been freed of her love for Kami’en, though she has also lost her immortality in the process. Will finds the Dark Fairy, and shoots her despite Nerron’s intervention. Donnersmark attacks Will in his stag form, but Will is saved by a crossbow shot from Nerron, who cannot understand why he acted the way he did.

When the jade returns not much later, Will realises he has been only a pawn in Gambler’s game and sets out to take revenge. Nerron accompanies him on the condition that Will show him the mirror connecting this world with the other one. Jacob and Fox follow Will’s trail.

Gambler reaches the Mirrorworld through his personal mirror. However, he is dismayed when he finds that he is beginning to turn into a silver alder despite the extinction of the fairies. Gambler deduces that there must be a person carrying the fairies’ hopes; a person keeping alive part of the fairy curse that turns him and his kind into silver alders the moment they set foot in the Mirrorworld.