AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't own the characters (Miramax does) or the fairy tales referenced in this story. I'm not making one single penny off this story. (pauses) I wouldn't mind borrowing the boys for awhile though…

1) This is rated TEEN for a reason. There are some very adult themes and situations and angst in here and some violence. It deals with rather dark issues relating to familial rifts and deaths of family members (if you saw the movie, you know to what I'm referring). Can't handle, please don't read. 2) Although there are religious references in the story, nothing is based on any real people or cults. They were completely fabricated for plot purposes and if you see similarities to any real people or cults, you are squinting way too hard, if you know what I mean. Do not try anything you see in this story, boys and girls, because it's all made up stuff. So, if anyone flames for reasons of dark themes or religious references, I'm going to ignore it because I've given fair warning. 3) The opinions expressed by characters do not reflect the opinion of this writer. See Chapter One for the rest of the notes.

7

Time had ceased to have meaning.

With no windows in the cargo hold where Will was imprisoned, there was no way to tell when night ended and day began. Will didn't know if minutes or hours had passed since he'd been tossed into this dismal place. 'Gerit Torsten' gave not the slightest impression of being hurried, impatient, or frustrated. He only sat in the room, facing Will, and waited until his prisoner regained a semblance of control over his wits. He needed his injured prisoner to be coherent for this conversation.

Having figured this out, Will stalled a bit, despite having shaken off the worst of the effects of the blow to his temple. He stared straight ahead, keeping his eyes focused on a knot in one of the wooden planks, hoping doing so would make his gaze appear glassy and dazed. There was no point looking around for an escape route---he had no way out of his bindings. If he did manage to squirm free of the shackles, get past Torsten, open a hatch that was without a doubt barred from the other side, and if luck got him to the main deck after all of those small miracles, where would he go? Whether they'd been at sea for hours or days, Will knew there was nothing around the ship but water in every direction now. He'd never be able to guess which way to swim to find land or how far he was from the shore.

No, he wasn't stalling in misguided hopes of escape. He was stalling to prolong his last few hours of life.

The men who had abducted him were murderers. They had shoved aside that floating corpse as if it were nothing but a nuisance. Gerit Torsten was probably a murderer as well, at the very least he was a man who didn't shrink from violence. Torsten had been sharing this hold with three corpses since Will had arrived and wasn't affected in the least.

They were also searching for the altar, just like Jacob. When they found it, what use would there be in keeping Will alive?

Worse, if they found Jacob at the altar, they were sure to kill him as well. They didn't strike Will as the type of men who shared their treasure, after all.

Will also stalled to ponder Torsten's cryptic comment: It seems he was wrong…big brother did come searching. 'He' who? Jacob was involved, no question, if they were speaking of Will as 'big brother'---but the implications of the remark worried him…why was anyone debating about the chances of Jacob's 'big brother' coming to look? Looking for what? For Jacob? What else could it be? What happened to Jacob that anyone wondered if Will would come looking? If Torsten or his friends have done something to----

"The altar is not in Paris."

Torsten had made the remark. He'd been brooding, waiting, staring at the blanket-shrouded corpse propped against the wall as if it might come back to life at any minute and speak to him. Now, he kneeled once more in front of his living prisoner. "The altar is not in Paris, and you've been stalling for an hour at least, Mr. Grimm. I'm sorry, but we really need to resume our conversation now."

The delaying was clearly over now. Will resigned himself to finding another way to prolong his own life. "I'm not in a conversing spirit," he said sardonically. "I might be of better humor if you'd unlock these shackles."

Torsten didn't laugh, but he seemed amused by that. "We'll see." He glanced again at the book in Will's hands. "I know something of the Altar des Feuer. Not everything…not its secrets, certainly not its biggest secret---its location, that is. But, I do know that Desdemond preferred mountainous terrain for his shrines, so the altar wouldn't be in the city of Paris. Is it in France, perhaps?"

"If I had an inkling of what an 'Altar des Friars' or a 'Desdemond' was, I might be able to answer that. As it stands, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Will put all the conviction he could into the lie.

Torsten smiled like a father about to outsmart a fibbing child. "I know your brother had too much fondness for myths involving death. I know the charm that cooked poor Jorn's arm and prevents anyone not of Grimm blood from opening that book comes from a friendly family of gypsies. I know that a map showing the precise location of the Altar des Feuer is in that book." Torsten watched Will's reaction. The younger man couldn't disguise his shock. "And I know it's killing you wanting to know how I know. So, let's cut the games, Will."

Gerit's accurate description of the journal only amplified Will's fears. So, that's what was on the page Jacob tore out. A map. Will might have guessed as much. This man knew Jacob, all right. Knew him well enough that Jacob had either trusted him with information about the book---and Jacob rarely trusted anyone with his book---or had forced information about the book from Jacob. Will's hands balled into fists at the possibility.

"You've abducted me, shackled me, and dragged me here to ask about that altar. You'd have killed me and taken the book for yourself if you could have, but your friend obviously warned you off trying," Will's voice was deceptively calm for the fury that welled in his heart. "If the location is what's keeping you from killing me---as I suspect it is---I'd have to be thick-headed to tell you, wouldn't I? Perhaps we should return to the Port Master's office and see if the information presents itself there," Will answered.

Torsten almost seemed to approve of the younger man's resistance. "You've much in common with your brother, Will. You're both sharp and bloody hard to catch. But I see the brothers Grimm have something in common besides intelligence and elusiveness---you're as stubborn as your brother was, too."

Was?

"You're brother was a particular headache, I must tell you," Gerit went on.

Will didn't care for the sounds of that. What does he mean 'was'?

"After our mutual friend, Traugott, sent a message by carrier bird that Jacob was on his way here, we barely beat him to Catriona. I'd hoped he'd show up with that book," Torsten elucidated.

Traugott? How did he know---? Will wondered. Wait…at the boarding house, the priest had caught Will reading Jacob's letter:

"So you've decided to read it finally. Good news, is it?"

"No…well yes…of a sort. It seems I could have saved myself the ride to your fair village if I'd only read it beforehand. Jacob heard that our Mother was ill and wrote that he was going back to Catriona to visit her. So, I've disturbed all of your good people and spent a month's earnings for nothing."

"He almost slipped past us, too. Then when we did find him, of course…he had no book and we had no idea where he'd hidden it. So, you came along at a fortunate time. We've had to wait for you a few days, but that's time well spent---here you are, and there it is." Torsten arched his eyebrow at the book in Will's hands. "We'd planned to just take the book from you, but our unfortunate fellow showed us the folly of that plan. Poor Jorn's arm won't be the same again, but it worked out for the best. Here I'd be with the book and no way to read it. And I'd hate to lose my chance at the altar after the trouble I went to finding this…" Torsten reached into the pocket of his immaculate brown coat and withdrew an object Will recognized at once despite never having laid eyes on it.

It was a long bundle wrapped in sackcloth and tied with a silk cord. Gerit untied the cord and uncovered the object, revealing to be precisely what Will feared it would be.

Messer des Feuer. The blade of fire.

Jacob'd had the wand/knife, Will knew. If Torsten had it, he had taken it from Jacob, and Torsten couldn't have taken it without a fight----or without killing him. And Will, however inadvertently, had led these men right to his brother.

Heedless of the men waiting outside the hold, forgetting his bindings, Will let go of the book and lunged at Torsten, wanting nothing so much as to wrap his hands around the man's throat and wring his brother's whereabouts out of the bastard. The shackles held Will back, and his bruised temple rewarded his sudden movements with a wave of nausea.

Still kneeling, Gerit had only to lean back to stay out of Will's grasp. "That's a waste of effort, Mr. Grimm, but you've got more fight than I expected."

"If you've done anything to my brother, I will kill you," Will vowed.

It was an empty threat, he knew. The first shock of grief made his very soul cry out for revenge, to break out of his bonds and kill as many of these men as he could before they stopped him. If they'd killed his brother, the last family Will had in the world, what the hell else did he have to lose by trying? But, his bonds were solid iron. He'd have to chew off his hands to get out of the shackles. Powerless to do anything but imagine violent ends to Torsten and every man with him, Will's rage slowly spent itself. In its place, the most horrible, numbing sense of being completely, utterly alone settled over him.

Torsten stared again at the book Will had released in his futile assault, but still dared not touch the journal. Will picked up the journal and tucked it behind him, so that it was between his back and the wooden walls of the hold. If Torsten meant to take it, he'd have to move within reach of Will's fists to do so---and Will would take great pleasure in drawing as much blood from the man as he could before Gerit laid a finger on the journal. Torsten understood the unspoken challenge and nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Ah, concerned at how I came into possession of this?" Torsten asked, holding out the blade and taking his own time studying the object, drawing out Will's torment for his own amusement. "So much concern, and yet Traugott was under the impression you and your brother haven't spoken for years. In fact, he seemed to think you were rather---what shall we call it----'embarrassed' by your brother's flights of fancy, by his 'blundering into subjects that he shouldn't.' He even thinks you might be angry with your brother about something, but that's between the both of you." Torsten watched Will's eyes for reaction to his baiting. Will resolved that his abductor would see nothing but hate and rage.

Will kept silent.

Something devious brought a sparkle into Torsten's stare. "Jacob tells me that you'd never come searching for him. What an odd thing for a brother to think. I wonder what would make him believe that?"

"Ow!"

Mother tsked. "Stop squirming, then."

"But it hurts!" Ten-year-old Jacob had complained.

"Of course it hurts. It's most likely broken." The words were a reprimand, but the rebuke didn't quite reach her gentle tone. The fact that she was holding a handkerchief to the broken nose of her youngest child made her angry, but not with the boy himself. She was angry at the older, larger boys who had ambushed her child—whatever the provocation---and caused his injury. She also had a scolding glare to spare for her older son, who stood nearby with an expression somewhere between contrite and sour. "And where were you when this was happening?" she asked Will.

Will was surprised by the question. Was she actually mad at him? It wasn't his fault his brother was a fool. "I didn't do it!"

"I didn't say you did. I know it was that Hap boy and his friends. I asked where you were. You're supposed to keep an eye on your brother, you know that," Mother reminded him.

"I was…fishing." It was a lie and Will knew that she'd see through it.

"Fishing?" She made a point of glancing in the direction of his unused fishing pole, which was propped in the corner of the room. With a sigh, she gestured for Jacob to take her place holding the handkerchief to his nose. "We'll have to have a doctor look at you. Go clean up, Jacob. Wash your face, change your shirt…" She would have to wash his soiled shirt, for the boys only had two changes of clothes each. At least Jacob had been wearing his work clothes instead of his church clothes. "…and no more magic tricks outside of this house."

Will was in favor of that idea. "Thank God…" he grumbled under his breath.

Jacob knew doctors were expensive. "But I'm all right---"

"Jacob, do as I say," Mother said sharply. He obeyed at once, darting as fast as he could while having to walk with his head tilted back in deference to his bleeding nose, into the other room and closing the door behind him.

Mother turned to face Will now, her hands on her hips, all trace of the gentleness she'd shown while treating Jacob's injury now vanished. "You'll be doing all Jake's chores until he's healed up---that's your punishment for lying to me, Will. Tell me where you really were or you'll do his chores for the next three months. Did you see those boys beating your brother?"

Will knew better than to answer. Chores were bad enough without a switch across his rear to add to his misery.

She guessed the answer. "And you did nothing?

In fact, he had---but only after Jacob had limped home, oblivious to his older brother's presence. Will had clobbered Hap and his friends until the sight of their noses bleeding had finally satisfied his anger. Then they'd reminded him what a freakish, insane baby brother Will had. That had hurt. It had kindled the embarrassment Will already felt over his brother's eccentricities.

"Why?"

"He never fights back. He needs to learn to throw some punches in his own defense if he's going to scandalize people with the rubbish he says." Will hadn't intended to answer truthfully, but the words had been spoken and there was something quite liberating about getting that off his chest. "He can't act that way around people! I don't want to be chased out of our home again. If he's going to behave like a fool…."

"He's ten years old, Will---"

"…then he can accept the consequences of his behavior."

"You're supposed to---" Mother's arms were crossed, her signal that he had gone too far. Will didn't care at this point.

"I don't want him following me around, embarrassing me! Why is he my responsibility! I'm ashamed to be seen with him. All he does is write in his book and every time he opens his mouth, drivel comes out!" the boy fired back.

"He's your family, Will. I suppose that shames you as well?" There was something sad in her tone when Mother asked that question and Will's temper suddenly abandoned him.

He wasn't ready to calm down yet. Floundering a bit, having no good answer, he fell back on one familiar accusation: "It's his fault that…"

Mother stamped her foot now. "I know what you blame him for and I've heard it enough! I won't hear another word about it…especially not from you, Will."

Will obediently let the accusation pass unsaid. Sulking, he started to mutter, "I wish that he…" but when he caught the warning glare on his mother's face, as if she knew what he was thinking, Will didn't dare finish the thought. What had he been about to say, anyway? That he wished it had been his foolish brother and not Sister who had gotten that fever so many years ago? Will knew he should be ashamed that such a thought—however fleeting—had crossed his mind.

He turned away from his Mother only to see the lamplight pouring from beneath the door to the boys' room flicker as a shadow moved past it. He knew that Jake had been listening to the exchange---he always listened. Well, that was fine. If Jake had heard what Will said, it served him right. Even if Will hadn't meant it…

Will's attention was drawn suddenly back to the present conversation. What had Torsten just said? Did he say 'Jacob tells me'?

"You're angry and you're embarrassed, and yet you spend the better part of a month charging from one end of Germany to the other searching for Jacob. That's odd, don't you think? Blood is blood, I suppose----"

Torsten had glanced away from Will for a moment. When he turned back to his captive, he was caught badly off-guard to see that Will's hateful, defeated glare had been replaced by a malevolent grin. Faster than his abductor would have thought possible, Will kicked the kneeling man beneath the chin. Gerit's head snapped back with a 'crack' that brought his prisoner great satisfaction.

Will wasn't finished with him yet. "'Tells'!" His hands might be bound, but his legs were free, and Will used them to catch Torsten around the neck and began squeezing the man's neck shut as effectively as if he were using his hands instead of his shins. "'Tells', not 'told'? You've been so careful to speak of Jake as the dearly departed until now." Will moved his legs to twist the man's neck a bit. "Where's my brother!"

Torsten attempted to extricate himself from Will's stranglehold on his neck, until he realized the futility of his effort. In one deft movement, he raised the wand/knife, unsheathed the weapon, and depressed one of the symbols etched into the handle. Light poured forth in the shape of a blade, cutting across Will's right leg as effectively as metal slicing his skin. Pain like fire shot up his leg and spread through Will's body until it felt as if he were being burned alive. Howling with agony, Will immediately released his captive and clutched at his injured limb. The wound was the smallest of cuts, but that did nothing to ease the sensation of fire on every inch of his skin. He concentrated on forcing himself to breathe, trying to focus on anything besides the pain.

Scrambling to his feet, Torsten moved well away from Will this time. He rubbed at his bruised neck, all traces of humor gone from his features. "I was right, you are as smart as your brother," he wheezed. Regaining his composure following his own painful mistake, Torsten straightened his rumpled coat, smoothed back his curly hair, and resumed with the questions. "Tell me where to find the Altar des Feuer, and I'll tell you where to find Jacob."

Blinking back tears that had formed unbidden at the pain of the burn, Will glowered at his captor. "Since it seems that the location is all that's keeping me and Jacob alive," he got the words out between gasps, "I'll say again: Take me back to shore and the information might present itself there."

Torsten walked across the small hold and paused beside the corpses. He pressed a button on the Messer's handle and the light changed to a full metal blade. Staring at the bodies, he asked, "I wonder, Will, if I were to put this blade to your brother's neck and offered not to cut his throat in exchange for the altar, do you think 'the information might present itself' then?"

Will didn't answer.

Gerit nodded. "Let's find out."

He took hold of the blanket covering the seated body and tugged it away. Will flinched, almost closing his eyes---the sight of that bloodied, bloated corpse in the harbor still fresh in his mind---until the covering fell away to reveal not a dead body but Jacob.

It took only seconds to recognize him, but—despite the shorter hair, the beard, the glasses, and other changes from the lanky teenager he'd been when they last spoke into the adult he was now----Will knew it was him. Jacob was battered, sporting a blackened eye and several cuts on his arms that matched the one on Will's leg, and he was shackled and gagged so that he couldn't have moved beneath that blanket or uttered a word if he'd tried, but he was very much alive. It was difficult to see in the semi-darkness, but Will definitely saw the rise and fall of his brother's chest as Jacob breathed.

A prayer of gratitude was on Will's lips, but he dared not let his thankfulness at finding his sibling alive elicit so much as a blink of his eyes while Torsten was there. That long-dormant protective instinct flared anew, and Will dearly wished to repay their abductor for Jacob's every welt, mark, and bruise in kind.

When Torsten grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him back to lucidity, Jacob blinked with his good eye against the faint light and squinted at both Gerit and Will. When he saw his brother chained opposite him, Jacob's good eye widened in shock. He tried to say something around the gag in his mouth, but stopped when Torsten used his grip to yank Jacob's head back and pressed the Messer to his throat.

"I believe your precise words were: 'Will's the last one coming to look for me', that I should kill you and be done with it," Torsten taunted Jacob. "Are you a poor guesser or just a poor liar, Jacob?" With that, the blade's sharp edge nicked Jacob's skin and a single drop of red splattered the captive's already bloodied shirt. Jacob muffled a groan at the feeling of fire consuming him from the inside out.

Will lashed out, a useless gesture as Torsten was well out of his reach. It was the reaction their captor had hoped for. He whirled to face Will again, keeping the blade to Jacob's throat. "There now, Will, don't take this personally. It's not about you or your brother. I'm charged with the destruction of the Desdemondian artifacts, most especially the altar and the Messer des Feuer. If this is what I have to do to make you see reason, I'm well prepared to sacrifice young Jacob here---pardon the expression."

Will tried to keep Torsten's attention on him before he tried to spill more of Jacob's blood to make his point. "There's an empty threat if I've heard one, Torsten. If Jacob were expendable, you'd have killed him by now. You're obviously afraid you won't be able to find the altar without his help, so you brought me here hoping to make him talk. And since you and the good Father Traugott have to eliminate all traces of the Desdemondians, you'll have to kill me and Jacob to destroy our knowledge of them and their artifacts. We can expect to be dead as soon as you have the altar. You can't offer us our lives, therefore you're negotiating with nothing to trade, Torsten."

Will was taking a risk baiting the man and he knew it. For one thing, Will didn't know the location of the altar should the gamble not pay off. He only hoped Torsten's need to find the altar would be greater than the impulse to kill one (or both) of them for lack of anything to lose. Will wanted to find a way to convince the man that he and Jacob were vital to the success of Torsten's mission at best. At worst, he hoped to forestall any further abuse of himself or his brother.

Torsten wasn't a bit perturbed. He jerked the hand gripping the blade just an inch, and Will jumped despite the bravado of his words before he saw that the motion hadn't cut Jacob's throat. Gerit sneered, satisfied, and returned his attention to Jacob.

"You're a scholar, I hear. Yes? You must be fond of puzzles as well to suss out the Messer des Feuer and the location of the altar. Let me present you with a conundrum and perhaps you can give me its solution: If I were to become convinced that neither of the brothers Grimm are going to guide me to the altar, wouldn't it be true that I have no need to keep either of you alive? And if I have no reason to keep you alive, you have no reason to guide me to the altar. What would the scholars call that? An 'impasse'? What shall we do about our impasse, Jacob?"

Jacob's gaze at Torsten was venomous. Will was trying to fathom what their captor was playing at.

"No answers to that, Jacob? Young Will believes I have nothing to bargain with. He forgets that I have this…" Without lowering the wand/blade still poised at Jacob's throat, Torsten moved one finger to tap its hilt. "Will's a very sensible lad, I can see that much. I'm sure he doesn't believe the stories of the miraculous power of the Messer and the Altar des Feuer to resurrect the dead. I'm not sure I believe such sacrilegious bunk myself." Torsten forced Jacob to turn his head a bit so that he and his prisoner were eye-to-eye. He wanted to be absolutely sure Jacob knew he wasn't bluffing right now. "But you believe in it, don't you? You wouldn't have gone to these lengths to find the artifacts otherwise. I wonder if you had someone in mind to bring back from the dead?"

Jacob and Will both went a bit pale at that question, but Jacob only blinked his good eye at Torsten in response.

"I suspected as much," Torsten nodded. "Well, since your original plans are clearly out of the question because of my interference, I feel obliged to make it up to you, Jacob. You can't resurrect whoever it was you had in mind, but I wonder if the need to bring a brother back from the dead would sufficiently motivate you---either of you---to guide me to the altar?" He glanced from Jacob to Will and back, arching an eyebrow as innocently as if he'd asked if one of them would care for a cup of tea or a meal. "Shall we find out? Which one should I pick? The blasphemer---?" He directed that at Jacob. "---or the non-believer?" Torsten jerked his head in Will's direction. "I'm not particular about which one to kill, since either of you can remove that talisman and open that book for me…"

"Scotland."

Will had said it. Torsten and Jacob both turned to face him. Jacob shook his head, 'no', heedless of the blade at his neck. Will ignored him. Jacob might be willing to sacrifice his—or their---life for his mystical hokum, but Will wouldn't allow him to do so.

"Where in Scotland?" Torsten asked.

"Take us to Scotland. When we reach the shore, you'll release me and Jacob—unharmed---and the book and the map are yours. I'll remove the talisman for you. I've read enough of the book to know that everything you need to find the altar is inside."

Jacob writhed against his bonds, his angry words for his brother muffled by the gag. Will understood anyway but fixed his younger sibling with a stern stare. Jake can hate me long as he pleases, as long as we both get off this ship alive.

Torsten watched Jacob's reaction to Will's offer. The younger brother's outrage and agitation was all the proof he needed to satisfy him that Will had told the truth. Still, Torsten wanted verbal confirmation from the scholar: "Scotland?" he asked Jacob.

Will kept his eyes locked on Jacob's and his warning still clear. When Will nodded affirmatively, Jacob hesitated only seconds before parroting the gesture to Torsten.

Torsten lowered the wand/blade and relinquished his grip on Jacob. "There we are, then. A sensible lad indeed, thank you, Will." He stood up straight and tucked the Messer des Feuer safely back into his coat pocket. Almost as an afterthought, he removed Jacob's gag and loosened the chains so that his prisoner could move just a bit. The boy was tempted to spit on his abductor, but decided the deed would have accomplished nothing more than Torsten blackening Jacob's other eye. "We have a long voyage ahead, gentlemen. Best make yourselves comfortable."

With that, Gerit climbed the ladder, pounded twice on the hatch to signal those on the other side to open it, and left the brothers alone in the dankness of the cargo hold. There was the scrape as the hatch above them was locked.

When the shuffle of footfalls above them grew faint and finally faded away, Will faced his brother. "Are you hurt?" It was an absurd question, given that both of them were beaten and scarred by the wand/blade and that Jacob's face was one large bruise. Will, however, had to ask. He could not catalog his brother's injuries by sight alone with the grime and blood that streaked Jacob's face and clothing.

Trying to rub feeling back into his limbs, so long held immobile, Jacob dismissed his own wounds for the question more pressing in his mind: "Where's my book?"

Will wanted to scream. Here they were, prisoners in what had to be a pirated ship, speaking face-to-face for the first time in years, and Jacob's first words to him were: 'Where's my book?'! Jacob could show some gratitude that Will had gone to all this trouble to find him…or some concern for Will's well being! He could, at the very least, have the grace to apologize for getting both of them into this mess!

"That's all you've got to say? 'Where's my book'? Do you know what I've had to do to find you?" Will's temper flared hotter with each indignant word. His temple throbbed in pain all the more, but Will ignored it. "I had the life frightened out of me---twice---by Serya's…'children'. I've been bashed on the head, abducted, and chained up. And I had to kiss a bearded woman in Hollenstadt. A woman. With a beard. Full on the mouth!"

Jacob actually looked interested in that. "You kissed Lorelei? Did she turn back into a princess?"

Dear Lord, Jacob really has gone insane, Will gaped at his brother. "Yes, absolutely, with a palace in an enchanted forest and a glittering crown of jewels and a carriage pulled by unicorns. What an interesting variety of friends you've made, Jake." Frustrated to distraction, Will rubbed his pounding temples, counting to ten in hopes that the desire to fling the book right at Jacob's forehead would pass. "All this trouble, but do you ask if I'm hurt or how I found you or why I'm here? No, all you want to know is: 'Where's your book' and 'Was the bearded vagrant a princess'!"

Jacob blinked, clearly mystified as to what his older brother was so angry about. Nevertheless, after pondering that for a minute, he obligingly changed his question: "Are you hurt?"

"Yes, I'm hurt! They smacked me with an oar!" Will snapped.

There was another lull in the conversation while his brother reflected on that. "I'm sorry."

"Well, thank you!"

Another pause, and Jacob added: "Why are you here, Will?"

"Why am I---?" Will cringed, regretting his tirade. That wasn't the question he wanted to hear and not one he wanted to answer. He shouldn't have mentioned it. I had a dream where Sister's ghost told me you were going to sacrifice yourself, that's why. Wouldn't Jacob just love to hear that? It didn't matter that Will's dream had turned out to be correct, he wasn't confessing to acting on such superstitious tripe to Jacob of all people. "Because, my brother is digging up artifacts from some demented extinct cult so he can go off searching for some mythological rock that brings people back from the dead. Because you've got murderers kidnapping you! Why are you here, Jake? What were you going to do when you found the Altar des Feuer? No, let me guess, another insane scheme to use hokum to---"

Jacob furrowed his brow, anger flickering in his dark eyes finally. "Don't call me 'insane', Will! I'm not insane!" He was used to hearing the word, but he loathed it. It had been whispered behind him wherever he went as a child. The story of his Sister and the charlatan who'd duped him had followed Jacob to every village where the family had lived. Coming from his brother, the word held a harsh and painful sting.

"Yes, a wise and sound-minded man believes mystical wands and altars can bring people back from the dead…" Will mocked.

Jacob's ears were red now. "I'm not a fool, either!"

Will wasn't listening any more. "I came here to stop you from throwing your life away trying to resurrect Sister with more magic beans!"

As soon as those words were out of his mouth, Will knew he'd gone a step too far. Jacob's eyes betrayed his surprise and guilt…evidence that Will had correctly guessed his brother's intentions…but the shock gave way quickly to deepening fury. Jacob looked to be fighting the urge to strike at Will, but the chains would have prevented him if he tried. He squared his shoulders and pointedly turned away from Will, closing off from his brother as he always did when Will tossed off those two words, 'magic beans'.

That's just perfect, two years of not speaking to each other, and now that I've found Jake again we're back where we started from within two minutes.

Will didn't know how to have a conversation with Jacob without ending up in a row. His words were coming out as anger because his patience and temper had been taxed to their limits--- first by spending weeks worried about Jacob's fate and again that evening thanks to Torsten's allowing Will to think Jacob was dead, and, after that awful, shattering feeling, by the shock of having his brother restored to him safe (relatively) and (mostly) well. Will felt he had the right to be out of sorts.

Still, Will hadn't meant to end up hurling insults at Jake, but sometimes he didn't know how to talk to his brother, how to get through to him in that fairy tale world that was Jacob's reality. Jacob had to give up his obsession before he got himself killed.

Therefore, Will wasn't going to let Jacob shut him out yet. So, he pushed a bit harder: "If that's what being a 'scholar' is all about, you can forget about using our family money to return to Heidelberg---!"

Jacob's eyes, blazing now, met Will's. It was not in Jacob's nature to be violent, especially not with his own brother, but he might have physically lashed out at Will, had his bindings not prevented him from moving. "'Family'? Were we 'family' when you forgot to write me that our Mother was dying? Were you afraid your 'insane' brother would do something to embarrass you at the funeral? Were we 'family' when you tried to get rid of our home without telling me?"

"What would you have done if you'd known about Mother? You'd have sat there scribbling in your book and left the arrangements for me to manage anyway! That's how you deal with everything!" Will shouted.

Jacob started to say something, but whatever it was died on his lips. There was only a hint of hurt in his eyes. "You shouldn't have told Torsten where to find the altar," Jacob admonished. "How did you know?"

Were the truth to be told, Will would have gladly provided Torsten the location of the altar and might have even helped the man destroy it---if only killing both Will and Jacob wasn't part of the deal. If the altar was out of reach, Jacob would be safe, forced to abandon his crazy notion of using it, and Will's life could return to some kind of normalcy…although he'd have to keep a closer eye on his brother in the future. Will leaned his head backwards, resting against the wall, trying to calm his temper.

"You tore out the page with the map, but you neglected to remove the section that read: 'The altar rests in the Scottish Hebrides. Between that and the fact that the Adalia was only going to make three stops, it wasn't difficult to guess…and Torsten had a knife to your throat or did that escape your attention?"

Jacob's hand went automatically to the small cut Torsten had made on his neck. Inwardly, he groaned at his own mistake of not blotting out that one simple sentence. He should have torn the entire section dealing with the Desdemondians from the book, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to destroy his research. Still, he persisted: "I'm not giving him the book."

"Yes, you are! And since I have the book you don't have much to say about it, do you?" Will snapped. "I'm trying to save our lives. We have a bargain---"

Jacob snorted at that. "You're bargain. Not mine. I'm the only one who saw the map to the altar. I won't lead Torsten there so he can destroy it." Will was right though…unless Jacob got the book back, he had nothing to say about what Will or Torsten did with it. He had to get the book away from his brother. Where had Will hidden it?

Will's face flushed red. Damn Jacob's pig-headedness. "It's our lives! Or are you going to sacrifice our lives for magic now as well?"

Jacob's eyes grew dark once again, but a tick of his jaw was his only physical reaction to Will's baiting. "You said it yourself---he's going to kill us anyway. The altar's the only thing I have to bargain with. He doesn't need us if he has the map. Without it, he needs me to guide him to it. That's what's keeping us alive."

"So, you lead him there and he only kills you later---"

"Then I'm finally out of your hair, aren't I? No more 'foolish, insane Jake' to embarrass you…"

Jacob couldn't have landed a more perfect blow if he'd lashed out and struck Will with his fist. Guilt flashed in Will's eyes, but his face turned red now (Jacob did not know whether that owed to rage or humiliation and didn't care), and his mouth was nothing but a thin line as his jaw clenched. "You're bent on getting yourself killed, fine. Here---" As Jacob had hoped, Will pulled the book from its hiding place behind his back. He pitched the journal at Jacob. With one eye swollen shut, Jacob was almost blindsided by the book, and he raised a hand only at the last instant to deflect it. "---go on! See how long Torsten plays your game before he cuts both our throats. Better still---you're so enamored of magic, see if your book can conjure a way out of here!" he challenged. With that, he pointedly turned his back on Jacob and faced the wall. He did not say another word.

Jacob snatched up the discarded book with a satisfied smile Will did not see.