Living Shadows

Jacob Reckless's shadowy adventures continue in the second volume of Cornelia Funke's spellbinding Reckless series.

Jacob has saved his brother from the Mirrorworld, but now he will pay a terrible price. A fairy's curse is burning in his heart, and to break the spell he must embark upon a perilous journey - with his trusty friend Fox by his side - to seek out the only treasure that could save him.

Jacob's search for the golden crossbow will lead him across hundreds of miles by land and sea, to an invisible, enchanted palace within the Dead City. It will bring him face to face with vicious beasts, bloodthirsty giants, and a deadly stone faced rival.

It will test his courage like never before.

Living Shadows is the second book in the thrilling Reckless series. Cornelia Funke is the highly acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author of the Inkheart trilogy, Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord and numerous other children's novels and picture books. Born in 1958 in the German town of Dorsten, she worked as a social worker for a few years before turning first to illustration and then to writing. Her books have now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, and have been translated into 37 languages. 1

Waiting

He still wasn't back.

'I won't stay long.' Fox wiped the rain off her face. With

Jacob, this could mean anything. Sometimes he stayed for

weeks. Sometimes months.

The ruin lay deserted as usual, and the silence between

the scorched walls made her shiver nearly as much as the

rain. The human skin warmed so much less, yet Fox now

shifted into the vixen ever more rarely. All too clearly she

had begun to feel how the fur stole the years from her-even

without Jacob reminding her.

He'd held her so close before he left, as if he wanted

to take her warmth with him into the world where he was

born. Something frightened him, though he didn't admit

it, of course. He was still like a boy who thought he could

outrun his own shadow.

They'd been way up in the north, in Sveriga and Norga,

where even now the forests were still buried in thick snow

and where hunger drove the wolves into the towns. Before

that they'd traveled so far south that the vixen still found

desert sand in her fur. Thousands of miles... cities and countries

she'd never heard of before, and all supposedly to find

an Hourglass. But Fox knew Jacob too well to believe that.

At her feet, the first wild primroses were springing up

between the shattered flagstones. She snapped off one of the

delicate stalks, and the dew rolling off the flowers was still

cold. It had been a long winter, and Fox could feel the past

months like frost on her skin. So much had happened since

the previous summer. All that fear for Jacob's brother...

and for Jacob. Too much fear. Too much love. Too much

of everything.

She tucked the pale yellow flower into her lapel. Hands...

they made up for the chilly skin her human body came in.

Whenever she wore her fur, Fox missed reading the world

with her fingers.

'I won't stay long.'

With a quick movement, she grabbed a Thumbling who'd

pushed his tiny hand into her jacket pocket. He only let go of

the gold coin after she shook him as hard as the vixen would

a captured mouse. The little thief bit at her fingers before

he dashed off, muttering insults. Jacob always tucked a few

coins into her pockets before he left. He hadn't adjusted

to the fact that she now managed quite well in the human

world-even without him.

What was he afraid of?

Fox had asked him, after they'd ridden for days from one

wretched village to the next, only to end up standing beneath

some dead sultan's dried-up pomegranate tree. She'd asked

him again, when Jacob had gotten himself drunk three nights

in a row after they'd found an overgrown garden with nothing

but a dried-up well in it.