Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

without paying it. He guessed that she had fallen victim to the gaze of the Harlequin, her soul now lost between the Worlds, and severed from her physical form. The Harlequin could release her—but could he persuade it to do so?

He resumed his human Aspect, standing at a safe distance from the Harlequin’s razor claws. The Harlequin watched him avidly, its eyes filled with troubling lights.

“Release my friend,” said the Lacewing King, taking care to avoid the creature’s eyes. “And then perhaps we can discuss terms.”

The Harlequin bared its teeth, exposing its fearsome mandibles. “Terms?”

“You must have a price,” said the Lacewing King.

The Harlequin began to laugh. “My price?” it said. “My price is a kiss. The chance to hold you in my arms and look into your eyes again.”

The Lacewing King sighed. “Really?” he said. “You wouldn’t accept an apology, or the promise of a favour, or untold wealth, or fame, or something like that?”

The Harlequin said nothing, but its mandibles worked furiously.

“I didn’t think so,” said the King. “Very well. I’ll grant your wish.”

The Harlequin gave a rusty laugh. “Another of your tricks!” it said.

The King shook his head. “No tricks,” he said. “An oath, sworn on my true name.”

The Harlequin’s eyes were hungry. “Explain.”

The King explained to his enemy the debt he owed to the builder of boats; how she had saved his life, and how he was bound to repay her. The Harlequin, who understood the binding power of such an oath, listened to his story. It knew that, though he was devious, in this case, he was telling the truth; and it smiled to itself as it realized that the King was in its power.

“Very well,” it said at last. “But now your life belongs to me.”

And it knelt down beside the builder of boats and touched her face with the tip of a claw. Then it looked into her eyes, whispering in an ancient tongue that not even the King could understand.

The builder of boats began to stir. Her dark eyes came into focus. They widened in fear at the Harlequin’s touch—and then she saw the Lacewing King, watching the last of the sunset, the island bees draped around him like the most regal of mantles.

In that moment, she understood how he had redeemed her, and leapt to her feet with a cry of alarm as the Harlequin turned on its enemy. The razor claws hissed through the air, but the King made no move to evade them.

Instead he looked back at the builder of boats. “Consider my debt repaid,” he said.

And then he took a step forward and looked into the eyes of the Harlequin.

58

T

HE

C

LOCKWORK

T

IGER

A toymaker had two daughters. One was good and beautiful, the other, wayward and brilliant. Their father was old and losing his sight; their mother had been dead for years. The two girls lived by a forest but were forbidden to walk there; for the woods were dangerous, a home to packs of savage wolves.

The good and beautiful daughter was obedient and stayed at home. But the brilliant, wayward daughter longed to hunt and explore the wild woods. But she had no weapons, no hounds, or anything to keep her safe. And so she stole into her father’s workshop one night and started to build a guardian, a fearsome mechanical guardian, to protect her from the wolves.

For twelve nights she worked in secret, by the light of a single lamp. She used her father’s work tools; his watchmaker’s kit and his soldering irons and the many cast-off mechanical parts from the toys he had discarded. Night by night her creation grew, until on the twelfth night it was complete; a magnificent clockwork tiger, with eyes of luminous amber glass, a shaggy, magnificent growling head and stealthy, terrible, silent paws that would strike in defence of its mistress.

But, awakening that night, the good and beautiful daughter sat up to find her sister gone from her bed. She called her father immediately, and together they found the sister in her father’s workshop, putting the finishing touches to the marvellous clockwork tiger.

The father was very angry that his daughter had entered his workshop. “How many times have I told you,” he said, “that good girls do not work with tools, or build tigers from clockwork!”

The wayward daughter tried to explain; but he was too angry to listen. He fastened a padlock on the door and kept the key around his neck so that his daughter could never again enter without his permission. But he himself had grown too old to use the tools in his workshop, and so for many years afterwards, the place remained abandoned, and the clockwork tiger was left in the dark, growling softly to itself.

Time passed. The sisters grew up. The good and beautiful daughter married a man from the village and had two good and beautiful daughters of her own. But the brilliant, wayward daughter preferred, against all her father’s warnings and threats, to go hunting in the forest. She would have liked to ride a horse, and maybe carry a crossbow, too—but her father always refused.

“How many times have I told you,” he said, “that good girls do not ride, or hunt, or handle dangerous weapons!”

But the wayward, brilliant daughter never listened to his words. Instead she built ingenious traps, until one day she fell foul of the largest and most savage wolf in all of the forest, and, having no horse or crossbow, was killed.

The good and beautiful daughter grieved for her brilliant sister. And the father, relenting (too late), now opened his old workshop with the key that he kept around his neck, and found the clockwork tiger there, still growling softly to itself. For a long time, he inspected the work of his brilliant, wayward daughter, marvelling over her craftsmanship. Then he fastened a heavy chain around the clockwork tiger’s neck and gave it to his daughter.

“Soon I shall be gone,” he said. “This tiger