chapter THIRTY-TWO
THE HEART IN THE EAST
It took them fifteen days, despite Troisclerq’s silver, and every one of those days only convinced Jacob more that the Bastard had already found the heart.
After his collapse, the other travellers had been reluctant to get into the coach with Jacob. (The pox was going around in Bavaria and Austry.) But Troisclerq made a point of sitting next to him. Yes, Jacob was beginning to like him. Troisclerq knew as much about horses as about the newest Goyl weaponry, and he didn’t mind discussing for hours whether Albian or Catalunian blades were better. They shared a passion for fencing, though Troisclerq preferred the rapier over Jacob’s sabre. The other passengers probably cursed them for their endless discussions, their hour-long arguments over whether the dirtiest feint was the in quarto or the sparita di vita.
Outside, dark valleys drifted past, lakes reflecting castles on the snowy peaks above. In one of those castles, Jacob had found the glass slipper that had earned him a medal from the Empress. At some point they caught a glimpse of the forest where he’d stolen a pair of seven-league boots from a gang of highwaymen for one of the Wolf Lords in the east. This couldn’t all be over, not yet. However, thanks to him, the Empress was now spending her days in an underground fortress, and that forest had shrunk to half its original size since its timber had begun to be used to smelt steel in the valley beyond. And the Goyl ruled in Vena. Nothing lasted for ever, even behind the mirror.
The two governesses were blushing over one of Troisclerq’s jokes. Jacob looked out the window to distract himself from the fact that Fox had also begun to regard his saviour with increasing affection. To their left, the Duna was flowing languidly through flooded meadows, and the towers of Vena appeared on the horizon.
‘Jacob?’ Troisclerq put a hand on his knee. ‘Celeste asked me where Louis of Lotharaine usually stays when he comes to Vena.’
Celeste. It was odd to hear her real name from the mouth of a stranger. Jacob had only learnt it himself a few months earlier.
‘I imagine Louis will be staying with his cousin,’ Troisclerq continued. ‘I know him quite well. If you like, I could arrange for him to receive you.’
‘Sure. Thanks.’
Celeste . . .
The coachman reined in the horses. The road was flooded. The snowmelt in the mountains had caused the rivers to swell over their banks. In the Mirrorworld, rivers still picked their own beds, and every year entire villages disappeared into the floods. Yet Jacob loved the reed-lined riverbanks and the wooded islands mirrored in slow-flowing water. The rivers here were not only home to naiads and mud-gnomes; they also contained treasure and had turned more than one poor fisher into a wealthy man.
Celeste . . .
The coachman crossed the river over the same bridge the Goyl had used to leave the city after the Blood Wedding. Vena had subsequently surrendered to them without a fight, after the Empress’s daughter had announced that her mother had been responsible for the bloodbath in the church. The Goyl were no crueller than other occupying forces, yet as the coach passed grey uniforms and houses with bricked-up windows, Jacob had an eerie feeling, wondering whether this ever would have happened without him.
The coaches still stopped behind the train station, though the noise of the arriving trains made the horses shy. Maybe the coach operators didn’t want to cede the future to the iron carriages without a fight, but they had already lost. Next to the train station, the Goyl had opened an access to the catacombs, which they now used as living quarters. As the other passengers stared at the soldiers who guarded that entrance, they could barely conceal the disgust the stone faces still elicited in most humans. Kami’en’s marriage had done nothing to temper that.
The station walls were papered with dozens of wanted posters. There were anarchist groups in Vena who had called for resistance to the new Empress, for attacks on her ministers, on military and police barracks, or on the living quarters of the Goyl. Fox anxiously scanned the placards, but Jacob saw neither his nor Will’s face on any of them. Whatever it was the Dark Fairy had told her lover, Kami’en was not searching for the Jade Goyl. And once you’re dead, Jacob, nobody will ever know where he disappeared to. Maybe that was exactly the ending the Dark Fairy was hoping for.
A few cabs waited beneath the trees on the other side of the station concourse.
‘You go and look for the heart!’ Fox whispered as Jacob flagged one of them. ‘I’ll get Troisclerq to show me where Louis’s cousin lives, and I’ll find out whether the Bastard’s there.’
He didn’t like that plan at all. The Goyl was dangerous, but Fox put her finger on Jacob’s mouth as he tried to protest. ‘Let’s not lose any more time,’ she whispered. ‘Please. I’ll make sure he doesn’t see me.’
Behind them Troisclerq was bidding farewell to the other passengers. Fox looked at him. Jacob tried to ignore the sting that look gave him.
‘Good. You take the cab. I’ll walk.’ Fifteen days on a coach bench was more than enough. ‘We’ll meet at the hotel.’
It had sounded colder than he had meant it to. Jacob, what are you doing? Fox’s eyes were asking the same question.
Troisclerq bought a bunch of daffodils from one of the flower girls in front of the station. He plucked one of the flowers and pinned it to Fox’s dress.
‘Are you all right?’ He put his arm around Jacob’s shoulder. ‘I know a good doctor here in Vena. Maybe you should have yourself looked at.’
‘No. I’m fine.’ Jacob waved the cab closer.
‘You will find the heart!’ Fox whispered to him. ‘I know it.’
Troisclerq opened the cab door.
Fox gathered up her dress and looked at Jacob. ‘Will you telegraph Chanute about the money?’
‘Sure.’
She gave him a smile and climbed into the cab.
Troisclerq was looking at two passing women. They returned his glance. One of them blushed.
‘There are so many beautiful women,’ Troisclerq murmured to Jacob, ‘but some are more than that. So much more.’ He went to the cab and threw his bag towards the driver. ‘I have to journey on today,’ he said to Jacob, ‘but I’m sure we’ll meet again.’
He joined Fox in the cab.
Celeste . . . Jacob liked calling her Fox.
He watched the cab until it disappeared behind a tram. You will find the heart. He looked around. Where to first, Jacob? To the state archives, where all of Austry’s treasures were catalogued? To the mausoleum where Guismond’s daughter rested among her imperial descendants? He tried to summon the rage he’d felt in the forest, the urge to get even with the Bastard . . . but he felt nothing. As though the moth was actually eating his heart.