chapter THIRTY-NINE
FRIEND AND FOE
The devil-horses lived up to their name. On the second night, one of them snuck up to Jacob with bared teeth; and Donnersmarck scalded his hands as he tried to feed the horses rabbit meat. But they were fast.
Border posts, icy passes. Lakes, forests, villages, towns. Jacob felt his fear for Fox eating through his body like a poison. The thought of finding her dead was unbearable, and so he tried to lock it away, just as he’d done with his longing for his father when he was a child. But he failed. With every day that passed, every mile they travelled, the images became more gruesome, and his dreams became so vivid that he’d wake up and search his hands for her blood.
To distract himself, he asked Donnersmarck about the Empress and her daughter, about the child that should not be, and about the Dark Fairy . . . But Donnersmarck’s voice kept turning into Fox’s: You will find the heart. I know it.
All he wanted to find now was her.
When finally they crossed the border into Lotharaine, more than six days had passed since he’d watched Troisclerq help her into that cab. They crossed rivers, passed white castles, rode through villages with unpaved roads, and heard flowers sing in the dark like nightingales . . . The heart of Lotharaine still beat to the old rhythm while the engineers in Albion were already building the new, mechanical one.
Then Donnersmarck reined in his horse. A meadow. White flowers dotted the short grass. Forgetyourself. The livestock avoided the flowers, which gave off the narcotic oil Bluebeards put on the flowers they pinned to their victims’ clothes or hair. They also rubbed it into their clean-shaven cheeks.
A little later they came to a signpost. Three miles to Champlitte. They looked at each other, the same images in their heads. But in Jacob’s memory, even Donnersmarck’s dead sister now had Fox’s face.