chapter FIFTY-FOUR
THE SAME TRADE
The Bastard came every night – whenever he had the watch and the others had fallen asleep. He gave Jacob food and sometimes even some of the wine the prince had left over.
Tell me. How did you get through the labyrinth? How did Chanute survive the Troll caves? And to make yourself invisible . . . which method do you use? Did you ever find one of the candles that call the Iron Man with their flame?
During the first night, Jacob answered him with silence or some lie. But by the second night that became boring, so he followed every answer with a counter-question: How did you find the hand? How did you figure out where to catch me with the head? Where do you catch the lizards whose skins you use for your bullet-proof vests?
The same trade.
Of course, the Bastard searched his pockets, and when the Goyl rubbed the gold handkerchief between his fingers Jacob was glad for once that it had stopped working properly. Nerron. Just one name, like all Goyl. His meant ‘black’ in their language. Who’d given him that name? His mother, to deny the malachite in his skin? Or was it the onyx, who usually drowned their bastards? Nerron even checked Earlking’s card, but in the Goyl’s fingers, it just showed the printed name.
Nerron held up the ballpoint pen Jacob always carried because it was so much easier to write with than the quills or the old-fashioned fountain pens used behind the mirror.
‘What do you do with this?’
‘Wishing ink.’ The Goyl had brought meat, and Jacob put some of it in his mouth. The Waterman had, despite Louis’s orders, loosened his ropes. The Bug Man seemed to be the only one who was unquestioningly loyal to the prince. But it was probably still best not to underestimate Louis. He had the same cunning face as his father, though he was probably only half as smart.
‘Wishing ink?’ The Bastard put the pen in his pocket. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘Whatever you write with it will come true someday.’ Not a bad lie. Somewhere in the east was a goose feather that supposedly did just that.
‘Someday?’
Jacob shrugged. He wiped the grease off his tied hands. ‘Depends on the wish. One, two weeks . . .’
Hopefully, their paths would have parted by then. They’d been travelling for four days. The Witch must have finished with Donnersmarck by now, unless she’d killed him or turned him into some insect. But taking him before she finished her magic would have meant certain death.
They rested in caves at night. The Goyl always found one, and Jacob was glad for it. The nights were still so cold that he froze, despite the blanket the Bastard had brought him. His arm hurt from the Witch’s knife, and the cuts from Troisclerq’s rapier burnt his skin. But what really robbed him of his sleep was the uncertainty of whether Fox had made it to safety. He kept seeing her weary face. You’re asking too much of her, Jacob. Too often had his only gift to her been fear – experienced together and conquered together, but fear still. Yet in the child-eater’s stable, all of that had been forgotten. Then he’d just wanted to protect her. But in the end, and like so many times before, it was she who had to help him.
‘Don’t you wish it was just the two of us?’ The Goyl had lowered his voice, though the other three seemed to be fast asleep. ‘No prince, no Bug, no Waterman, not even the vixen. Just you and me, against each other.’
‘The prince could be useful.’
‘What for?’
‘He’s related to Guismond. What if you need to have the blood of the Witch Slayer to get into the palace? It is, after all, awaiting his children.’
‘Yes. I thought of that as well.’ The Bastard looked up at the bats stirring under the cave ceiling. ‘But I hate the idea of having to drag that blue-blooded airhead with me until the end. No. There’s always another way.’
Jacob closed his eyes. He was tired of how the Goyl’s face reminded him of his brother’s jade skin. Even the cave looked like the cave where he and Will had argued.
The pain was stirring again in his chest, so suddenly that he could barely suppress the scream that wanted to explode from his lips.
Damn.
He clutched his bound hands to his chest. It will pass. It will pass. How many times now? Try to remember, Jacob! Five. This was the fifth. One more bite. There couldn’t be much left of his heart.
‘What is this?’ The Bastard looked anxiously at Jacob’s pain-stricken face. ‘Did Louis give you anything to drink?’
Jacob could have laughed, if he’d had any breath left. Not a baseless suspicion. The royal house of Lotharaine had a long tradition of poisoning its enemies.
The Bastard pulled Jacob’s hands from his chest and tore his shirt open. The moth was now as black as the onyx in Nerron’s skin, and the red outline of its skull-spotted wings looked like fresh blood.
Nerron recoiled as though he was afraid he might contaminate himself.
Jacob leant against the cave wall. The pain was subsiding, but he probably made quite a pitiable sight. Was this what the Red Fairy had in mind when she’d whispered her sister’s name in his ear? Had she pictured this while she kissed him? That he’d be writhing like a wounded animal, paying with his agony for her pain? Only that she wasn’t going to die of her broken heart.
She has no heart, Jacob.
Nerron poured out the wine he’d brought, and filled the beaker with a brown liquid. ‘Drink slowly,’ he instructed Jacob before putting the beaker in his bound hands. ‘I’m not sure your stomach can take Goyl spirits.’
It tasted like sugared lava.
The Bastard pushed the cork back into the bottle. ‘I have to be careful Louis doesn’t find this. He’d kill himself with it, and his father would execute me. This was the Dark One, I assume? I always wondered how you managed to steal your brother from under her nose.’ He put the bottle back in his sack. ‘The third bolt . . . you want the crossbow for yourself! What if that story is just a myth?’
‘I tried everything else.’ Jacob forced down another gulp of Goyl liquor. It warmed better than any blanket.
‘The apple? The well?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Djinn blood? The ones from the north. Quite dangerous, but . . .’
‘Didn’t work.’
The Bastard shook his head. ‘Don’t your mothers tell you to stay away from the Fairies?’
‘My mother knew nothing of Fairies.’ Jacob ignored the curiosity in the golden eyes. What was the matter with him? Was he now going to tell his life story to the Goyl? Just one more bite. Maybe he’d die before he saw Fox again. He’d always assumed she’d be with him when he died. Not Will. Not the Fairy. Always the vixen.
Nerron got up. ‘I hope you’re not so stupid to think I’d let you have the crossbow as some kind of noble gesture.’
Jacob pulled his shirt over the moth. ‘You haven’t found it yet.’
The Goyl smiled.
His eyes said, I shall find it. Before you. And you will die.
‘What would you be searching for? If you weren’t busy trying to outrun death?’
Yes, what, Jacob? He was surprised by his own answer. ‘An hourglass.’
The Bastard rubbed his cracked skin. ‘I wouldn’t be racing you for that one. Which moment could be worth holding on to for ever?’ He touched the rock as though searching his memory for one that might have been worth it.
‘What would you like to find most?’ Jacob’s chest was still numb with pain.
The Goyl looked at him. ‘A door,’ he said finally. ‘To another world.’
Jacob suppressed a smile. ‘Really? What’s so bad about this one? And why should another be any better?’
The Bastard shrugged and looked at his speckled hand. ‘It’s my mother’s fault. She told me too many stories. The worlds in them were all better.’
Behind them, Louis was beginning to snore. He was turning more moody and irascible with every day. A side effect of toad spawn, as Jacob had learnt from Alma. Paranoia was another. Both not uncommon character traits in a King’s son.
‘I don’t ask much!’ Nerron said. ‘Having no princes would already make it a better world. And no onyx lords. I could also do without Thumblings . . . and it should have deep, uninhabited caves.’
He turned away. ‘We all have our dreams, right?’