The lead wolf paused. It panted with lust for the flesh that smelled so deliciously of blood and the cold sweat of fear.
Then it snapped at the vines that had grown around Jacob’s throat. Jacob tried to turn away, but the vines that protected him also held him like fly in a spider’s web. After one more bite, the wolf’s breath brushed over naked skin. Jacob could already feel the teeth on his throat, and then . . .
Nothing.
No crunching cartilage. No choking on his own blood. Instead, a shrill whine. And the sharp voice of a man.
Through the vines, Jacob could see boots and the blade of a rapier. One wolf dropped with a slashed throat. Another freed itself from the vines and attacked, but the blade killed it in mid-air. The others drew back. Finally, one of them let out a disappointed bark and they all ran, their fur peppered with thorns.
His rescuer turned around. He was hardly older than Jacob. His rapier cut through the vines like a letter opener through paper. There weren’t many blades that could make such short work of choke vines. Jacob clambered out from the chopped-up vines while the stranger picked the thorns from his gloves. His clothes were as fine as his blade. The lapels of his jacket were lined with the fur of a black fox. In Lotharaine, only the highest nobility were allowed to hunt these animals.
The fairy-tale prince. And he even looked the part.
Great. Just be grateful he wasn’t busy saving Snow-White. The last time Jacob had felt so stupid was in the schoolyard, when a teacher had to free him from the chokehold of a girl.
‘Choke vines are quite rare in these parts.’ His saviour helped him to his feet. ‘Did the wolves bite you?’
Thank him, Jacob. Go on.
‘It’s not that bad.’ He touched the wound in his side. ‘How did you drive them off so fast?’ Stop it. You sound as if it was he who set the wolves on you. Pride was so tedious. But his rescuer just shrugged.
‘My lands are near Champlitte. There we used to have trouble with beasts that were much bigger than these.’ He offered his hand to Jacob. ‘Guy de Troisclerq.’
Jacob wiped the blood off his hands. ‘Jacob Reckless.’ Treasure hunter and certifiable idiot. He could barely stand upright.
Troisclerq pointed at Jacob’s torn clothes. ‘You’ll have to bathe in bark suds, or else the wounds will get infected. Those thorns can be nasty.’
‘I know!’ Jacob!
He forced his mouth into a smile. ‘It appears you saved my life.’
Troisclerq threw the chopped-up vines into the centre of the clearing. ‘I was in the right place at the right time – that’s all.’
And noble as well. Stop it, Jacob! How is it his fault you stumbled into the Goyl’s trap like an amateur?
The lighter that Troisclerq held to the vines was one of the first ones Jacob had seen behind the mirror. They cost a fortune. He plucked a tendril from his hair and threw it into the flames. He was alive, but the head was gone.
The bite wound in his side hurt so badly that he had to ask Troisclerq to catch his horse for him. The sight of his plundered backpack filled him with such helpless rage that he wanted to ride after the Bastard on the spot. But his noble saviour was right – he needed to have that bite looked at and to disinfect his shredded skin, or it would soon go septic. And Fox was waiting for him in Gargantua.
At least he managed to get into his saddle without Troisclerq having to help him with that as well. His rescuer rode a white horse that made all the mounts Jacob had ever owned look like nags in comparison.
‘Where were you headed?’
‘Gargantua.’
‘Excellent. That’s where I’m going as well. I’m catching the evening coach to Vena.’
Oh, perfect. Exactly what he’d planned to do as well. He hoped his saviour would not tell their fellow travellers how they had met. The heart in the east. He had to find it before the Bastard did, or he might as well have let the wolves have their feast.
Jacob cast a final look at the clearing where the Goyl had caught him like a rabbit. It was a long journey to Austry, and Troisclerq’s face would be there all the way, reminding him of his stupidity.
‘Reckless?’ Troisclerq drove his horse to Jacob’s side. ‘Are you that treasure hunter who used to work for the Austrian Empress?’
Jacob’s closed his tattered fingers around the reins. ‘The very one.’
And the idiot who let himself be robbed like a dilettante.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A NEW FACE
The inn where Fox was supposed to meet Jacob was one where they’d already stayed before. Back then, they’d come to Gargantua to search for a jacket made of donkey skin that hid its wearer from his enemies. Le Chat Botté was situated right next to the library, and it also stood in the shade of the monument erected by the town to commemorate the Giant for whom it was named. His effigy was as tall as a church tower, and it attracted travellers from far away, but Fox had no eyes for his silver hair, nor for the eyes made of blue glass, which supposedly moved at night. She longed for Jacob’s face. Her excursion into the past had only made it clear to her once more that he was the only home she had.
The barroom of Le Chat Botté was much more elegant than Chanute’s Ogre. Tablecloths, candles, mirrors on the walls, and waitresses with lace aprons. The landlord boasted to have personally known the legendary Puss. A pair of well-worn boots hung by the door as evidence. Those boots, however, would have barely fit a child’s feet, and every treasure hunter knew that Puss in Boots had been as tall as a grown man.
The landlord gave Fox and her men’s clothes a disapproving look before he started searching the guest register for Jacob’s name.
‘Mademoiselle?’ The man rising from one of the tables was so beautiful that more than one of the women present followed him with their eyes. Fox, however, only saw the black fur on his collar.
He stopped in front of her and touched it with his fingers. ‘A gift from my grandfather,’ he said. ‘Personally, I find no pleasure in that kind of hunt. I’m always on the side of the fox.’
His hair was as black as the shadows in a forest, but his eyes were light blue, like a summer sky. Day and night.
‘Jacob asked me to keep an eye out for you. He’s at the doctor’s – he’s fine,’ he added when Fox gave him a worried look. ‘He stumbled into some choke vines, and some wolves. Luckily, we were on the same road.’ He bowed and kissed her hand. ‘Guy de Troisclerq. Jacob described you very well.’
The doctor’s practice wasn’t far. Troisclerq explained the way to Fox. Wolves and choke vines . . . Jacob generally knew how to keep wolves away, and choke vines were supposed to have been eradicated from Lotharaine; after Crookback’s niece was killed by choke vines, they’d been ordered to be burnt. Jacob met Fox halfway, his hands bandaged and his shirt splattered with blood. She’d rarely seen him as angry.
‘The Bastard has the head.’ He flinched in pain as she embraced him, and she had a hard time coaxing out of him exactly what had happened. At least for now his injured pride had pushed away all thoughts of death, but Fox couldn’t think of anything else. The haste, the dangers, the time it had taken them to find the head – for nothing! They were again empty-handed. Fox was sick with fear, and her hand clamped around the box in her pocket.