‘And he’s got the hand as well!’ Jacob looked up at the monument. Flocks of birds were nesting in the giant’s ears. Fox knew that Jacob wasn’t seeing the chiselled stone but the onyx-black face of the Bastard.
‘Bastard!’ he panted. ‘I will find the heart before him, and then I’ll get the head and the hand. We’re riding to Vena today.’
‘You can’t possibly ride that far. Troisclerq says one of the wolves bit you in the side.’ Even a good horse would take ten days to reach Vena.
‘Really? And what else did he tell you?’
‘He didn’t tell me anything else!’ Oh, his pride. He’d probably rather have been eaten by wolves than have been saved by a stranger. ‘Why do we have to go to Vena? Did you hear from Chanute or Dunbar?’
‘Yes, but what they know, I already knew myself. Guismond’s daughter is buried in Vena, in the crypt of the imperial family. That’s the only lead I have.’
That wasn’t much. And Jacob knew it.
‘There’s a coach tonight.’
‘That’ll take us at least two weeks! You know those coachmen stop at every tavern. And the Goyl must be on his way already.’
They both knew he was right. Even if they bribed the coachman, it would still take them more than ten days. The Bastard was going to be in Vena before them. All they could hope was that he didn’t find the heart, though he’d already been quite fast with the hand.
Jacob held his wounded side. For a moment, Fox saw something on his face she’d never seen there before. He was giving up. It was one fleeting moment, but that moment scared her more than anything.
‘You rest,’ she said, stroking his scratched face. ‘I’ll get us tickets for the coach.’
Jacob nodded. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked as she turned.
‘Fine,’ Fox answered, fingering the box in her pocket. She was so worried about him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
NOTHING GOES
Eight people in one badly-sprung coach that smelled of sweat and eau de cologne: a lawyer from St Omar with his daughter; two governesses from Arlas, who knitted through the entire journey even though their fingers got pricked at every bump in the road; and a priest who tried to convince them that the Goyl were direct descendants of the Devil. Jacob wished himself in the black forest, or back at the Blood Wedding, or even on board the sinking Titania . . . and they’d only been travelling for three days.
The coins his handkerchief produced were becoming ever more pathetic, but the coachman had accepted his with wide eyes. Compared to the copper coins he usually received, gold was still worth a fortune, even if it was paper-thin. The coin had spurred him so much that the other travellers soon began to complain about the lack of rest stops. Five days in, one of the wheels broke in a mountain gorge. It took them hours to unharness the horses and lead them along the icy road towards the next coach station. Jacob couldn’t decide which was worse, his throbbing side or the voice in his head: You should have taken a horse. The Bastard must be in Vena already. You’re dead, Jacob . . .
The stationmaster refused to send his men into the night to repair the wheel. He told them about wood sprites and kobolds that supposedly roamed the gorge. He charged them a fortune for his cold rooms, and he only sent his cook back into the kitchen after Troisclerq dropped a pouch full of silver on his polished counter. Troisclerq paid for them all. He arranged for the fire in the dining room to be stoked, and he put his coat around Fox’s shoulders when he saw her shivering as she brushed the snow from her hair. Jacob did not miss the grateful look she gave him in return. She was wearing a dress she’d bought in Gargantua while they’d waited for the coach, and Jacob caught himself wondering whether she’d put it on especially for his rescuer.
Not that Troisclerq wasn’t also taking care of Jacob. As soon as he noticed Jacob holding his hand to the bite in his side, he offered him two black pastilles. Witch-caramel. Not something people generally carried on them. It was made by the child-eaters, and one had better not ask about the ingredients. How did someone with such fine clothes and manners get hold of Witch-caramel? Maybe the same way he learnt how to drive off a pack of wolves, Jacob. And anyway, Lotharaine was swarming with Dark Witches ever since Crookback had granted them asylum in return for straightening his spine.
The pastilles were even better than moor-root, and Witch-caramel had no side effects. Jacob had to admit he was beginning to like his rescuer. Troisclerq hadn’t said a word about saving Jacob in the woods, not to Fox or to the other travellers. He might have given Fox a few too many looks, but even that Jacob could forgive. After all, he couldn’t ask the man to pretend to be blind.
It was best not to drink wine with Witch-caramel, but not even the child-eater pastilles could soothe his injured pride, and Jacob could still see the Goyl sneering down at him. Fox shot him a worried look as he ordered his second carafe. He answered her with a smile that he hoped didn’t give away too much of the humiliating self-pity he was wallowing in. Self-pity, injured pride, and fear of death. A nasty mix, and they still had several days of travelling in that stuffy coach ahead of them. He filled his glass to the brim.
The pain shot into his chest so suddenly that he thought he could feel his heart explode behind his ribs. Nothing would have soothed that pain. Jacob clawed at the table around which they were all sitting, and he suppressed the groan that so badly wanted to escape from his lips.
Fox looked at him. She pushed back her chair.
The pain blurred her face as much as the others’, and he could feel his whole body begin to shake.
‘Jacob!’ Fox took his hand. She talked at him, but he couldn’t hear her. There was only the pain as it seared another letter of the Fairy’s name from his memory. Jacob felt Troisclerq’s arms reaching under his, then Troisclerq and the coachman carrying him up the stairs, where they put him on a bed and examined the wound the wolf had torn into his side. He wanted to tell them they were wasting their time, but the moth was still feeding, and then he was gone.
When he came to, the pain was gone, but his body still remembered. The room was dark. Only a gas lamp burning on the table. Fox was standing next to it; she was looking at something in her hand. The lamp’s light made her skin as white as milk.
She spun around as he sat up, and hid her hand behind her back.
‘What do you have there?’
She didn’t answer. ‘The moth on your chest has three spots,’ she said. ‘When was the other time?’
‘In Saint-Riquet.’ Jacob had never seen her face look so pale. He sat up. ‘What is that in your hand?’
She flinched.
‘What’s that in your hand, Fox?’ His knees were still weak from the pain, but Jacob grabbed her arm and pulled the hand out from behind her back.
She opened her fingers.
A glass ring.
Jacob had seen a similar one in the Empress’s Chambers of Miracles.
‘You didn’t put that on my finger, did you? Fox!’ He grabbed her shoulders. ‘Tell me the truth. This ring was not on my finger. Please!’
Tears ran down her face. But then she shook her head. Jacob took the ring before she could close her hand. She reached for it, but Jacob put it in his pocket. Then he pulled her close. She sobbed like a child, and he held her as firmly as he could.