Dunbar had probably left his desk by now. Morning was not far off. Fox had visited his home with Jacob only once, but the vixen never forgot a way.
It was a little difficult to explain to the taxi driver that she didn’t have an address, that she would give him directions using trees and smells, but in the end he dropped her off in front of the high hedge surrounding Dunbar’s house. Fox rang the bell by the door half a dozen times before she heard an angry voice inside. Dunbar had probably not been in bed long.
He opened the door a crack and pushed the barrel of a rifle through it, but he immediately lowered the weapon when he realised who was standing there. He waved Fox into his living room without saying a word. His late mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace, and on the piano, next to a photograph of his father, was one of him and Jacob.
‘What are you doing here? I thought I made myself clear.’ Dunbar leant the rifle against the wall. He listened into the dark hallway before closing the door. His father lived with him. Jacob had told her that the old Fir Darrig hardly left the house. Anyone would have eventually grown tired of being stared at all the time. There were still a few hundred Fir Darrigs in Eire, but here in Albion they were as rare as a warm summer.
Fox ran her fingers over the spines of the books, which surrounded Dunbar at home just as they did at the university. There had never been a single book in the house where she grew up. It was Jacob who’d taught her to love them.
‘So you now need a rifle if you’ve got a Fir Darrig in your house and in your blood?’
‘Let’s just say it’s better to be safe than sorry. But I’ve never had to use it. I’m still not sure whether rifles were a good invention or not. I guess that’s the question with any invention, but I do feel it’s a question one has to ask too often these days.’ He looked at Fox. ‘We’re both stuck between the times, aren’t we? We’re wearing the past on our skins, but the future is too loud to be ignored. What has been and what will be. What is being lost and what is being gained . . .’
Dunbar was a wise man – wiser than any man Fox knew – and on any other night, Fox would have loved nothing more than listening to him explain the world to her. But not on this night.
‘I am here so Jacob won’t be lost, Dunbar.’
‘Jacob?’ Dunbar laughed out loud. ‘Even if the whole world were lost, he’d just find himself another one.’
‘That wouldn’t help him. He’ll be dead in a few months if we don’t find the crossbow.’
Dunbar had his father’s cat-eyes. Like foxes, Fir Darrigs were creatures of the night. Fox could only hope those eyes could see she wasn’t lying.
‘Please, Dunbar. Tell me where the head is.’
The living room filled with thick silence. Tears might have helped, but she could never cry when she was afraid.
‘Of course. The third shot . . . Guismond’s younger son.’ Dunbar went to the piano and touched the keys. ‘Is he that desperate, that he puts his hope into some half-forgotten legend?’
‘He’s tried everything else.’
Dunbar struck a key, and in that single note Fox heard all the sadness of the world. This was not a good night.
‘So the Red Fairy found him?’
‘He went back to her himself.’
Dunbar shook his head. ‘Then he doesn’t deserve better.’
‘He did it for his brother.’ Talk, Fox. Dunbar believed in words. He lived among them. But the Fairy’s moth was eating Jacob’s heart, and there were no words to stop it.
‘Please!’ For a brief moment, Fox was tempted to point the rifle at Dunbar’s chest. The things fear made you do. And love.
Dunbar looked at the rifle as though he’d guessed her thoughts. ‘I nearly forgot I’m talking to a vixen. Your human form is so misleading, though it suits you very well.’
Fox felt herself blush.
Dunbar smiled, but his face quickly turned serious again. ‘I don’t know where the head is.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Really? And who says so?’
‘The vixen.’
‘Then let’s put it this way. I don’t know exactly, but I have a hunch.’ He picked up the rifle and stroked its long barrel. ‘The crossbow is worth a hundred thousand rifles like this. One single shot will turn the man who wields it into a mass murderer. I’m sure they’ll come up with machines that can do the same soon enough. The new magic is the old magic. The same goals, the same greed . . .’
Dunbar took aim at Fox – then he lowered the rifle.
‘I need your word. By the fur you’re wearing. By Jacob’s life. By all that’s holy to you, that he will not sell the crossbow.’
‘I’ll leave you my fur as a bond.’ No words had ever been more difficult to say.
Dunbar shook his head. ‘No. I won’t ask that much.’
A head poked around the living-room door. The rat-snout was grey, and the cat-eyes were clouded by age.
Dunbar turned around with a sigh. ‘Father! Why aren’t you sleeping?’ He led the old man to the sofa where Fox was sitting.
‘The two of you should have a lot you can talk about,’ Dunbar said. The old Fir Darrig was eyeing Fox warily. ‘Trust me, he knows everything about the blessings and the curse of wearing fur.’
He went to the door. ‘It’s an old tradition from a distant land,’ he said as he stepped out into the corridor, ‘but for the past two hundred years, Albion has believed in the miraculous properties of tea leaves. Even at five in the morning. Maybe they’ll make it easier for my tongue to say what you’ve come to hear.’
His father looked confused. But then he turned to Fox and looked at her with his milky eyes. ‘A vixen, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said. ‘Since birth?’
Fox shook her head. ‘I was seven. The fur was a gift.’
The Fir Darrig heaved a compassionate sigh. ‘Oh, that’s not easy,’ he mumbled. ‘Two souls in one heart. I hope the human in you won’t prove to be stronger in the end. They find it so much harder to make peace with the world.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SAME BLOOD
More nothing. Nerron threw another hand on to the pile of bones they’d already sifted through. Lelou had all but disappeared behind the pile. Eaumbre had smashed up one of the pews and stuck its wood into all the chandeliers, burning as torches, but the night smothered what little light they gave, and thousands of bones were still hidden in the dark, even from Goyl eyes.
What if the hand wasn’t in the damned church? What if it was still somewhere out there in the damp earth? They couldn’t possibly have dug up all the bones!
Nerron had run out of curses. He’d wished himself in a hundred different places, and he must have asked himself more than a thousand times whether Reckless had found the head yet. Still, all he could do was sift through another pale pile of human remains and hope for a miracle.
Lelou and the Waterman were helping him with moderate enthusiasm, but at least there were four extra hands to sort the legs, skulls, and ribs from the bony fingers. The good ones to your pot, the bad ones to your crop – he felt like Cinderella. Wrong thought, Nerron. That only reminded him that Reckless had found the glass slipper before him.
The Waterman lifted his head and reached for his pistol.
Someone was coming through the church door.
Louis stumbled over the first skull in his path. He reached for a hold on the nearest pillar. ‘The wine around here is even more sour than my mother’s lemonade,’ he babbled. ‘And the girls are even uglier than you, Eaumbre.’
And of course he had to throw up over the bones they hadn’t searched yet.
‘How much longer are you going to be doing this?’ He wiped his tailored sleeve over his mouth and tottered towards Nerron. ‘And anyway . . . all that treasure hunting . . . the magical crossbow . . . My father should be looking for engineers that are as good as Albion’s instead.’
He stopped abruptly and stared at a pile of skulls to his left. Something was moving beneath th
em. Eaumbre drew his sabre, but Louis waved him away impatiently.
‘I’ll break his neck myself,’ he shouted drunkenly. ‘Can’t be that hard. Nasty little . . .’
Lelou shot Nerron an alarmed look. A yellow follet’s bite was nearly as dangerous as that of a viper. But what came crawling out from between the bones had neither a yellow skin nor legs or arms.
‘Don’t!’ Nerron yelled as the Waterman lifted his sabre.
Three fingers, pale as wax.
They moved as fast as locust legs. Nerron tried to grab them – and immediately let go with a curse. His arm was numb all the way up to the shoulder. The hand of a Warlock – what were you thinking, Nerron?
The fingers scurried towards Louis. He stumbled back, but something was crawling down the pillar behind him. Thumb and forefinger. The second piece. Eaumbre hacked at them with his sabre, but the fingers skilfully dodged the blade. Louis tugged at his dagger, but he was too drunk to get it out of the scabbard.
‘Damn it!’ he screeched. ‘Do something!’
A piece of the hand was crawling up his boot.
‘Grab it!’ Nerron barked at him. ‘Do it now!’
There wasn’t much of Guismond’s blood flowing through Louis’s veins. Still, maybe it would give him enough protection. If not . . . but Louis was already leaning down. The fingers kept twitching like the legs of an unappetisingly large beetle, but they didn’t give Louis a jolt. So the princeling was useful after all! Things were now crawling from all directions towards him. The two halves of the wrist slithered like turtles across the flagstones.
Louis put the pieces together like a child playing with a grisly model kit. The dead flesh stuck together like warm wax. There was still gold on the stump and the fingernails. Nerron smiled. Yes, this was the right hand.
The swindlesack he pulled from his jacket was from the mountains of Anatolia, a place from which one didn’t easily return alive. Still, every treasure hunter had to own at least one of these sacks. Whatever was put inside disappeared and would re-emerge only when one reached for it deep within the sack.
Nerron held out the sack to Louis.
The prince flinched away from him, and he hid the hand behind his back like a spoilt child.
‘No,’ he said, yanking the swindlesack from Nerron’s fingers. ‘Why should you have it? The hand came to me!’
Lelou couldn’t hide his gleeful grin. The Waterman, however, exchanged a look with Nerron, and floating in that look like pebbles in a pond was the memory of every one of Louis’s insults.
Good.
One day that might save him the trouble of having to snap the princeling’s neck himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IMPOSSIBLE
What would you do without her, Jacob? Fox was looking out the train window, but he wasn’t sure whether she was gazing at the fields drifting past outside or at the reflection of her face in the glass. Jacob often caught her staring at her human form as if she were staring at a stranger.
Fox noticed his look, and she smiled at him with that mix of confidence and bashfulness only her human self knew. The vixen was never bashful.
The steam of the locomotive drifted past the windows, and a coat-tailed waiter balanced cups and plates through the swaying dining car. Jacob felt as though the previous night’s pain had sharpened his senses. The world around him seemed just as wondrous and strange as when he he’d seen it the first time he came through the mirror. He touched the teacup the waiter brought him. The white porcelain was painted with Elves, the kind that were still found on many flowers in Albion. At the next table, two men were arguing over the use of Giantlings in the Albian navy, and nearby a woman’s neck glistened with Selkie-tears, which were found all along the island’s southern shores, like unshelled pearls. He still loved this world, even though it was trying to take his life.
The tea was bitter, despite the elven cup. So bitter that he barely managed to get it down, but it helped against the fatigue the moth’s bite had left inside him.
Fox reached for his hand. ‘How are you feeling? We’ll be there soon.’
Beyond the hills they could see the roofs of Goldsmouth, the home port of the Albian navy. Beyond that was the sea, grey and vast. It seemed calmer than on their crossing. Good. Jacob couldn’t believe he had to get on a ship again.
Fox whispered across the table: ‘Do you still have money? Or did you spend it all on the blood shard?’
Jacob knew a ship’s outfitter who sold genuine navy uniforms, but they weren’t cheap, and his handkerchief was becoming less and less reliable. It had produced the last coin so reluctantly, they’d nearly been unable to pay for their train tickets. Jacob put his hand in his pocket, and his fingers touched Earlking’s card. He couldn’t resist. He pulled it out.
THAT HURT, DIDN’T IT? AND IT WILL GET WORSE WITH EVERY BITE. FAIRIES LOVE THE PAIN THEY CAN CAUSE TO MORTALS.
BY THE WAY, I VISITED YOUR BROTHER TODAY.
Fox looked at him.
‘Who’s the card from?’ She tried to make the question sound casual, but Jacob knew who she was thinking of. She hadn’t forgotten the Larks’ Water. And he could remember the pain in her eyes even more clearly than Clara’s kisses. Maybe you should have told her, Jacob.
He pushed the card across the table. The words were already fading as she reached for it.
‘It’s a magical thing!’ Fox turned the card around. ‘Norebo Johann Earlking?’
The conductor came through the carriage to announce the next stop.
‘Yes. And he didn’t give me the card in this world.’ Jacob got up. The other world suddenly felt so close that the clothes everyone around him wore seemed like costumes. Top hats, buttoned boots, laced hems . . . He felt lost between the two worlds, neither here nor there.
‘What has he got to do with Will?’
Yes, what? It didn’t sound as though this was just about a few heirlooms. Jacob didn’t like it at all, but the mirror was far away, and it might be weeks before he got to see Will again. If he got to see him again.
Oh, to hell with it . . . He would see his brother again.
Fox lifted the card to her nose. Always the vixen, even in her human skin. ‘Silver. And there’s a scent I don’t recognise.’ She returned the card to him and reached for her coat. Jacob had been with her when she bought it. The fabric was nearly the same colour as her fur. ‘I don’t like that smell. Be careful.’
The other travellers started pushing them towards the door. Though the platform was lost in the steam of the locomotive, the wind brought the smell of salt and tar from the port. Porters. Taxi drivers. There were two porters with wooden seats on their backs; they were waiting for the two Dwarfs who’d been sitting behind them in the dining car. Being barely three feet tall and trying to push one’s way through a train station was no fun.
They took one of the cabs waiting in front of the station. Fox got off at the square where the ships’ outfitters had their shops, but Jacob instructed the driver to take him to the port. They could only hope Dunbar was right with his theory about the Witch Slayer’s head. But to be certain, they had to find a way to get on board the royal flagship first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IRON FLANKS
There they lay, hull by hull. The creaking of wet rope mingled with the screeches of gulls and the voices of men readying their ships for departure. Albion’s navy was matched by no other on this side of the mirror. And that confidence was stamped on the faces of every one of the sailors carrying ditty bags up the swaying gangways, and of the officers leaning on the railing. The flag with the crowned Dragon flapped above them all. Albion wasn’t even keeping the fleet’s mission a secret.
Jacob picked up a newspaper from the wet cobblestones. Every letter of the headline on the front page sprouted curlicues yet was as clear as the headlines in his world.
REGAL FLEET TO DELIVER ARMS TO FLANDERS
From Albion’s Factories Springs Hope in the Fight Against the Goyl
Jacob stared at the sketch printed on the next page. Though he could barely make it out on the wet paper, his heart began to beat at a ridiculous pace, just as it did when he’d seen the aeroplanes in the Goyl fortress. The quest he’d abandoned so long ago. The trail that had always disappeared into nothing. And he’d stumbled on to it again, in a place where he never would have thought to look.
THE VULCAN IN ITS BERTH IN GOLDSMOUTH
Our Tempered Terror of the Seas Embarks on Third Mission to Escort Arms Delivery
Masterpiece of Albian Engineering Sets Goyl Atremble
Jacob put down the newspaper and scanned the row of ships.
To his left lay the ship he’d come to Goldsmouth for: the Titania, flagship of the Albian fleet, named after the King’s mother. Three hundred and Seventy-six crew. Forty-five cannons. The grimy waters of the harbour reflected the figurehead, but Jacob only gave her a cursory glance. His eyes were searching for the ship from the front page.
Where was it?
His glance wandered past wooden hulls and masts until it found pale sunlight reflected on metal.
There she was. At the last berth. Grey, ugly, like a steel shark in a school of wooden mackerel. The low hull rose just a few feet above the water and was clad, like the funnels, in iron all the way down to the waterline. In Jacob’s world, the first iron ships had been instrumental in deciding the American Civil War. This, however, was already a much more modern version.
Jacob! Forget it! But reason didn’t stand a chance. His heart beat in his throat as he picked his way past crates and duffel bags, through groups of seamen hauling munitions and provisions, women saying farewell to their husbands, and children pressing teary faces into their fathers’ uniforms. It was like stumbling through one of his dreams, only this forest was made up of ships’ masts.
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