Celeste…
The coachman reined in the horses. The road was flooded. The snowmelt in the mountains had caused the rivers to swell over their banks. In this world, rivers still picked their own beds, and every year entire villages disappeared into the floods. Yet Jacob loved the reed-lined riverbanks and the wooded islands mirrored in slow-flowing water. The rivers here were not only home to Naiads and Mud-Gnomes; they also contained treasure and had turned more than one poor fisher into a wealthy man.
Celeste…
The coachman crossed the river over the same bridge the Goyl had used to leave the city after the Blood Wedding. Vena had subsequently surrendered to them without a fight, after the Empress’s daughter had announced that her mother had been responsible for the bloodbath in the church. The Goyl were no crueler than other occupying forces, yet as the coach passed gray uniforms and houses with bricked-up windows, Jacob had an eerie feeling, wondering whether this ever would have happened without him.
The coaches still stopped behind the train station, though the noise of the arriving trains made the horses shy. Maybe the coach operators didn’t want to cede the future to the iron carriages without a fight, but they had already lost. Next to the train station, the Goyl had opened an access to the catacombs, which they now used as living quarters. As the other passengers stared at the soldiers who guarded that entrance, they could barely conceal the disgust the stone faces still elicited in most humans. Kami’en’s marriage had done nothing to temper that.
The station walls were papered with dozens of wanted posters. There were anarchist groups in Vena who had called for resistance to the new Empress, for attacks on her ministers, on military and police barracks, or on the living quarters of the Goyl. Fox anxiously scanned the placards, but Jacob saw neither his nor Will’s face on any of them. Whatever it was the Dark Fairy had told her lover, Kami’en was not searching for the Jade Goyl. And once you’re dead, Jacob, nobody will ever know where he disappeared to. Maybe that was exactly the ending the Dark Fairy was hoping for.
A few cabs waited beneath the trees on the other side of the station concourse.
“You go look for the heart!” Fox whispered as Jacob flagged one of them. “I’ll get Troisclerq to show me where Louis’s cousin lives, and I’ll find out whether the Bastard’s there.”
He didn’t like that plan at all. The Goyl was dangerous, but Fox put her finger on Jacob’s mouth as he tried to protest. “Let’s not lose any more time,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll make sure he doesn’t see me.”
Behind them Troisclerq was bidding farewell to the other passengers. Fox looked at him. Jacob tried to ignore the sting that look gave him.
“Good. You take the cab. I’ll walk.” Fifteen days on a coach bench was more than enough. “We meet at the hotel.”
It had sounded colder than he wanted. Jacob, what are you doing? Fox’s eyes were asking the same question.
Troisclerq bought a bunch of daffodils from one of the flower girls in front of the station. He plucked one of the flowers and pinned it to Fox’s dress.
“Are you all right?” He put his arm around Jacob’s shoulder. “I know a good doctor here in Vena. Maybe you should have yourself looked at.”
“No. I’m fine.” Jacob waved the cab closer.
“You will find the heart!” Fox whispered to him. “I know it.”
*
Troisclerq opened the cab door.
Fox gathered up her dress and looked at Jacob. “Will you telegraph Chanute about the money?”
“Sure.”
She gave him a smile and climbed into the cab.
Troisclerq was looking at two passing women. They returned his glance. One of them blushed.
“There are so many beautiful women,” Troisclerq murmured to Jacob, “but some are more than that. So much more.” He went to the cab and threw his bag toward the driver. “I have to journey on today,” he said to Jacob, “but I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
He joined Fox in the cab.
Celeste… Jacob liked calling her Fox.
He watched the cab until it disappeared behind a tram. ‘You will find the heart.’ He looked around. Where to first, Jacob? To the state archives, where all of Austry’s treasures were cataloged? To the mausoleum where Guismond’s daughter rested among her imperial descendants? He tried to summon the rage he’d felt in the forest, the urge to get even with the Bastard… but he felt nothing. As though the moth was actually eating his heart.
33
DIFFERENT METHODS
Strange, how humans liked to do their forbidden deeds in cellars. As though crawling underground was enough to remain undetected. A Goyl always would have chosen the light of day.
The man, whose name Nerron had been given by an undertaker, plied his illegal business beneath a well-established butcher shop. The smells wafting through the door above were the perfect disguise for the kinds of goods he traded beneath.
The basement stairs that led down to his place of business were unlit. They ended in front of a door with an enameled sign: BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. The man who opened to Nerron’s knock was the same undertaker who’d given him the address. He was as bald as an Amber-Gnome, and he was hiding a knife under his black frock coat. He waved Nerron into a room that was so dark that only a Goyl could immediately see what was sold there. Jars with eyes, teeth, claws of any kind; cabinets filled with hands, paws, hooves, ears, noses, and skulls of any shape and size; potent ingredients for giving your neighbor a headache, or your philandering husband a pair of goat-hooves. Harm-spells. That’s what this forbidden craft was called. The Witches dismissed it as human superstition, but even the Empress’s daughter liked to have eyes or teeth placed under her enemies’ beds to harm their health. Nerron, of course, noticed that this particular pharmacy also offered a considerable range of Goyl limbs, which when ground into a powder were supposed to cause paralysis.
The man who traded in all this looked as though he himself had become a victim of his craft. The yellow skin was stretched over his bones as if it had been worn by someone else before. He was wearing a white coat, like all the apothecaries who’d switched from the healing to the hurting kind of medicine because of its larger profits, and because the clients could hardly come and complain if the sinister remedies failed to work.
“The undertaker told you what I’m looking for?”
“He did indeed.” The surprisingly full mouth stretched into an obliging smile. “It’s about a heart. A very special heart. Very expensive merchandise.”
Nerron emptied a purse of red moonstone onto the spotless white counter. The smile grew even wider.
“That might be enough. It was quite a challenge to find the merchandise. But I have my sources.”
The apothecary turned around and opened one of the enameled drawers behind him. It contained hearts of every size and shape; some were as small as hazelnuts, and the biggest one looked like the well-preserved heart of a Giant.
“You won’t find a finer collection in all of Vena.” Another smile, proud, like that of a florist praising his roses. “The spell that keeps my merchandise fresh is quite complicated and not without hazards, but that’s, of course, not necessary for this heart. This, after all, is the heart of a Warlock. And I probably don’t have to explain what that means.”
He reached for a silver case next to the Giant heart. The heart the case contained was no bigger than a fig and had the consistency of black opal. Guismond’s heraldic animal was etched into the smooth surface: the crowned wolf.
“As you can see, it’s in pristine condition. It was, after all, in the possession of the imperial family these past centuries.”
The undertaker first, Nerron.
Nerron spun around and smashed the man’s head into the wall before the dolt even realized what was happening.
“How stupid does one have to be to try and sell a fake stone to a Goyl?” he hissed at the apothecary. “Do you think we’re as ignorant as you people and can’t tell an opal from a petrified heart? One stone’s like any other, right? What do you think my skin’s made of? Jasper?”
He swiped the case off the counter. Disappointing. Very disappointing. Your own fault, Nerron. You’re trying to find the heart of a king, and here you are, searching in the gutters. Reckless never would’ve been so stupid.
He pointed his pistol at the trembling apothecary and nodded toward the glass jar by the register. Floating among the human and Dwarf eyes were also two Goyl eyeballs.
“Try the golden ones,” Nerron said as he poured the moonstone back into the purse. “I’m sure they taste better. And who knows, maybe you’ll end up seeing my kind with fresh eyes.” The idea came to him as the apothecary was forcing down the first eye. It was a dirty idea, but he’d been looking for the heart for more than a week now, and patience had never been his strong suit. Nerron grabbed the pale shaking hand before it went into the eye jar again. “You can skip the second one. Do you have a Witch tongue? But no fake this time!”
The apothecary hastily pulled open another drawer. He used a pair of pliers to pick out a tongue that differed from a human tongue only by a small slit at the tip. Nerron poured the fake heart out of the case and put the tongue inside.
He was already at the door when the undertaker began to stir.
But he never came after Nerron.
34
A GAME
It was less than a half hour’s walk from the train station to the state archives, but all the big avenues leading to the palace were cut off by police blocks. The crowds on the sidewalks were nearly as thick as on the day of the Blood Wedding, and Jacob felt himself being washed along by the throng, like a piece of driftwood. Kami’en was in Vena. There was going to be a parade to celebrate the pregnancy of his human wife. The new Empress’s guards were decorating the streetlights and facades with garlands. The guards were, without exception, Goyl. Amalie left her protection to her husband’s soldiers. It was said she preferred to pick ones that had Kami’en’s carnelian skin. The garlands were strung with moonstone flowers, and the barricades along the streets were decorated with silver branches. Yet all Jacob saw was Troisclerq as he pinned a flower to Fox’s dress. What was going on with him? You’re jealous, Jacob. Don’t have enough problems already?
He turned into the next alley—and ended up in front of another roadblock. Damn. Who was he fooling? The Bastard had long found the heart. Stop it, Jacob! But he couldn’t remember ever having felt so tired. Not even the fear of death penetrated the fog in his head.
He pulled out the city guide he’d bought at the station. It was an unwieldy, chatty thing, as thick as a novel and filled with tiny print. But the Goyl had changed Vena so much that he hardly knew the place anymore. The archive was on a street that was also on the parade route.
Maybe he should try the mausoleum first. He leafed through the densely printed pages—holding Earlking’s card in one hand.
You’re wasting your time, jacob.
Museum of austrian history.
Hall 33.
The man who was guismond’s eyes also knew his heart.
Jacob looked down the street. The pain in his chest was now constant, like a wound that wouldn’t heal. The price should be payable. He flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address of the museum.
*
Columns shaped like the bodies of tethered Giants. The entrance a frieze of vanquished Dragons. Dwarfs and Heinzel as chiseled ornaments beneath the windows. The building that housed the Museum of Austrian History had originally been a palace. One of the Empress’s ancestors had designed every detail himself. In his day he was called the alchemist prince, but it wasn’t his statue in front of the museum; it was that of his great-grandson, flanked by the equestrian statues of two victorious generals. Jacob pushed through the stream of uniformed schoolchildren flooding down the steps. He put the entrance fee in front of the ticket lady. Luckily, a goldsmith had agreed to change a few of the pathetic coins Jacob’s handkerchief still produced for brand-new guilders. The currency now bore Kami’en’s profile instead of the Empress’s.
Unlike the imperial Chambers of Miracles, the museum held no magical objects, but in its halls Jacob had learned more about the MirrorWorld than many who were born there ever did. Weapons and armor of Austrian knights, long spears for fighting Giants, Ogre claws, gilded Dragon saddles, a copy of the original Emperor’s throne, and the head of the horse that had warned the Empress’s mother of a poisoned apple. Thousands of objects brought the history of Austry to life. Jacob remembered his first visit very well. Chanute had taken him to find information on a castle that had sunk into a lake more than a century before. Jacob had stopped in front of every display until Chanute grabbed him by the neck and shoved him along. But Jacob had snuck back every time they stopped in Vena, usually while Chanute was sleeping off his cheap wine. Jacob could found his way through the halls blind, but the Goyl hadn’t just changed the map of Vena. They’d done the same to Austry’s history.
The room where Jacob stopped had, until a few months earlier, housed the robes of state of the deposed Empress. Now the room was dominated by her daughter’s bloody wedding gown. The wax doll wearing it looked eerily like Amalie. The wax rendering of Kami’en’s stone skin was not half as convincing. Jacob approached the wax figure next to the King. The Jade Goyl stared at him through golden glass eyes. It looked so much like Will that Jacob could hardly bear to look at it. There was, of course, also a wax effigy of the Dark Fairy. She was standing a little aside. Wax corpses covered with black moths were strewn around her feet.
It’s in the past, Jacob. Like everything else here. Yet for a few breaths, he was transported back to the cathedral. Clara was again lying among the dead, Will was wearing the gray uniform soaked in Goyl blood, and his own tongue was forming the name that had planted death in his chest.
His brother’s glassy glance followed Jacob from room to room. He nearly walked past the one with the number 33.
The red walls were covered with portraits of Austry’s imperial family. They hung all the way up to the ceiling, frame on frame, countless faces with the brown patina of many centuries. The deposed Empress’s great-grandparents, her grandmother’s infamous brothers, the Emperor whom everybody called the Changeling (he’d probably been one). And of course there was also a portrait of Guismond. He wasn’t wearing the cat-fur coat from the tomb’s door, but was clad in the armor of a knight, though his helmet was shaped like the head of the crowned wolf on his crest. Next to his was a portrait of his wife with their three children. In the painting the children were still very young and stood very close to their mother. The pupils of Guismond’s wife were not those of a Witch, but that didn’t mean much. Every Witch could make herself look like a human woman. There were also portraits of Feirefis and Gahrumet as kings, but Jacob just gave them with a quick glance. He also passed Orgeluse’s portrait, which showed her with her husband. The picture he did stop at was the one painting in room 33 that didn’t depict a member of the imperial dynasty. Jacob had noticed it years earlier, because the man looking out from the heavy golden frame bore a slight resemblance to his grandfather. Hendrick Goltzius Memling had been the Witch Slayer’s court painter, but it was not his art that had made him famous. He was also rumored to have carried on a passionate affair with Guismond’s daughter. His was a self-portrait. Memling had painted it three years after Guismond’s death, and he’d dated it himself. Hanging from his neck was a gold-set stone. Memling was touching it with the fingers of his right hand, which was crippled but had reportedly enabled him to handle the tools of an engraver better than anybody else. The stone was as black as coal.
The golden hearts and the black hearts. Chanute’s voice had sounded almost d
evout when he told Jacob about them. “The golden ones are those of alchemists. At some point they got the silly idea to turn their hearts into gold to make themselves immortal. Many had theirs cut out of their living bodies.” “And the black ones?” Jacob had asked. What did a thirteen-year-old boy care about immortality? “The black ones are the hearts of Warlocks,” Chanute had replied. “They look just like black jewels. Whoever carries one around his neck supposedly gets anything he desires. But if you wear it too close to your heart, it will rob you not only of all joy but also of your conscience.”
Jacob stepped closer to the painting.
Memling was looking down at him through cold eyes. There were stories that he had poisoned not only his wife but also Orgeluse out of jealousy. It might have been Orgeluse’s downfall that she had given the man she loved her father’s heart.
35
THE RIGHT KING
The Dragon’s lair lay beneath the backyard of a brewery. Nobody in Vena had known of its existence until a Goyl patrol had noticed the unmistakable smell of sulfur and lizard fire.
Kami’en’s bodyguards were hiding in the shadows of the brewery’s gate. They were probably counting on their alabaster skin being mistaken for a shimmer of moonlight. They’d gotten too used to how easily human eyes were deceived. Sneaking past them was fun, and after the debacle with the apothecary, Nerron really could do with some cheering up.
Two more guards were posted where the Dragon’s breathing tunnels opened behind the brewery drays. Nerron was past the guards before they could turn their heads, and he quickly melted into the darkness of the tunnel. The Dragon had been dead for centuries, but its smell enveloped Nerron as though it were still lurking in its lair below.
Quiet, Bastard. Like a snake.
Reckless II Page 16
