“It was about my brother!” Jacob hissed into his ear. “What would you’ve done? You put on their uniform so you wouldn’t have to end up in a dungeon like your former Empress. So drop the self-righteousness and tell me what you know about a Bluebeard who’s been hunting in these parts.”
He could feel Donnersmarck take a deep breath.
Bluebeard. They’d hunted one together. Years before.
“Tell me. You’re Amalie’s watchdog. You know the answer.”
“That’s a filthy trick!” Donnersmarck’s voice had turned hoarse, roughened by ghosts only he and Jacob had seen.
“Spit it out!” Jacob let go of Donnersmarck so his old friend saw the fear in his face. “Is there a Bluebeard in Vena?” Donnersmarck stared at him. Show him your fear, Jacob, even though you’re usually better at hiding it.
“Yes.” Donnersmarck spoke haltingly. “He took the first girl ten years ago. There have been four so far. He’s supposedly from Lotharaine, but he prefers hunting here. You know what they’re like—never in their own backyard. Why are you looking for him?”
“He’s got Fox.” Jacob pushed past him. Always the same image: Troisclerq’s hand pinning the flower on her dress. Why did he do it in Jacob’s presence? So he’d be haunted by it every night? He had fallen for Troisclerq’s charms, just like the women he killed. But Fox only went with him because of you, Jacob. You handed her to him like a gift.
“Where in Lotharaine?”
“It’s all just rumors.”
“For example?”
“That he lives somewhere near Champlitte.”
Champlitte. Troisclerq hadn’t even tried to lie. What if I take what’s dear to your heart, Jacob? Will you come to get it back?
He shoved the Dwarf out of the way and stepped into the alley. Donnersmarck quickly caught up with him, despite the limp he had from fighting his Empress’s wars.
“Where did you see her last?”
“At the train station.”
He had to find the cabdriver…
None of the moth’s bites had made his heart beat as fast. Reason drowned in fear. He’d never known he could be that scared.
You will find her. And she’ll be alive.
If only he could believe himself. He just knew one thing: he was going to kill Troisclerq.
He’d kill him.
37
FLOWERS
Wilted flowers, in a cab and on a station platform. No. Troisclerq wasn’t even trying to cover his tracks. Donnersmarck was by Jacob’s side as he picked up the flowers from the platform. Bluebeard. The one word had turned Donnersmarck’s hostility into the unquestioning support Jacob had always been able to count on until the Blood Wedding.
It was three years since the Empress had asked Jacob to find a Bluebeard who’d taken one of her maids. Donnersmarck had requested to be his military aide. The maid was his sister. They’d found her in an abandoned castle, together with seven other girls, all dead. The killer had already left. They had searched for him for months, but then he’d lured them into a trap from which they’d barely managed to escape alive. After that his trail had gone cold, and he died, years later, peacefully in his bed—having killed six more girls.
Bluebeards always went on the hunt clean-shaved so the blue facial hair they were named after wouldn’t give them away. Supposedly, there had never been fewer than a dozen of them, but Chanute had always maintained there were hundreds. It was said they all shared one common ancestor, a man with black blood and a blue beard who’d found a way to live forever by feeding off the fear of others. Bluebeards only killed their victims after they had milked all their fear. That was Jacob’s hope: Fox wouldn’t easily give Troisclerq what he craved.
One of the station supervisors remembered a young red-haired woman who’d been so tired that her husband had to support her as they boarded the train. The effects of the flower…
That train stopped in Champlitte. The next one wouldn’t leave before the following morning, but Jacob couldn’t wait. When he asked the cabdriver to take them to the outskirts, where the air was thick with soot and destitution, Donnersmarck did not have to ask why. They needed fast horses, even faster than the ones in the Empress’s stable, and Donnersmarck knew as well as Jacob that such horses could only be found in the darkest corners of Vena. The farmers called them Devil-Horses because they ate raw meat and their breath was hot enough to scald you. They were caught in swamps and moors—pale white nags, their manes hanging like a tangle of roots around their necks. They were twice as fast as normal horses, but they also ate unwary owners in their sleep.
Jacob purchased two that even their Giantling handler could barely control. Donnersmarck hadn’t said much since their brawl, but they both knew the house of a Bluebeard should not be entered alone. Darkness was falling as they turned their backs on Vena and rode westward together.
38
AIR
Air. They had disappeared into thin air. Both Reckless and the man Kami’en had put on him. Not even Hentzau knew where they were. And the spider had pulled her legs under her blue belly and refused to dance.
And, Nerron, still glad the wolves didn’t get him?
He returned to the palace of Louis’s cousin, his mood as dark as his skin. The building looked like one of the overwrought cakes sold in Vena’s bakeries. It had more rooms than Lelou had hairs on his head. But Louis was always easy enough to find. You just had to follow the giggles of his current favorite.
There. The linen room. Louis left no room untouched. Nerron pressed his ear against the door.
Time to move beyond civilized methods. He needed the hand. He needed the heart before Reckless could find it. And he needed to get rid of his companions. There was only one way to accomplish all of that. Three birds with one stone.
“What are you doing?” Eaumbre’s whispers sounded even more damp than usual. Nerron turned around.
The Waterman’s wet hair stuck to his angular head, as though he’d just climbed out of a pond. And he probably had. Nerron thought he could detect a slight scent of goldfish. Watermen dried out if they didn’t take a dip in a pond every now and then, the muddier the better. They also dried out if they were fed Firemoths. Probably an interesting sight. Stop it, Nerron. Stay on good terms with him, He’s much more useful that way.
Nerron pointed at the door to the linen room. “Your royal master is getting impatient. Crookback wants the crossbow, but how can I concentrate on the search while his son does nothing but try to seduce every girl in Vena?”
Eaumbre’s face stayed as inscrutable as ever. Only his eyes hinted at what he felt on the inside: six eyes, filled to the rim with boredom and injured pride. Louis had let everybody in Vena know that his Waterman was nothing but an annoying babysitter his father had forced on him. There could be no doubt that Eaumbre despised his princely charge, but that didn’t mean he liked anyone else. And he was strong. Very strong. He could easily break every bone, even in a Goyl body, with one hand. Probably not a pleasant experience.
“And? What should we do, in your opinion?” The whispers filled Nerron’s ears like pond muck.
Through the door came a sigh that made even the portraits on the walls blush.
“Bring Louis to the library in one hour. I’ll talk to him.” Hopefully, that sounded harmless enough. “And tell him to bring the hand.”
“Why?”
Careful, Nerron.
“I want to see whether it can point us to the heart.”
Six eyes. They were saying, You’re lying, Goyl. And I know it.
“The library,” the Waterman repeated. “In one hour.”
*
The Snow-White method had severe side effects—so severe that in Albion you got hanged for using it. Crookback probably had an even more painful method of execution in store,
should he ever learn that it had been used on his son. But Nerron counted on the fact that its effects were easily confused with those of an overdose of elven dust.
One of the kitchen hands boiled the Witch tongue for him in the palace kitchen. The fool thought it was a calf’s tongue. Nerron prepared the apple himself. The fruit was the reason the formula was named after Snow-White, even though her apple had been prepared with a different kind of potion. Nerron cut out the stalk and the core and poured the tongue-broth into it. Black magic was a rather unappetizing craft. He sealed the opening with dark chocolate to sweeten the deal. Louis could never resist chocolate.
The shelves were lined with rows of books as neat as those found only in libraries that were never used. Louis’s cousin loved to give himself the appearance of an educated man.
One hour. The Waterman delivered on time. The crown prince of Lotharaine did, of course, not knock.
“The Waterman says we have something to discuss?” As usual, he reeked of elven dust and the disgusting eau de toilette he applied as liberally as water. “Stay outside!” he ordered Eaumbre as the Waterman tried to follow him. “You stink of fish again. Go and find my cousin. I want to go out.”
Eaumbre’s eyes brushed Nerron with a bland glance before he closed the door. Lelou obviously hadn’t taught Louis anything about the pride of Watermen. Quite a dangerous knowledge gap.
“Did you bring the hand?”
Louis held up the sack.
“I hope you keep it well away from yourself?”
“Why?” Luis frowned. The elven dust made thinking even more difficult than it usually was for him.
“What is Lelou teaching you? Black magic is not particularly healthy. And it’ll be me who’ll have to answer to your father for any side effects!” Nerron offered him the apple. “Here. The antidote tastes disgusting, but I asked the cook to make it a little more palatable.”
“An apple?” Louis flinched. “I never touch apples. Two of my aunts were poisoned that way.”
“As you wish.” Nerron put the apple on a lectern, next to a book on the family history of Louis’s Austrian relatives, which was gathering dust. “Go see a doctor if you don’t believe me. And keep an eye on your fingernails. Once they turn black, it may be too late already.”
Louis stared at his fingers.
“I’m sick of treasure hunting!” he burst out. “All that magical nonsense. I’m so over it.”
He took the apple and eyed it so warily that Nerron nearly gave up hope. “Is that chocolate?”
One bite and he slumped over. Nerron caught him before he hit the marble floor. Not so easy, considering Louis’s weight.
He leaned over him and blew into his sleeping face. “Where is the heart of Guismond the Witch Slayer?”
“What?” Louis mumbled.
Nerron cursed so loud he had to press his hand over his own mouth. Compared to the princeling, the vagrant on whom he’d tried the formula six years earlier had turned into a veritable font of wisdom.
“Guis-mond the Witch Slay-er,” Nerron whispered into the royal ear.
Louis wanted to roll on his side, but Nerron held him; he had to apply quite a lot of force against the princely weight.
“Lotharaine,” Louis mumbled.
“Where in Lotharaine?”
Louis shuddered. “Champlitte,” he whispered. “White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold.”
Then he began to snore.
He’d be doing little else for the next ten years. Clairvoyance had its price.
Nerron got up. Champlitte. White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold. What the devil? He sprinkled Louis’s clothes and hands with elven dust and tucked a few more sachets into his pockets. Then he dropped the apple into the swindlesack with the hand, and stuffed that into the saddlebag that already held the sack with the head. He opened the door—and found himself staring at the Waterman’s uniformed chest.
Eaumbre looked over Nerron’s shoulder.
“What did you do to him?” His voice grated on Nerron’s skin like a wet rasp.
“He overdid the elven dust.” Nerron surreptitiously put his hand on his pistol.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the Waterman whispered. “Where are you going? You think Crookback will get any joy from his crossbow if he gets his son back as Snow-White?” The scaly face stretched into a grim smile. “But Crookback was never supposed to get the crossbow, was he? You want to sell it to the highest bidder.”
Well, at least he hadn’t guessed the whole truth.
“And what if?” Nerron’s fingers closed around the grip of his pistol.
“I want a share. I’m tired of the bodyguarding business. Treasure hunting is so much more profitable.”
And Watermen came with plenty of experience, in their very own way. The girls they dragged to their ponds could vouch for that. The scale-faces showered them with gold and silver to make their slimy kisses more bearable.
Three birds… Seems like you’re going to be holding on to one, Nerron. The fattest and scaliest of the three.
A quiet cough.
Bug-quiet.
“Can any one of those present tell me where I might find the crown prince?” Lelou was standing at the end of the corridor, his notebook under his arm. What would he be writing at the end of that day? And the prince slept for ten years, his snores echoing through his father’s palace…
Nerron pointed at the library door. “Eaumbre just found him. I think you should take a look at him. We were already wondering what he’s doing in the library without a girl.”
They were out on the street before Lelou’s cries alerted the guard by the entrance.
Crookback would find a particularly gruesome way to dispatch the Bug. But Nerron wasn’t going to miss Arsene Lelou.
39
FRIEND AND FOE
The Devil-Horses lived up to their name. On the second night, one of them snuck up to Jacob with bared teeth, and Donnersmarck scalded his hands as he tried to feed the horses rabbit meat. But they were fast.
Border posts, icy passes. Lakes, forests, villages, towns. Jacob felt his fear for Fox eating through his body like a poison. The thought of finding her dead was unbearable, and so he tried to lock it away, just as he’d done with his longing for his father when he was a child. But he failed. With every day that passed, every mile they traveled, the images became more gruesome, and his dreams became so vivid that he’d wake up and search his hands for her blood.
To distract himself, he asked Donnersmarck about the Empress and her daughter, about the child that should not be, and about the Dark Fairy… but Donnersmarck’s voice kept turning into Fox’s: you will find the heart. I know it.
All he wanted to find now was her.
When finally they crossed the border into Lotharaine, more than six days had passed since he’d watched Troisclerq help her into that cab. They crossed rivers, passed white castles, rode through villages with unpaved roads, and heard flowers sing in the dark like nightingales… the heart of Lotharaine still beat to the old rhythm while the engineers in Albion were already building the new, mechanical one.
Then Donnersmarck reined in his horse. A meadow. White flowers dotted the short grass. Forgetyourself. The livestock avoided the flowers, which gave off the narcotic oil Bluebeards put on the flowers they pinned to their victims’ clothes or hair. They also rubbed it into their clean-shaved cheeks.
A little later they came to a signpost. Three miles to Champlitte. They looked at each other, the same images in their heads. But in Jacob’s memory, even Donnersmarck’s dead sister now had Fox’s face.
40
THE GOLDEN TRAP
Wake up, Fox! She thought she could feel the vixen’s pointy snout prodding her forehead. Fox! Wake up! But when she opened her eyes, sh
e found herself alone in her human body.
Above her she saw a canopy, blue like the evening sky, and the dress she was wearing was as strange to her as the bed she was lying on. Her head ached and her limbs were heavy, as though she’d slept too long. Images flooded her head. A cab. A train. A carriage with golden cushions. A servant at a gate with iron flowers and—
Troisclerq.
She felt dizzy as she sat up. High walls covered with golden silk. Hanging from a wreath of white stucco flowers on the ceiling was a red crystal chandelier. As a child she’d fantasized about rooms like this. But the windows were barred. She pushed her hand beneath her pearl-embroidered décolletage. She wasn’t wearing her fur dress anymore.
Calm, Fox.
But her heart wouldn’t listen.
Try to remember, Fox. A labyrinth. Troisclerq had led her through it. To a house with ivy-covered walls of gray stone. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember any more than that.
Had he put something in the water he’d offered her in the cab? Elven dust? A Witch’s love potion? But she felt no love. Just anger at herself.
Where had he taken her? And where was her fur dress?
Jacob…
What would he think? That she’d abandoned him for a flower on her dress and a smile from Troisclerq?
She gathered up the far-too-wide skirt. The dress was sumptuous enough to be worn to a royal ball. Who put it on you, Fox? She shuddered. She’d also never before seen the shoes she was wearing. She pulled them off and walked barefoot across the wooden flower patterns in the waxed parquet floor.
The door was unlocked.
Outside it, a corridor with a dozen doors. Which direction had she come from? Remember, Fox!
Reckless II Page 18
