It took him a moment before he realised who was standing front of him.
He flinched, as if from a snake, and his hand closed around the stick he was leaning on. He’d always had sticks or belts. He used to throw boots and wooden logs at his sons and Fox, as though they were rats hiding behind his oven.
‘What are you doing here?’ he barked. ‘Get out!’
He wanted to grab her as he used to, but Fox shoved him back and slapped the stick out of his hand.
‘Let her go.’ Her mother’s voice was trembling, but at least this time she said something.
‘Get out of my way,’ Fox said to the man she’d once had to call Father, even though he’d taught her to despise the word itself.
He lifted his fists. How often had her eyes been glued to those hands, full of fear of the tanned skin on the knuckles tightening, turning white. She saw him in her dreams sometimes, and he always had the mouth of a wolf.
She pushed past him without saying another word. She wanted to forget he existed, to imagine that he’d just disappeared one day, like Jacob’s father, or that her mother had never married again.
‘I will be back,’ Fox said to her.
Her mother stood by the window as Fox walked towards the gate. Just like the last time. And just like then, the three of them blocked her path, her stepfather and his two sons. He’d got his stick back, and his eldest was holding the pitchfork. Gustave and René. Gustave looked even more dense than he used to. René was smarter, but he did whatever Gustave told him. It was René who’d thrown the first stone.
Shape-shifter. Nobody had understood better what Jacob’s brother had felt as he grew a skin of jade. Yet unlike Will, Fox had always been able to choose to wear the fur.
‘Go on! Find a stone!’ she hissed at René. ‘Or are you waiting for your brother’s orders?’
He ducked his head and looked uneasily at the pistol on her belt.
‘Get the hell out of here!’ Her stepfather squinted myopically.
She was no longer afraid of him. It was an exhilarating feeling. ‘Where is Thierry?’ she asked. There was one more brother.
Gustave just gave her a hostile stare. His shirt was speckled with fish blood.
‘He went to the city,’ said René.
‘Shut your mouth!’ his father yelled.
Being his stepdaughter hadn’t been easy, but his youngest had it just as bad. Thierry had envied Fox her fur, and she was glad that he’d managed to get away.
‘You know what they say about shape-shifters.’ She held up her hand. ‘Everybody we touch will grow a fur as well. Who wants to go first?’
She shoved her hand into her stepfather’s chest, so hard he would be checking his skin for red hairs for days. Gustave stumbled back with a curse, and Fox was out of the gate before the three could regain their courage. As she mounted her horse, she remembered how she’d stumbled across the meadows, sobbing and bleeding, pressing the fur dress to her chest. This time she took the road. She looked around once more at the window where her mother had been standing, but all she saw was the reflection of the sky on the glass, and the primroses growing next to the door.
She made one more stop before continuing on to Gargantua. The house was dilapidated, and the grave by the crumbled garden wall was overgrown, its headstone poking out from a thick nest of grass and roots. A hazel bush had sprung up in front of it. The branches were covered in catkins, and beneath them lay a few nuts from the previous autumn. The moss grew thick on her father’s engraved name, etching it in green letters on to the grey stone: Joseph Marie Auger.
Fox had come here often as a child. She’d pluck the grass from the damp soil, place wild flowers on the stone, and search the abandoned house for signs of the life she and her mother might have had there. This was where she’d met the vixen for the first time, and it was in the woods bordering the crumbled wall that she had saved the wounded fox and her pups from Gustave’s and René’s clubs.
‘I know I haven’t been back in a while,’ she said. ‘I asked Maman for the ring. I’m not sure she used your gift wisely. Sometimes I wish you’d let her die and kept the years you gave her for yourself. You can only say this to a grave, but it feels good to say it. Maybe you could have protected me. I’ve found someone who did that for these past years. There’s nobody I love more. He’s looked out for me so often, but now it’s my turn to protect him.’
Fox gathered the nuts from the grave and put them in her pocket. Then she swung herself on to her horse. The sun was already quite low, and Jacob didn’t have time to wait for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THORNS AND TEETH
The wolf’s breath stank of the rotting flesh that was lodged between its teeth. The eyes were nearly as golden as the Goyl’s. Jacob had heard of the wolves in these parts. Supposedly, they took their victims even from their beds and parlours. Not important – Jacob knew this was going to be messy. Maybe drowning wouldn’t have been such a bad death after all.
There were now five wolves circling him. He tried to free one hand to get to his knife, but the choke vine dug its thorns into his flesh so relentlessly that the pain drew out a suppressed cry.
Scream, Jacob. Why not? Maybe Fox will hear you. No. She was probably already in Gargantua, waiting. What would she do if he didn’t turn up? Search for him, as the Goyl had said? But surely not for the rest of her life. The vixen would find out quickly enough what had happened to him. The thought was consoling in a way.
One of the wolves dragged its tongue over Jacob’s face, getting a taste. Jacob tried to free at least one leg so he could kick at it, but the thorns clawed even deeper into his flesh. Damn, Jacob, think of something.
They stopped.
The largest one licked its mouth.
The end of the prelude.
Jacob threw himself to one side. He heard teeth snap at empty air. The next one bit into the vines, but they weren’t going to protect him for long. Jacob desperately tried to remember what he knew about choke vines. He’d used them himself to slow down pursuers, though never to capture them. One of the wolves bit into the vines around his chest; another was pulling at the ones around his legs.
Choke vines, Jacob. How could you forget! What do they like most?
He threw himself around again, no matter how much it hurt, and he rolled around on the forest floor. The wolves let go with angry barks while the thorns tore through his skin.
Blood – the taste choke vines relished above all else. Of course, it also made the wolves even more frenzied. The next bite was so determined that the teeth actually found his flesh. Jacob howled as the teeth dug into his side. But the vines had also tasted the blood, and they began to grow even faster.
Fresh vines shot out towards the wolves, hardening as they grew. They clawed at their fur and enveloped Jacob in an ever-thicker cocoon. He found it hard to breathe, and his clothes were sticky with his own blood, but at least the wolves couldn’t reach him any more. They howled with rage and dug their teeth again and again into the thorny branches, even though the vines were now also growing around them. Jacob fought for air. His fingers found the hilt of his knife, but he couldn’t move his hands enough to get hold of it.
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 disappoi
nted 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.
‘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 ther
e 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.