‘Get in!’ Lelou shoved him towards the carriage.
Louis was lying on one of the gold-upholstered benches with his mouth open, uttering grunting snores. Lelou shook him by the shoulder. ‘Wake up, my prince. We found them!’
Wake up? Hardly.
But Louis did indeed open his eyes. They were swollen and bloodshot, but the princeling was awake.
Lelou gave Nerron a triumphant look.
‘Toad spawn!’ His lips pouted into a self-satisfied smile. ‘Two treatises from the seventeenth century list it as an antidote to Snow-White apples.’
Nerron had never heard about that, but the spawn seemed to work. Never mind that Louis looked even more moronic than before.
‘How did the dogs find our trail so quickly?’
Lelou looked at him with compassionate disdain. Your pathetic performance in the well has for ever negated the effect of your Three Souvenirs, Nerron. ‘We didn’t need the hounds. Louis has been saying nothing but “Champlitte” for days.’
Yes, Snow-White apples did have that effect. Most victims, should they ever awaken, spoke nothing but the words they’d said as oracles.
Louis began to snore again.
Lelou frowned. ‘I think we may have to up the dose,’ he said to the dog man. ‘Fine. That obviously takes care of the question of whether we still need the Waterman. I’m sure he’s very qualified to find us more toad spawn.’
He looked at Eaumbre, who was just being hauled out of the well by Milkbeard. The people of Champlitte shrank back as the dripping Waterman was shoved across the market square.
‘Right then, Goyl.’ Lelou looked at Nerron. ‘Before I start wondering whether you’re still any use to us. Where is the heart?’
‘Show the hounds the sack with the head,’ Nerron said.
If they were lucky, it would still have enough of Reckless’s scent.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
BRING HIM TO ME
The window behind which Fox had stood was dark by the time they reached the house. Jacob forced himself not to think what that might mean. Donnersmarck leapt up the steps as though if he only hurried, he could have his sister back. The heavy door simply swung open as he pushed his shoulder against it. Donnersmarck did not need Jacob to explain that an unlocked door on a house like that was best treated with caution. Both drew their sabres. Pistols were as useless against a Bluebeard as they were against the Tailor in the black forest.
The entrance hall smelled of forgetyourself, even more so than the endless paths of the labyrinth. Jacob plucked the flowers from the vases by the door, and Donnersmarck pushed open the high windows to let in the night air.
Several corridors led away from the hall, and a broad staircase swung up to the first floor. What now? Should they split up?
They didn’t have to make that decision. A servant stepped from one of the corridors. Judging by his hairy hands, he hadn’t always been human.
Jacob drew his pistol. It was useless against the master, but it might work on the servant.
‘Where is she?’
No answer. The eyes staring at him were uniformly dark, like an animal’s.
Donnersmarck grabbed the servant by his stiff collar and put the tip of a sabre to his throat. ‘If she’s dead, then so are you. Understood? Where is she?’
It happened too fast.
Antlers sprouted from the servant’s head. They tore through Donnersmarck’s body before he could parry them with the sabre. Jacob shot, but the bullets had no effect, and the Man-Stag deflected Jacob’s sabre effortlessly, as though it were nothing but a stick wielded by a child. Jacob had read about them – stag calves that took the form of a man if human hair was mixed into their hay. It was said they were mindlessly loyal to their masters.
The Man-Stag wiped Donnersmarck’s blood from his brow and made a summoning gesture towards the corridor he’d come from. Jacob ignored him. He reached into his belt pouch and knelt down next to Donnersmarck. Yes, he still carried the Witch’s needle with him. Jacob pressed it into his friend’s bloody hand. It wouldn’t be able to heal a wound as terrible as this, but it could at least close it. The Man-Stag snorted impatiently. Only his head had changed. The blood was dripping from his antlers on to his black tailcoat.
‘Go, Jacob!’ Donnersmarck’s voice was a croaky rattle. Maybe the needle would keep him alive long enough. Long enough for what, Jacob? He got up.
The servant pointed at the corridor again. Jacob thought he could hear Chanute berating him: ‘Damn it, Jacob! What did I teach you about Bluebeards? You seriously believed you could just barge into his home and steal his quarry?’
Doors. At each one, Jacob thought Fox might be lying behind it, dead. But every time he stopped, the Man-Stag just uttered a menacing grunt.
The door he led him to was open.
Jacob already saw the red walls from many steps away.
And the dead on golden chains.
And Fox among them.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
LIFE AND DEATH
For an instant, Fox feared that the blood on Jacob’s shirt was his own, but then she saw the servant’s bloody antlers, and that they’d come without Donnersmarck.
Jacob just brushed her with a quick glance. He knew they were both lost if he let his concern for her distract him from the murderer who was waiting for him among the dead. Jacob was unarmed. His face was blurred by the tears in Fox’s eyes. Tears for her own helplessness. Tears for her fear for him. As they ran down her face, she nearly expected them be as white as the liquid that was filling Troisclerq’s pitcher.
The Bluebeard pushed himself off the blood-red wall. Lost in his house of death. Guy. He briefly regained his name. He went to Fox and touched her cheek as though he wanted to feel her tears on his fingertips.
‘You may go,’ he said to the servant, who was still standing in the door with his bloody antlers. The Man-Stag looked puzzled.
‘I said, you may go!’ Troisclerq’s voice sounded composed, as though time was his. And it was his. The dead bodies around them had procured it for him.
The servant bowed his horned head. Then he hesitantly stepped back and disappeared into the dark corridor.
They were alone. With the dead and their murderer.
Fox recalled all the hours Jacob had sat next to Troisclerq in the coach, relaxed, as though they’d been friends for years. She could still see a trace of that friendship on Jacob’s face. He liked Troisclerq, and he despised his heart for it.
‘No one has made it through the labyrinth in more than eighty years. The last one was a police constable from Champlitte. I kept his weapon as a souvenir.’ Troisclerq pointed at a rapier hanging on the wall behind the dead girls. ‘Help yourself. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I know you prefer a sabre, but since this is my house, I hope you’ll respect my choice of weapon.’
Jacob went to the rapier. He still avoided looking at Fox. Yes, forget me, she wanted to whisper. Forget me, Jacob, or he will kill you. She saw her fear trickle into the pitcher.
Troisclerq saw it, too.
‘Only nine?’ Jacob looked at the dead. ‘I’m sure you killed many more than that. Am I right?’
He took the rapier from the wall.
‘Yes. I only bring the prettiest ones here.’ Troisclerq brushed back his black hair. ‘I killed my first ones during the Giant Wars. A long time ago. A very long time.’
‘You forget their names, don’t you?’ Jacob pointed the unfamiliar blade at the dead girl with the red ruby brooch on her dress. ‘Her name is Marie Pasquet. She was the granddaughter of a famous goldsmith. I promised her grandfather I’d kill you when I found her.’
‘And I know you usually keep your promises.’ Troisclerq smiled. ‘I already knew we’d end up here when I cut you out of those vines. A downside of such a long life. After just a hundred years or so, everybody becomes so predictable, transparent, like glass. Every virtue, every sin, every weakness . . . nothing but endless repetition. Every ambition – seen it
a thousand times. Illusions, lost a hundred times over, all hope childish, all innocence a joke . . .’
He lifted his rapier. ‘What remains is death. And the search for that perfect thrust. Death in its most . . . immaculate form.’
He struck out so suddenly that Jacob, trying to dodge the thrust, stumbled into the hanging dead. Fear. How much could one have? The dead girls, watching the duellers through empty eyes, knew the answer. Fox died with every stumble, with every cut Troisclerq’s blade left on Jacob’s skin. He was toying with Jacob. And he let Fox see it. He left himself open so that Jacob would charge into his blade; he drew bloody lines on Jacob’s skin, sketching his death before he’d fill it in with red. And the pitcher filled with white fear – more lifetime for the Bluebeard.
Fox had often watched Jacob fight, but never against such an adversary. It only dawned on her slowly that he was Troisclerq’s equal – and he wanted to kill the Bluebeard. Never before had Fox seen that desire so clearly on Jacob’s face.
The rapiers snagged on silky robes; they slashed through the golden chains and dead flesh. The two men were breathing heavily. Their wheezes and the silence of the dead . . . Fox knew both would stay with her until the end of her life. If she’d have a life. She tried to free herself so desperately, blood streaming down her arms, and she screamed when Troisclerq’s blade nearly pierced Jacob’s throat. So much fear. She closed her eyes, trying not to choke on it. But the next scream did not come from Jacob.
Troisclerq pressed his hand against his slashed knee. ‘That was dirty,’ Fox heard him gasp. ‘Where did you learn that?’
‘In another world,’ Jacob replied.
Troisclerq stabbed at his chest, but Jacob slashed his blade through the other knee, and as Troisclerq collapsed, Jacob rammed his blade so deep between the Bluebeard’s ribs that the thrust was only halted by the hilt of the sword. Troisclerq cowered on the floor, spitting his own blood on his chest. Jacob dropped to his knees and pulled the key from the Bluebeard’s pocket.
It is over, Fox.
Troisclerq reached out with his bloody hand and grabbed Jacob’s arm.
‘I’ll see you,’ he whispered.
His hand didn’t let go, but his eyes went as blank as his victims’. Jacob pried the fingers from his arm. Then he staggered to his feet and dropped the rapier. The blood on the blade was black.
His hand trembled as he unlocked the chains around Fox’s throat and arms with the Bluebeard’s key. Then he held the pitcher to her lips.
‘Drink!’ he whispered. ‘Forget about him. Drink as much as you can. It will be all right.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
TOO LATE
A Bluebeard’s house. Of course. At least now some of Louis’s ramblings had made sense. White as milk. Not clear enough? Nerron cursed his own thick-wittedness as he caught a glimpse of the withered hedgerows and the stag standing forlornly in front of the unlit house. He ran off before the bloodhounds could get him.
The Bluebeard was laid out in his red chamber, surrounded by nine women. They lay next to their murderer as though they were sleeping. Lelou threw up in the corridor. The Bug had a sensitive stomach when confronted with death. Even Eaumbre looked rather distraught at the row of beautiful corpses, but then he quickly went off in search of the Bluebeard’s treasure chamber. Watermen at least kept their girls alive – though some would probably prefer death over a life in a pond.
Black like a piece of night set in gold. You’re a fool, Nerron. Louis had told him everything he’d wanted to know. Wherever the heart had been hidden in this horrible place, Reckless had found it. Nerron would have bet the head and the hand on that. Just as he was certain the blood in the entrance hall was not that of his rival.
They found some thoroughly wiped tracks in the driveway, but making yourself invisible wasn’t easy when you were transporting an injured man. And it slowed you down.
They’d catch up with them soon enough.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
TWO CUPS
The house, which Fox had found in a dark pine forest barely two miles from Champlitte, smelled neither of cinnamon nor of molten sugar. There also were no gingerbreads on the walls – and you didn’t need a fur dress to scent the dark magic wafting around the house like a bad smell. Jacob would have preferred a Witch like Alma, but Donnersmarck was as good as dead, and child-eaters could heal even the most terrible wounds. It was just best not to ask what went into their potions.
The woman who opened the door was very beautiful and very young. Most Dark Witches showed themselves in that form even if they were hundreds of years old. Jacob and Fox put Donnersmarck on her kitchen table so she could inspect his wounds. The nails on her fingers were so long and sharp, they made Jacob grateful his friend was already unconscious. Donnersmarck was paying a high price for helping him, and Jacob was not just worried about the wounds inflicted by the Man-Stag. The Witch confirmed his fears. When Jacob described to her who had attacked his friend, she shook her head with a vicious smile.
‘I can save his life,’ she said. ‘But I can’t do anything about him maybe wearing antlers one day. You can stay in my stable. This will take a few days, and you know the price. His life will cost you two cups of blood.’ The Witch cut off Fox before she could protest. ‘Careful now! ‘Or I might also ask for the dress that’s out there in that devil-horse’s saddlebag. I’m sure it gives you a beautiful fur.’
The Witch cut Jacob’s arm expertly, and the two cups were quickly filled. Then she rushed them out of the house. Dark Witches never allowed anyone to witness their craft. The cups had taken a lot of blood. Fox and Jacob chained the devil-horses to some trees, and Fox took the saddlebags with her. Jacob had found the fur dress in the servant’s room – and only then had the fear finally disappeared from Fox’s face.
She caught a few will-o’-the-wisps before she bandaged his arm in the dark stable. It was barely more than a shack, and definitely not the kind of place he’d wanted to take her to after the Bluebeard’s chamber. But the woods out there were no better. This will take a few days. Jacob had wanted to return to Vena as quickly as possible, to start searching for the Bastard. The moth on his chest was missing only two more spots, and the heart was no good to him as long as the Goyl had the head and the hand. But they could hardly repay Donnersmarck for all his help by leaving him alone with a child-eater. The Witch’s needle had kept him from bleeding out, but there wasn’t much life left in him. Jacob didn’t tell Fox about the fourth bite in the Bluebeard’s labyrinth. He was so relieved to have her by his side again, breathing and unhurt, that the moth seemed nothing more but a nightmare, and death was something they’d both left in Troisclerq’s red chamber.
Fox was so exhausted that she was asleep before Jacob could explain to her why he’d taken the necklace off one of the dead girls. She probably hadn’t even noticed – all she’d been concerned about was whether Troisclerq had destroyed her fur dress.
Jacob lay down next to her on the filthy straw, but he couldn’t sleep. He just listened to her breathing. At some point a crowned snake crawled into the stable, a kind found only in Lotharaine. The black lily on its head was worth a hundred gold thalers, but Jacob didn’t even lift his head. He didn’t want to think about treasure, or about the crossbow, or about having to die soon. Fox was sleeping a deep sleep. Her face was peaceful, as though she’d left all her fear behind in the Bluebeard’s house. She was back in the men’s clothes she’d worn on their trip to Albion. She’d left the Bluebeard’s dress next to her sisters-in-death. Jacob couldn’t take his eyes off her sleeping face. It finally erased all the images that had been tormenting him since Vena. It felt like a miracle that she was still alive, a magic that would pass. No Fairy island, no Larks’ Water, just a bed of filthy straw and her rhythmic breathing – yet nothing had ever felt better.
Jacob had spent years looking for one of the hourglasses that stopped time for the Empress. He’d never understood why this was one of the most coveted treasures one
could find behind the mirror. There had never been a moment he’d wanted to hold on to for ever. The next one always had more promise, and even the most glorious day began to taste stale after a few hours. But now he was lying in the stable of a child-eater, his arm sliced open and death in his chest, wishing for an hourglass. He waved away a will-o’-the-wisp that had settled on Fox’s brow – they often brought bad dreams – and brushed the hair from her sleeping face.
His touch woke her. She reached out and ran her finger over the cut Troisclerq’s rapier had left on his left cheek.
‘I am so sorry,’ she whispered.
As if it was her fault he’d been too blind to protect her from Troisclerq. Jacob put his finger on her lips and shook his head. He had no idea how to apologise for all the fear and terror she’d never be able to forget. There was no consolation in that they’d both been Troisclerq’s prey, that they’d given Troisclerq a death he might have even been longing for after all the stolen lifetimes. Was it possible to escape death for too long? Could there be too much life? It was hard to believe that on a night like this.
‘You heard the Witch,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll be here a few days. So sleep! It’s not the cosiest of places, but much better than the one we came from, don’t you think?’
Fox didn’t answer. Her eyes wandered to his chest, to where the moth was hiding beneath his shirt. She hadn’t forgotten about death. From his backpack, Jacob pulled the necklace he’d taken from Ramée’s granddaughter. Her face incredulous, Fox touched the black heart.
‘Two treasures in one go,’ Jacob whispered. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story. But now you have to rest.’
She was so pale. He felt as though he could see through her skin.
Outside, one of the devil-horses whinnied.
Fox sat up.
The horse was quiet again, but it wasn’t a good silence.
She was quicker to the stable door than he. His eyes couldn’t make out anything suspicious between the dark trees, but Fox reached for the saddlebag with her fur dress.