Living Shadows Page 22

  As they stepped into the street, the wind nearly blew the ridiculously high hat off the Dwarf’s head. The houses were cowering in the shadow of the mountain, their walls dark with rain. The chauffeur was anxiously wiping the water off the dark green paint of his enormous automobile. He was, of course, human. The horseless vehicle looked even more alien on a village road than the ones Fox had seen in Vena.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Valiant said while the chauffeur rushed toward them with an umbrella. “I am a man of the future. The speed’s still a little disappointing, but the looks I get more than make up for that.”

  The chauffeur held the umbrella over Fox’s head, though the wind nearly tore it out of his hand. He helped the Dwarf onto the much-too-high footboard.

  “Whatever the reason for this weather,” Valiant whispered as the shivering Fox sat down next to him on the brown leather, “This cold does make keeping a headless king fresh much easier.”

  THE SAME TRADE

  The Bastard came every night—whenever he had the watch and the others had fallen asleep. He gave Jacob food and sometimes even some of the wine the prince had left over.

  Tell me. How did you get through the labyrinth? How did Chanute survive the Troll caves? And to make yourself invisible...which method do you use? Did you ever find one of the candles that call the Iron Man with their flame?

  During the first night, Jacob answered him with silence or some lie. But by the second night that became boring, so he followed every answer with a counterquestion: How did you find the hand? How did you figure out where to catch me with the head? Where do you catch the lizards whose skins you use for your bulletproof vests?

  The same trade.

  Of course, the Bastard searched his pockets, and when the Goyl rubbed the gold handkerchief between his fingers Jacob was glad for once that it had stopped working properly. Nerron. Just one name, like all Goyl. His meant “black” in their language. Who’d given him that name? His mother, to deny the malachite in his skin? Or was it the onyx, who usually drowned their bastards? Nerron even checked Earlking’s card, but in the Goyl’s fingers it just showed the printed name.

  Nerron held up the ballpoint pen Jacob always carried because it was so much easier to write with than the quills or the old-fashioned fountain pens used behind the mirror.

  “What do you do with this?”

  “Wishing ink.” The Goyl had brought meat, and Jacob put some of it in his mouth. The Waterman had, despite Louis’s orders, loosened his ropes. The Bug Man seemed to be the only one who was unquestioningly loyal to the prince. But it was probably still best not to underestimate Louis. He had the same cunning face as his father, though he was probably only half as smart.

  “Wishing ink?” The Bastard put the pen in his pocket. “Never heard of it.”

  “Whatever you write with it will come true someday.” Not a bad lie. Somewhere in the east was a goose feather that supposedly did just that.

  “Someday?”

  Jacob shrugged. He wiped the grease off his tied hands. “Depends on the wish. One, two weeks...”

  Hopefully, their paths would have parted by then. They’d been traveling for four days. The Witch must have finished with Donnersmarck by now, unless she’d killed him or turned him into some insect. But taking him before she finished her magic would have meant certain death.

  They rested in caves at night. The Goyl always found one, and Jacob was glad for it. The nights were still so cold that he froze, despite the blanket the Bastard had brought him. His arm hurt from the Witch’s knife, and the cuts from Troisclerq’s rapier burnt his skin. But what really robbed him of his sleep was the uncertainty of whether Fox had made it to safety. He kept seeing her weary face. You’re asking too much of her, Jacob. Too often had his only gift to her been fear—experienced together and conquered together, but fear still. Yet in the child-eater’s stable, all of that had been forgotten. Then he’d just wanted to protect her. But in the end, and like so many times before, it was she who had to help him.

  “Don’t you wish it was just the two of us?” The Goyl had lowered his voice, though the other three seemed to be fast asleep. “No prince, no Bug, no Waterman, not even the vixen. Just you and me, against each other.”

  “The prince could be useful.”

  “What for?”

  “He’s related to Guismond. What if you need to have the blood of the Witch Slayer to get into the palace? It is, after all, awaiting his children.”

  “Yes. I thought of that as well.” The Bastard looked up at the bats stirring under the cave ceiling. “But I hate the idea of having to drag that blue-blooded airhead with me until the end. No. There’s always another way.”

  Jacob closed his eyes. He was tired of how the Goyl’s face reminded him of his brother’s jade skin. Even the cave looked like the cave where he and Will had argued.

  The pain was stirring again in his chest, so suddenly that he could barely suppress the scream that wanted to explode from his lips.

  Damn.

  He clutched his bound hands to his chest. It will pass. It will pass. How many times now? Try to remember, Jacob! Five. This was the fifth. One more bite. There couldn’t be much left of his heart.

  “What is this?” The Bastard looked anxiously at Jacob’s pain-stricken face. “Did Louis give you anything to drink?”

  Jacob could have laughed, if he’d had any breath left. Not a baseless suspicion. The royal house of Lotharaine had a long tradition of poisoning its enemies.

  The Bastard pulled Jacob’s hands from his chest and tore his shirt open. The moth was now as black as the onyx in Nerron’s skin, and the red outline of its skull-spotted wings looked like fresh blood.

  Nerron recoiled as though he was afraid to contaminate himself.

  Jacob leaned against the cave wall. The pain was subsiding, but he probably made quite a pitiable sight. Was this what the Red Fairy had in mind when she’d whispered her sister’s name in his ear? Had she pictured this while she kissed him? That he’d be writhing like a wounded animal, paying with his agony for her pain? Only that she wasn’t going to die of her broken heart.

  She has no heart, Jacob.

  Nerron poured out the wine he’d brought, and filled the beaker with a brown liquid. “Drink slowly,” he instructed Jacob before putting the beaker in his bound hands. “I’m not sure your stomach can take Goyl spirits.”

  It tasted like sugared lava.

  The Bastard pushed the cork back into the bottle. “I have to be careful Louis doesn’t find this. He’d kill himself with it, and his father would execute me. This was the Dark One, I assume? I always wondered how you managed to steal your brother from under her nose.” He put the bottle back in his sack. “The third bolt...you want the crossbow for yourself! What if that story is just a myth?”

  “I tried everything else.” Jacob forced down another gulp of Goyl liquor. It warmed better than any blanket.

  “The apple? The well?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Djinn blood? The ones from the north. Quite dangerous, but...”

  “Didn’t work.”

  The Bastard shook his head. “Doesn’t your mother tell you to stay away from the Fairies?”

  “My mother knew nothing of Fairies.” Jacob ignored the curiosity in the golden eyes. What was the matter with him? Was he now going to tell his life story to the Goyl? Just one more bite. Maybe he’d die before he saw Fox again. He’d always assumed she’d be with him when he died. Not Will. Not the Fairy. Always the vixen.

  Nerron got up. “I hope you’re not so stupid to think I’d let you have the crossbow as some kind of noble gesture.”

  Jacob pulled his shirt over the moth. “You haven’t found it yet.”

  The Goyl smiled.

  His eyes said, I shall find it. Before you. And you will die.

  “What would you be searching for? If you weren’t busy trying to outrun death?”

  Yes, what, Jacob? He was surprised by his own a
nswer. “An Hourglass.”

  The Bastard rubbed his cracked skin. “I wouldn’t be racing you for that one. Which moment could be worth holding on to forever?” He touched the rock as though searching his memory for one that might have been worth it.

  “What would you like to find most?” Jacob’s chest was still numb with pain.

  The Goyl looked at him. “A door,” he said finally. “To another world.”

  Jacob suppressed a smile. “Really? What’s so bad about this one? And why should another be any better?”

  The Bastard shrugged and looked at his speckled hand. “It’s my mother’s fault. She told me too many stories. The worlds in them were all better.”

  Behind them, Louis was beginning to snore. He was turning more moody and irascible with every day. A side effect of toad spawn, as Jacob had learned from Alma. Paranoia was another. Both not uncommon character traits in a king’s son.

  “I don’t ask much!” Nerron said. “Having no princes would already make it a better world. And no onyx lords. I could also do without Thumblings...and it should have deep, uninhabited caves.”

  He turned away. “We all have our dreams, right?”

  NOT THE PLAN

  “And where in this mess is the palace supposed to appear?” Louis pulled the spyglass from Nerron’s hand and pointed it at the ruins of the Dead City, which were barely visible beneath the dense clouds that had settled between the mountains.

  “The palace stood above the city.” Lelou brushed some hailstones from his thin hair. “At the end of that road with the Dragon kennels.” Of course. The Bug could probably draw an exact map of the Dead City.

  The dog man brought Reckless. He had tied his hands behind his back and had, on Louis’ orders, also tied a noose around his neck. Louis still resented their prisoner for having questioned his treasure-hunting abilities.

  “Lock him in the carriage!” he ordered, rubbing his red eyes.

  The dog man obeyed his orders more readily than Eaumbre. He used every opportunity to treat the prisoner worse than his dogs. A casual kick here, an elbow to the ribs there, or a shove with the butt of his rifle. Even now he pushed Reckless so hard that he smashed his face bloody on the side of the carriage. It was obvious that Louis was enjoying the show.

  “What is this?” Nerron hissed at him. “He’s only useful to us alive. Do I really have to keep explaining this?”

  The toad spawn had turned the princely smile green.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Goyl,” he hissed back. “I’ve had enough of your explanations for a while now.”

  Nerron felt the muzzle of a pistol in his back. Judging from the height, it was Lelou who was pressing it into his spine.

  “I told my father a hundred times! The Goyl should all be roasted until their stone skins crack. Sadly, the old man is afraid of your lot!” Louis sneered. “Lelou tells me you’ve been sitting with Reckless every night. You’re suspiciously friendly to him, but you can’t fool me. What’s the plan? Even splits when you both sell the crossbow to Albion?”

  The dog man yanked Nerron’s arms back, and Milkbeard trained his gun at Eaumbre. He was as dumb as he was strong, but he was a surprisingly good shot.

  Louis gave Nerron a look that contained all the arrogance of his ancestry, and also the recalcitrance of a seventeen-year-old who still felt immortal. A dangerous mix.

  “I will find that crossbow for my father,” he announced while the dog man tied up Nerron so tight, it felt as though he was trying cut his stone skin with the rope, “And Albion will finally stop acting like they own the world. But first we deal with the Goyl.”

  Oh, it would have all been so easy had he just killed Louis and Lelou in Vena. Your aversion to killing is becoming a hindrance, Nerron.

  “Who plotted this?” He tasted his own rage like blood on his tongue. “Lelou?”

  The Bug blushed, flattered. “Oh no. This is entirely the plan of His Highness.” He shot Louis a nervous smile. “He’s not very experienced in treasure hunting, but he was right to point out that we are searching for the crossbow of his ancestor. I merely suggested we don’t kill you and Reckless quite yet. After all...”

  “...We still have to squeeze you for everything you know.” The dog man exposed his teeth, which were as yellow as those of his charges. “About the hidden palace...about the crossbow. And all that...the prince thinks I should be in charge of that.” He gave Louis a devoted smile and managed a plump bow. “The Waterman is the expert,” he added, “but the prince is convinced, and rightly so, that you can’t trust the scale-faces any more than the stone-skins.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s fine. Why are you telling him all that?” Louis dabbed a pinch of elven dust into his nose. The stash in his saddlebag seemed inexhaustible. “First we take the heart off the vixen. Lock the Goyl in the carriage with Reckless.”

  It took all three of them to tie up the Waterman. They tied him to one of the wheels, just as they used to do with Reckless. The dog man dragged Nerron to the carriage.

  “The prince is right, Goyl!” he whispered before slamming the door shut. “You should all be roasted. Those will be good times, when he is king.”

  “Get the horses!” Nerron heard Louis say with a heavy tongue.

  Reckless was lying on one of the benches, his face swollen from its encounter with the carriage.

  “That wasn’t quite the plan, was it?” he asked.

  GIANTLING RAGE

  There they came. Fox stepped back from the fence, which the farmers had erected to keep their livestock away from the cursed ruins. The wind blew from the direction of the dead streets, and it drove ice and hail into her face. Everything around her was spelling one word into the night: calamity.

  The men riding toward the watchtower were the same ones Fox had seen behind the Witch’s stable, but as they rode closer, she noticed that the Goyl wasn’t among them. Nor was Jacob.

  “Calm!” Valiant whispered to her. “It means nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  Yet Fox felt as though someone were forging iron rings around her heart.

  He wasn’t with them.

  They had killed him.

  No, Fox!

  They were four. All well armed. The Waterman was also missing, but they had brought the bloodhounds, and Fox was glad she wasn’t wearing fur. One of the men was very young, and another one was barely taller than Valiant. Fox recognized Louis of Lotharaine from the pictures of him standing by his father’s side. In the pictures he’d looked much taller. Fox could smell elven dust and toad spawn as he reined in his horse just a few steps away from her.

  “You’re the vixen.”

  It was half question, half stated fact. Louis’s voice was as unpleasant as his face. “A Dwarf? Is that all the reinforcements you could muster?”

  The man with the dogs uttered a barking laugh.

  Valiant gave Louis an indulgent smile. It was every Dwarf’s curse and blessing to be underestimated for his size. “Evenaugh Valiant. And with whom do I have the pleasure?”

  Louis swayed in his saddle as he pushed back his jacket to reveal the gem-encrusted hilt of his saber.

  “Louis Philippe Charles Roland, crown prince of Lotharaine.”

  “Impressive!” Valiant replied. “But we Dwarfs, we’re all republicans. I hope you don’t take it personally. Anyway—” he looked searchingly past the prince, “—we had actually arranged to meet a Goyl.”

  The bloodhounds were watching Fox. They were not as easily deceived by her body as humans were.

  “Where is Jacob?” She’d promised the Dwarf to leave the talking to him, but she was done waiting.

  The prince stared at her with that mixture of disgust and desire every shape-shifter was all too familiar with.

  “Where do you have the heart?” he barked at her. “I bet you have it hidden under your clothes, like your fur.”

  The hounds bared their fangs, and Louis gave the dog man a nod.

  Valiant turned to the watch
tower and gave a shrill whistle.

  Two lumbering figures stepped out of the shadows behind the tower. The Giantlings had ice all over their clothes, and they stared rather unkindly at Louis. Nowhere had Giants once lived in as large numbers as in Lotharaine, and nowhere had they been hunted with as much abandon. Crookback had a collection of Giants’ heads, which he still liked to show off during state events.

  “Yes, I was forewarned,” Valiant said while Louis tried to calm his shying horse. “I’ve had the dubious pleasure of doing business with your father. Why should I trust his son any more?”

  The taller of the Giantlings gave a disapproving grunt, and one of the horses reared up.

  It was the dog man who fired the shot. Maybe he was afraid for his bloodhounds, who were barking so furiously at the Giantling that he took a lumbering step toward them. The bullet hit him in the center of his broad brow. His collapsing hulk buried the shooter as well as his dogs.

  The other Giantling howled out with rage.

  He yanked the prince from his saddle and shook him like a rag doll, his other fist blindly flailing about. He killed the baby face with one swipe; Fox could hear his neck snap. Valiant only just managed to jump to safety, and she retreated between the shying horses to find some shelter from the raging Giantling. In his fury, he trampled the rifle that had killed his companion, until its metal stuck to his soles like wilted leaves. Then he threw himself to his knees next to the lifeless body and wiped the blood from the shot-up forehead.

  “Like a Giantling’s vengeance,” the saying went—for good reason.

  Louis was spread-eagled on the trampled earth and, like the servant with the baby face, he was not moving. But the Bug Man was crawling on all fours to his master, staring in distress at the waxen face. Behind him, Valiant was groaning as he struggled to his feet, cursing all Giantlings.

  The prince had two swindlesacks on his belt. Fox took them before the Dwarf got hold of them. She put her pistol to the Bug’s head.

  “Where is your prisoner?”