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.
sted 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. ‘Don’t your mothers 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 answer. ‘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 for ever?’ 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 learnt 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?’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
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 hand behind his back and had, on Louis’s 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.