Fearless (Mirrorworld 2)

Beyond the hills they could see the roofs of Goldsmouth, the home port of the Albian navy. Beyond that was the sea, grey and vast. It seemed calmer than on their crossing. Good. Jacob couldn’t believe he had to get on a ship again.

d poked around the living-room door. The rat-snout was grey, and the cat-eyes were clouded by age.

Dunbar turned around with a sigh. ‘Father! Why aren’t you sleeping?’ He led the old man to the sofa where Fox was sitting.

‘The two of you should have a lot you can talk about,’ Dunbar said. The old Fir Darrig was eyeing Fox warily. ‘Trust me, he knows everything about the blessings and the curse of wearing fur.’

He went to the door. ‘It’s an old tradition from a distant land,’ he said as he stepped out into the corridor, ‘but for the past two hundred years, Albion has believed in the miraculous properties of tea leaves. Even at five in the morning. Maybe they’ll make it easier for my tongue to say what you’ve come to hear.’

His father looked confused. But then he turned to Fox and looked at her with his milky eyes. ‘A vixen, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said. ‘Since birth?’

Fox shook her head. ‘I was seven. The fur was a gift.’

The Fir Darrig heaved a compassionate sigh. ‘Oh, that’s not easy,’ he mumbled. ‘Two souls in one heart. I hope the human in you won’t prove to be stronger in the end. They find it so much harder to make peace with the world.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE SAME BLOOD

More nothing. Nerron threw another hand on to the pile of bones they’d already sifted through. Lelou had all but disappeared behind the pile. Eaumbre had smashed up one of the pews and stuck its wood into all the chandeliers, burning as torches, but the night smothered what little light they gave, and thousands of bones were still hidden in the dark, even from Goyl eyes.

What if the hand wasn’t in the damned church? What if it was still somewhere out there in the damp earth? They couldn’t possibly have dug up all the bones!

Nerron had run out of curses. He’d wished himself in a hundred different places, and he must have asked himself more than a thousand times whether Reckless had found the head yet. Still, all he could do was sift through another pale pile of human remains and hope for a miracle.

Lelou and the Waterman were helping him with moderate enthusiasm, but at least there were four extra hands to sort the legs, skulls, and ribs from the bony fingers. The good ones to your pot, the bad ones to your crop – he felt like Cinderella. Wrong thought, Nerron. That only reminded him that Reckless had found the glass slipper before him.

The Waterman lifted his head and reached for his pistol.

Someone was coming through the church door.

Louis stumbled over the first skull in his path. He reached for a hold on the nearest pillar. ‘The wine around here is even more sour than my mother’s lemonade,’ he babbled. ‘And the girls are even uglier than you, Eaumbre.’

And of course he had to throw up over the bones they hadn’t searched yet.

‘How much longer are you going to be doing this?’ He wiped his tailored sleeve over his mouth and tottered towards Nerron. ‘And anyway . . . all that treasure hunting . . . the magical crossbow . . . My father should be looking for engineers that are as good as Albion’s instead.’

He stopped abruptly and stared at a pile of skulls to his left. Something was moving beneath them. Eaumbre drew his sabre, but Louis waved him away impatiently.

‘I’ll break his neck myself,’ he shouted drunkenly. ‘Can’t be that hard. Nasty little . . .’

Lelou shot Nerron an alarmed look. A yellow follet’s bite was nearly as dangerous as that of a viper. But what came crawling out from between the bones had neither a yellow skin nor legs or arms.

‘Don’t!’ Nerron yelled as the Waterman lifted his sabre.

Three fingers, pale as wax.

They moved as fast as locust legs. Nerron tried to grab them – and immediately let go with a curse. His arm was numb all the way up to the shoulder. The hand of a Warlock – what were you thinking, Nerron?

The fingers scurried towards Louis. He stumbled back, but something was crawling down the pillar behind him. Thumb and forefinger. The second piece. Eaumbre hacked at them with his sabre, but the fingers skilfully dodged the blade. Louis tugged at his dagger, but he was too drunk to get it out of the scabbard.

‘Damn it!’ he screeched. ‘Do something!’

A piece of the hand was crawling up his boot.

‘Grab it!’ Nerron barked at him. ‘Do it now!’

There wasn’t much of Guismond’s blood flowing through Louis’s veins. Still, maybe it would give him enough protection. If not . . . but Louis was already leaning down. The fingers kept twitching like the legs of an unappetisingly large beetle, but they didn’t give Louis a jolt. So the princeling was useful after all! Things were now crawling from all directions towards him. The two halves of the wrist slithered like turtles across the flagstones.