‘Promise me!’ he whispered. ‘Promise me you’ll never try something like that again. Promise!’

‘No!’ she replied.

‘What? Do you think I want you dead instead of me?’

‘I just wanted to give you time.’

‘These rings are dangerous. Every second you put it on my finger will lose you a year. And sometimes they can’t be pulled off before they have taken your entire life.’

She struggled free and wiped the tears off her face.

‘I want you to live.’ She whispered the words, as though she feared death might hear them and take them as a challenge.

‘Good. Then let’s find the heart before the Goyl does. I’m sure I can ride. Who knows when they’ll get that coach repaired?’

‘There are no horses.’ Fox went to the window. ‘The landlord sold his only riding horses the day before yesterday, to four men. He boasted to Troisclerq that one of them was Louis of Lotharaine. He had a Goyl with him, with a green-speckled skin. They only stopped briefly and rode on that same afternoon.’

The day before yesterday. It’s even more hopeless than you thought.

Fox pushed open the window, as if letting out the fear. The air that came rushing in was as cold and damp as snow. There was laughter from downstairs, and Jacob recognised the loud voice of the lawyer who’d sat next to him in the coach.

Louis of Lotharaine. The Bastard was hunting the crossbow for Crookback.

Fox turned around. ‘Troisclerq heard me ask about horses because we had to push on urgently. He bribed the landlord to send his workmen to the coach. I told him we’ll pay him back, but he won’t hear of it.’

They would pay him back. Jacob pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. He was already too deep in Troisclerq’s debt.

‘I tried that,’ said Fox.

She was right. No matter how hard Jacob rubbed the fabric, the only thing the tattered handkerchief produced was the card on which were still the same words. FORGET THE HAND, JACOB. It had been good advice.

‘We could ask Chanute to send some money,’ Fox suggested. ‘You still have some in the bank in Schwanstein, right?’

Yes, he did. But it wasn’t much. Jacob took her hand.

‘You’ll get the ring back once all this is over,’ he said. ‘But you have to promise me you’ll never use it.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

TOO MANY COOKS

The best! No, Nerron couldn’t remember ever having felt that good. He’d taken Jacob Reckless’s loot and had humiliated him like a rookie.

Not even the princeling could spoil his mood, even though Louis told everyone Nerron had let an Albian spy get away, and that after he, Louis, had brought him an impeccable virgin. A whole day long the prince refused to set off to Vena, and even now he kept sneaking off with every girl that let herself be dazzled by his diamond buttons. The Waterman spent his nights searching the barns and farmhouses for him. Eaumbre had begun to eye his royal charge with such distaste, Nerron wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d found Louis drowned in a trough one morning. Of course, none of that was mentioned in the journal in which Lelou kept scribbling tirelessly. Instead, it noted every castle they passed, every icy road, and every mountain gnome that threw a stone at them. Nerron checked the tutor’s writings every night (luckily, the Bug wrote very legibly) and regularly fell asleep over them.

Yes, it was all going splendidly. Despite Louis. Despite Lelou. Despite Eaumbre’s fish stench. They’d soon be in Vena, he’d find the heart, take the hand off Louis, and then drink a toast to the memory of Jacob Reckless.

They were spending the night in a roadside inn in Bavaria – Vena was just a day’s travel away – when it dawned on Nerron that the final leg of his hunt was probably not going to be quite as smooth.

He woke up to the feeling of cold steel on his neck. Louis was standing over him, an elven-dusted look in his eyes, holding his sabre to the Goyl’s throat.

‘You lied to me, Goyl,’ he growled. He was holding a swindlesack, which Nerron, even though he’d drunk a lot of that spiced hot wine they served in Bavarian inns, immediately recognised as the one he’d taken off Reckless. Nerron needed just one glimpse of Lelou’s bug face peering out from behind Louis’s elbow to understand who’d put the princeling on the trail of the sack.

‘It’s the head!’ Lelou observed accusingly. ‘It gave me a jolt. And it screams.’

‘It probably put a curse on you,’ Nerron said, pushing Louis’s sabre away.

Lelou grew a little pale around his pointy nose, but Louis leant even lower over Nerron’s bed. ‘You tried to trick me, Goyl. How long have you had the head?’

‘He wanted to show it to you.’ The Waterman was a dark outline in the open door. ‘The Goyl asked me where he might find you, but you weren’t in your bed.’

That was probably the worst lie Nerron had ever heard, but the Waterman’s whisper made it sound like a weighty truth.

‘I work for your father,’ Nerron said, pulling the sack from Louis’s fingers. ‘Or have you forgotten that? I am just following his instructions. The head stays with me, unless you let me teach you how to shield yourself from its curses.’

Lelou was still hiding behind Louis’s back.

Just you wait, Bug Man. From now on, I’ll be sending every mountain gnome we meet your way.

Louis stroked the blade of his sabre, probably picturing how it might cut through Goyl skin. ‘Fine. You keep the head. For now.’

Eaumbre was still standing in the door.

Lelou might have suspected that Nerron was lying. But the Waterman knew it.

Nerron went to Eaumbre’s room as soon as he heard the Bug’s cricket-like snores from his room, and a girl’s giggles from behind Louis’s door.

Eaumbre was lying on his bed, pouring a bowl of water on his scaly chest.

‘What’s your price?’ Nerron asked.

‘We’ll see,’ the Waterman whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE HEART IN THE EAST

It took them fifteen days, despite Troisclerq’s silver, and every one of those days only convinced Jacob more that the Bastard had already found the heart.

After his collapse, the other travellers had been reluctant to get into the coach with Jacob. (The pox was going around in Bavaria and Austry.) But Troisclerq made a point of sitting next to him. Yes, Jacob was beginning to like him. Troisclerq knew as much about horses as about the newest Goyl weaponry, and he didn’t mind discussing for hours whether Albian or Catalunian blades were better. They shared a passion for fencing, though Troisclerq preferred the rapier over Jacob’s sabre. The other passengers probably cursed them for their endless discussions, their hour-long arguments over whether the dirtiest feint was the in quarto or the sparita di vita.

Outside, dark valleys drifted past, lakes reflecting castles on the snowy peaks above. In one of those castles, Jacob had found the glass slipper that had earned him a medal from the Empress. At some point they caught a glimpse of the forest where he’d stolen a pair of seven-league boots from a gang of highwaymen for one of the Wolf Lords in the east. This couldn’t all be over, not yet. However, thanks to him, the Empress was now spending her days in an underground fortress, and that forest had shrunk to half its original size since its timber had begun to be used to smelt steel in the valley beyond. And the Goyl ruled in Vena. Nothing lasted for ever, even behind the mirror.