‘It seems you don’t just need better bodyguards but also better spies.’ Nerron brushed Hentzau with a taunting glance. ‘That competition is no more.’

‘Indeed?’ Hentzau’s thin mouth moved. It nearly smiled. ‘My useless spies are reporting that your competitor is in Vena and very much alive. Jacob Reckless has a penchant for rising from the dead.’

Nerron caught his heart doing a few extra beats.

Surprise. On the other hand . . . how disappointing would it have been if Jacob Reckless had let himself be devoured by wolves just like that?

The best . . .

‘Reckless paid a visit to the history museum.’ Hentzau’s left eye had that milky sheen that came from too much daylight. ‘I assume you know why?’

Nerron hadn’t the faintest idea, but he hoped his face didn’t give him away.

‘I put an old friend on his trail. He’ll take care of Reckless.’ Kami’en leant down and inspected the gouges left by the Dragon’s claws. ‘What a waste to exterminate them,’ he said, running his fingers through the crevices. ‘They were such great weapons. Though never very obedient. Machines are easier to control.’ Kami’en stood straight again. The gold in his eyes was brighter than that of the onyx. ‘Hentzau would like to kill Reckless, but since the wedding I’ve developed a weakness for him. Who is he hunting the crossbow for?’

Nerron shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. Because it’ll be me who finds it.’

‘Together with Crookback’s son?’ Hentzau’s voice sounded harsh, as when he spoke to his soldiers.

Watch yourself, old man.

‘We have to get back.’ Kami’en turned around. ‘Hentzau’s right. From now on you search alone.’

Hentzau threw a purse of silver towards him. Expenses. The King of the Goyl was a less generous employer than the onyx, but Nerron would have worked for him for free. Not everything was for sale. He listened until their steps had faded into the Dragon’s breathing tunnel.

The parade would begin soon for the grumbling people of Vena. The Goyl showing off his pregnant human wife. Her subjects had already come up with many names for the child. ‘The monster’, ‘the skinless prince’ . . . everybody seemed to assume the child was going to be a boy. Human-Goyl mongrels didn’t live long. You could sometimes see them in freak shows at country fairs. Some were so stony they could hardly move; others had a skin through which one could see the bones and organs, as through glass; some had no skin at all. But Kami’en was determined to keep this child alive. There were rumours he’d even asked the Dark Fairy for help.

What did Reckless want in the museum?

Nerron leant against the claw-gouged stone. The darkness around him reeked of the Dragon’s odour. He opened the medallion, and the spider crawled sleepily on his hand. Why hadn’t he asked her earlier whether Reckless really was dead? Because he hadn’t wanted to know the answer? Interesting . . .

He had to feed an extra helping of lapis lazuli to the spider before she began her dance.

No carriages . . . damn . . . roadblocks . . . flowers everywhere . . .

Nerron felt a smile sneak on to his face. Yes, Reckless really was alive. The spider kept dancing. Cabby! What? No. To the spiny gate . . .

He’d be damned. Maybe the Witch’s tongue wasn’t going to be needed after all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

DISAPPEARED

The gate to the jewellers’ quarter only truly earned its name by night. Jacob’s flesh had already felt the spikes the gate grew in the dark, but now it was midday and so the iron wings stood wide open.

The jewellers’ quarter was one of the oldest parts of Vena. Its alleys were too narrow even for the lightest cabs, and its back yards still contained clusters of tiny houses from the days when jewellers used to employ Elves and when Heinzel were regarded as good-luck charms.

Hippolyte Ramée had driven his Heinzel away years ago after he’d caught them stealing. But he still worked with Elves. He hid them in his back room so he wouldn’t be thought of as old-fashioned, yet the silvery dust they spread when they flew immediately settled on Jacob’s coat as he opened the door.

The jewellery Ramée crafted was famous beyond Vena. The jeweller originally came from Lotharaine, where he’d trained under the infamous goldsmith of Pont-de-Pile. There were many stories, each more gruesome than the last, about how Hippolyte had lost both his feet in the goldsmith’s service. Ramée maintained his silence about it. Jacob had actually seen the golden feet Ramée had wrought to escape his master. On this morning, however, they were tucked inside buttoned boots.

For the past Thirty years, Hippolyte Ramée had been the official goldsmith to the imperial family of Austry, and as far as Jacob was aware, the Goyl had not changed that. The many years of setting tiny stones in gold and silver had not been kind to Ramée’s eyes. The lenses on his spectacles were so thick they made his rheumy eyes look as big as a child’s.

‘Do you have an appointment? If not, you may leave immediately.’ Ramée’s temper was as famous as his jewellery. He was known to have thrown even emissaries from the Empress out of his shop. Yet the beauty of the pieces that were on display in glass cabinets all around the shop made most aristocratic treasure chambers look shabby in comparison. Necklaces, bracelets, tiaras and brooches; rubies, emeralds, topaz and amber, wrought so delicately in gold and silver that it looked as though they had simply grown from the fingertips of the old man behind the simple wooden table.

‘It’s me, Hippolyte.’

Ramée lifted his head and put down the palm-sized magnifying glass through which he’d been inspecting a diamond the size of a pea. The suspicion on his face disappeared only after Jacob went to stand right in front of him.

‘Jacob, of course,’ he observed. His mottled hand closed around the diamond. Ramée always expected to be robbed. The Empress was the only person he’d ever exempted from his suspicion. ‘Are you in need of another brooch to impress some imperial maid?’

‘No.’ Jacob glanced at a tiara that looked like a web of silver woven around blossoms of carnelian. Ramée had adapted his craft to the new masters of Vena. ‘I presume you’re still in charge of maintaining the imperial jewels?’

Ramée adjusted his glasses. ‘Of course. Say what you will about the Goyl, but they do recognise a man who knows his stones.’

Jacob suppressed a smile. Hippolyte was a vain old man.

‘A shame they don’t like gold,’ Ramée added. ‘It means I have to work more with silver, but their King only recently ordered a few very tasteful pieces. The bracelet, he . . .’

‘Hippolyte!’ Ramée could ramble on for hours about the cut of a stone or the value of flawless elven glass, but Jacob was done wasting time he didn’t have. Yet the old man carried on, in the heavy Lotharainian accent he’d never lost through all the decades of exile. He was obviously not only half blind but also quite deaf by now.

‘Hippolyte! Could you listen to me for a moment?’

Ramée abruptly fell silent, as though he’d swallowed one of his diamonds. ‘What?’ he barked at Jacob. ‘I’m three times as old as you. What’s the rush?’