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. ‘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.

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.’

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 shares 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 curtsy. ‘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.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

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.