‘I’m sure you’d be surprised.’ Nerron reached for the crossbow.

Snap.

The ticking began as soon as the Goyl had lifted the weapon off the stool. But he paid no attention to it. He still didn’t realise, even as he walked towards the edge of the circle and ran into the invisible wall. The curse he uttered would have made a Dwarf blush. He tried to step out of the mosaic in another place, but of course the stones wouldn’t let him go.

Jacob derived little comfort from the fact that the Goyl had been just as blind. At least he had the excuse that impending death didn’t make you smarter.

It was a trap. From the beginning. They’d been caught in it from the moment they read the words in the tomb, and whoever’s body they’d found there, it was not the Witch Slayer’s. The fingernails should have made you suspicious, Jacob! No sign of decay? Where did you have your senses?

He looked at the figure on the throne. The Witch Slayer was sitting in front of them, and the trap he’d set more than eight hundred years ago had finally snapped shut.

The Bastard threw the stool against the invisible wall so hard that it broke.

‘Damn! What gave us away?’

Jacob dropped to his knees. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘He thinks we’re his children. That’s the problem.’

He pulled out the pouch with Louis’s hair and threw it far from him, even though it was already too late. ‘The trap was meant for them, but they were smarter than us. It’s a time spell.’

The Witches used hourglasses, but Guismond had used the clock he’d brought from the other world. You saw it, Jacob! Where was your head? A magic circle and a clock. That’s all it took.

‘Time spell?’ The Goyl struck out at the invisible wall. It sounded as though his claws were hitting against glass. ‘Never heard of it. How does it work?’

‘Every minute will cost us a year.’ He was going to be an old man after all.

The Witches used the spells to dispatch particularly despised enemies, but the Witch Slayer wasn’t out for revenge. You should have seen this in the tomb, Jacob!

‘If you catch your own children in the circle,’ – his voice was already sounding hoarse – ‘then you can use the years you take from them for yourself. You’re just taking back the life you gave them in the first place. The more of it, the better. After all, Guismond didn’t want to be reborn as an old man. So he tried to lure all three of them here.’

‘Reborn?’ The Bastard stared at Guismond’s effigy.

‘Yes. That’s not a statue. It’s his body. The Witch Slayer wanted to return from death, even if that meant killing his children.’ Tick-tock. The clock’s whirr sliced through the silence and Jacob felt his flesh wither. ‘It might have worked with Louis,’ he said, ‘but we won’t do him any good. It’ll still kill us, though.’

And Fox couldn’t do anything to free them. Only Guismond could break the circle. Jacob wasn’t sure what he wished for more: that she found them while he still lived or when it was all over.

‘Did you hear, Witch Slayer?’ Nerron screamed at the corpse on the throne. ‘You caught the wrong prey. Let us go! Your children weren’t as stupid as we are, and they are now as dead as you.’

Every minute a year.

The Bastard sank to his knees. His breathing grew as laboured as Jacob’s, but the spell wouldn’t show as clearly on him. Goyl skin barely aged.

‘Admit it!’ he panted. ‘Admit it. I won!’

Jacob closed his eyes. No, he didn’t want Fox to find him like this. He wished she’d never find him and that none of this had ever happened. But how had it all begun? With him going through the mirror. And had he never done that, he’d have never met her, and the vixen would have perished in the trap.

He lifted his hand. It looked like that of an old man.

He didn’t want her to find him like this.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

LIFE AND DEATH

Fox didn’t comprehend. What she saw was too terrible. Jacob on the floor, the Goyl next to him. She shifted as she ran towards them. Only as she got closer did she see the crossbow lying between them.

Jacob.

She tried to reach him – and was stopped by an invisible force. The air around him was made of glass, and Fox saw the mosaic that had caught him and the 1 Jacob’s face was so haggard that Fox barely recognised it. His skin was like parchment, and his hair as white as snow. He stirred as she called his name, but his cadaverous body shuddered as a clock’s tick cut through the silence.

The spell that stole years, made people wither like leaves.

Fox looked around desperately.

The ticking came from the back of the room.

The hourglasses of the Witches stole their victims’ time silently, but it befitted the cruelty of the Witch Slayer that he was taking Jacob’s lifetime with snarling clockwork. Fox heard the hands move forward as she ran towards the clock.

A golden dial, held by bony fingers. Fox tried to push the hands back, but they wouldn’t budge. She gave up, fearing Jacob would never get his years back if she broke the clock. She implored the vixen and everything that had ever given her strength, but the hands kept moving.

Please!

Fox lifted the housing from the bony hands, but not even her knife could crack it. The mirror that hung next to the clock showed her the despair on her own face. It was so large that its glass reflected the entire room.

At first Fox didn’t quite realise what she was seeing in the mirror.

The figure on the throne was moving.

The gloved hands closed around the armrests, and the mouth gasped raspingly for air. Guismond turned his head. Fox hid behind a column before his eyes could find her. The face was barely visible beneath the helmet, but she remembered the gilded image staring from the door to the tomb. Whose had been the body in the sarcophagus? A double Guismond had created through witchcraft? A soulless hull that had taken his place in the coffin, soaked with enough black magic to make everybody think the corpse was his?

The Witch Slayer staggered to his feet, but the clock in Fox’s hands was still ticking. Good, Fox. That means it is still finding life to steal.

Guismond looked around. He steadied himself on his throne and felt for the sword that leant against it. His hands were shaking. Of course. The life he was stealing came from a dying man.

Fox pulled out her knife, wishing she had Jacob’s sabre. A knife against a long sword. No. She tucked it back into her belt and pulled out the pistol. The Witch Slayer was not a Bluebeard, nor was he the Tailor from the Hungry Forest. He was human.

He moved unsteadily as he climbed down the steps from his throne. With Jacob’s breath, his heartbeat. The cats’ hides dragged behind him, and he held his sword in his hand.

Only he can break the circle, Fox. And then she would have to kill him. And hope that Jacob got back the life the Witch Slayer had stolen from him. She ducked behind another pillar as Guismond looked around once more. She longed for her fur. Not yet. The vixen wouldn’t be able to kill Guismond.

His steps were unsteady, like those of a sleepwalker. He stopped on the last step and stared down at the men caught in his magic circle. Only two men. Strangers. Fox thought she could smell his disappointment. His body yearned for more life.

He looked around.