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‘Go after him,’ Nerron said to the Waterman.

‘Yes, go after him, Eaumbre!’ Lelou echoed. His voice sounded panicky.

But the Waterman just stood there and stared with his six eyes at the door Louis had disappeared through.

‘Eaumbre! Go!’ Lelou repeated shrilly.

The Waterman didn’t move.

As proud as a Waterman. Even the Goyl knew that saying.

‘Never mind. He’ll be back,’ Nerron said. ‘Our princeling is right. He doesn’t need us to get himself drunk.’

Lelou moaned. ‘But his fa—’

Nerron cut him off: ‘Didn’t you hear me? He’ll be back! We have to find a hand with gilded fingernails. So start looking, Lelou.’

The Bug wanted to reply, but then he ducked his head and began sifting through the bones that had poured out of the alcove.

Eaumbre gave Nerron a nod.

Six-eyed gratitude.

Who knew when that might come in handy?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MAYBE

The hotel where Fox brought Jacob was just as run-down as the fake Witch’s shop, but the pain had weakened him more than he would admit, and the streets were deserted, so she couldn’t find a cab that would have taken them to a better hotel.

Jacob closed his eyes as soon as he stretched out on the bed. Fox stayed by his side until she was sure he was fast asleep. His breathing was too fast, and she could still see the shadows the pain had left on his face.

She gently stroked his forehead, as though her fingers could wipe away the shadows. Careful, Fox. But what could she do? Protect her heart and leave him alone with his death?

She felt love stirring inside her like an animal roused from sleep. Sleep! she wanted to whisper to it. Go back to sleep. Or, better still, be what you once were: friends. Nothing else. Without the craving for his touch.

In his sleep, Jacob reached for his chest, as though his fingers needed to soothe the moth that was gnawing away at his heart.

Eat my heart instead! Fox thought. What good is it to me, anyway?

Her heart felt so different when she wore her fur. To the vixen, even love tasted of freedom, and desire came and went like hunger, without the craving that came with being human.

It was hard to leave Jacob behind. She was worried the pain would return. But what she was about to do, she did for him. Fox locked the dingy room behind her and carried the blood shard with her.

Dunbar had probably left his desk by now. Morning was not far off. Fox had visited his home with Jacob only once, but the vixen never forgot a way.

It was a little difficult to explain to the taxi driver that she didn’t have an address, that she would give him directions using trees and smells, but in the end he dropped her off in front of the high hedge surrounding Dunbar’s house. Fox rang the bell by the door half a dozen times before she heard an angry voice inside. Dunbar had probably not been in bed long.

He opened the door a crack and pushed the barrel of a rifle through it, but he immediately lowered the weapon when he realised who was standing there. He waved Fox into his living room without saying a word. His late mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace, and on the piano, next to a photograph of his father, was one of him and Jacob.

‘What are you doing here? I thought I made myself clear.’ Dunbar leant the rifle against the wall. He listened into the dark hallway before closing the door. His father lived with him. Jacob had told her that the old Fir Darrig hardly left the house. Anyone would have eventually grown tired of being stared at all the time. There were still a few hundred Fir Darrigs in Eire, but here in Albion they were as rare as a warm summer.

Fox ran her fingers over the spines of the books, which surrounded Dunbar at home just as they did at the university. There had never been a single book in the house where she grew up. It was Jacob who’d taught her to love them.

‘So you now need a rifle if you’ve got a Fir Darrig in your house and in your blood?’

‘Let’s just say it’s better to be safe than sorry. But I’ve never had to use it. I’m still not sure whether rifles were a good invention or not. I guess that’s the question with any invention, but I do feel it’s a question one has to ask too often these days.’ He looked at Fox. ‘We’re both stuck between the times, aren’t we? We’re wearing the past on our skins, but the future is too loud to be ignored. What has been and what will be. What is being lost and what is being gained . . .’

Dunbar was a wise man – wiser than any man Fox knew – and on any other night, Fox would have loved nothing more than listening to him explain the world to her. But not on this night.

‘I am here so Jacob won’t be lost, Dunbar.’

‘Jacob?’ Dunbar laughed out loud. ‘Even if the whole world were lost, he’d just find himself another one.’

‘That wouldn’t help him. He’ll be dead in a few months if we don’t find the crossbow.’

Dunbar had his father’s cat-eyes. Like foxes, Fir Darrigs were creatures of the night. Fox could only hope those eyes could see she wasn’t lying.

‘Please, Dunbar. Tell me where the head is.’

The living room filled with thick silence. Tears might have helped, but she could never cry when she was afraid.

‘Of course. The third shot . . . Guismond’s younger son.’ Dunbar went to the piano and touched the keys. ‘Is he that desperate, that he puts his hope into some half-forgotten legend?’

‘He’s tried everything else.’

Dunbar struck a key, and in that single note Fox heard all the sadness of the world. This was not a good night.

‘So the Red Fairy found him?’

‘He went back to her himself.’

Dunbar shook his head. ‘Then he doesn’t deserve better.’

‘He did it for his brother.’ Talk, Fox. Dunbar believed in words. He lived among them. But the Fairy’s moth was eating Jacob’s heart, and there were no words to stop it.

‘Please!’ For a brief moment, Fox was tempted to point the rifle at Dunbar’s chest. The things fear made you do. And love.

Dunbar looked at the rifle as though he’d guessed her thoughts. ‘I nearly forgot I’m talking to a vixen. Your human form is so misleading, though it suits you very well.’

Fox felt herself blush.

Dunbar smiled, but his face quickly turned serious again. ‘I don’t know where the head is.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Really? And who says so?’

‘The vixen.’

‘Then let’s put it this way. I don’t know exactly, but I have a hunch.’ He picked up the rifle and stroked its long barrel. ‘The crossbow is worth a hundred thousand rifles like this. One single shot will turn the man who wields it into a mass murderer. I’m sure they’ll come up with machines that can do the same soon enough. The new magic is the old magic. The same goals, the same greed . . .’

Dunbar took aim at Fox – then he lowered the rifle.

‘I need your word. By the fur you’re wearing. By Jacob’s life. By all that’s holy to you, that he will not sell the crossbow.’

‘I’ll leave you my fur as a bond.’ No words had ever been more difficult to say.

Dunbar shook his head. ‘No. I won’t ask that much.’