‘. . . and roll cigarettes from our skins. I know.’ Jacob pulled out his knife and leant over Louis.
Lelou watched him in speechless horror, as though he’d suddenly swallowed his tongue.
‘Yes, it’s a pity he can’t come with us,’ Jacob said, cutting a few strands of Louis’s pale blond hair. ‘I’m sure the Iron Gate would welcome him more warmly than me.’
‘What’s that supposed to be for?’ Valiant asked. ‘Are you going to sell a strand to every girl you find pining at the prince’s portrait, dreaming of becoming Queen of Lotharaine?’
Jacob left that question unanswered. Never had he felt more grateful for the things Alma had taught him – things that Witches usually never divulged to a human. She had once pulled out one of his hairs and wrapped it around her bony finger. ‘This here tells me more about you than your blood,’ she told him. ‘Every single hair reveals who you are and where you come from. Yet you humans leave it in combs and brushes without realising that even a few strands of it give any stranger the chance to put a very powerful part of you in his pocket. For a Witch, the hair you leave on a hairdresser’s floor is enough to create a doppelgänger in just a few hours.’
He didn’t have enough for that. But maybe it would make Guismond’s gate accept him as a distant descendant. It was worth a try.
‘You have no right!’ Lelou’s voice trembled with rage. ‘Treasure hunter? You’re all filthy thieves. The crossbow belongs to Guismond’s heirs.’
Jacob got up.
‘Yes, but why did his children never come to claim it? What do you think, Lelou?’ He put Louis’s hair in one of the empty swindlesacks. ‘Maybe they never even came to his tomb. How do you explain that? Just with the fact that the Witch Slayer was a terrible father and quite mad towards the end? Did he, as some say, have their mother killed, and was that why they rejected him? Or were they simply too busy waging war against one another?’
Arsene Lelou pressed his colourless lips together. Still, as expected, he couldn’t resist the chance to show off his knowledge.
‘They thought their father wanted to kill them all!’ he twanged. ‘That’s why they never came to the tomb. That’s why they never searched for the crossbow. They were convinced Guismond would find a way to kill them.’
Valiant uttered a sceptical grunt. ‘Why should he? He needed an heir.’
Lelou rolled his eyes. ‘The Witch Slayer was crazy. He didn’t want anybody on his throne, not even one of his children. He wanted the world to stand still after his death. It was supposed to begin and end with him.’
Fox went to Jacob’s side.
‘We should get going,’ she said quietly.
Yes, but Jacob was still thinking about what Lelou had said. Maybe taking Louis’s hair wasn’t such a good idea?
He pulled Fox away.
Behind them, Lelou was reciting every horror story ever written about the Dead City. Jacob knew them all.
From his pocket he took the chain Ramée’s granddaughter had worn – and possibly Guismond’s daughter before her.
‘I will get you a pendant for it,’ he said as he put it around Fox’s neck. ‘The most beautiful one I can find in Guismond’s palace. But let me go alone. Please! It’s too dangerous. I’ll come back with the crossbow. I promise.’
Fox replied by placing her hand over where the Fairy’s moth covered his heart. ‘What could be worse than the Bluebeard’s house?’ she asked. ‘Or worse than having to wait here for you?’
At a signal from Valiant, the Giantling kicked an opening in the fence.
The Dwarf handed Jacob two candles.
‘They weren’t easy to find,’ he said. ‘Your debts are growing and growing. I will wait here for you. The tomb was enough for me, but don’t get any ideas. I’ll find you, whatever you may try to cheat me out of my share. Believe me, I can be much more unpleasant than Crookback.’
‘I remember,’ said Jacob. He followed Fox across the trampled fence.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
HEAD START
Pale blood was dripping from the Waterman’s fingers as he cut Nerron’s ties. He’d scraped the scales off his arms to free himself. Some of his olive-green flesh was probably still stuck to the carriage wheel, yet he never even flinched.
They had, of course, taken all their weapons.
Tricked by a prince dumber than any horse you’ve ever ridden, Nerron.
They saw the palace already from afar. So the Dwarf had brought Guismond’s body with him. Nerron was sick with rage as he pointed his spyglass at the watchtower where the exchange was supposed to have taken place. A pile of stones that looked suspiciously like the grave of a Giantling, and a few dead bodies in front of it. He couldn’t make out who they were, but the Giantling crouching over them was hard to miss. He was quite a hefty specimen. What, by Crookback’s hangman, had happened there?
‘Can you see Louis?’
Nerron was glad the hatred in the Waterman’s voice was not aimed at him. He shook his head.
‘I want to hear his princely neck snap,’ Eaumbre whispered. ‘Or crush his throat until his stupid face turns as blue as the sky.’
Some Watermen spent years hunting down a man who’d insulted or cheated them. Eaumbre had been very patient with Louis. But Nerron didn’t care whether the prince was still alive. All he cared about was whether Reckless was among the dead. But not even that information was worth tussling with a Giantling for.
He pushed the spyglass back into his belt.
Eaumbre eyed the ruins and the palace that was built around the mountain like a crown. ‘The Witch Slayer had more treasure than just the crossbow, right?’
‘Probably.’
Eaumbre rubbed his raw arms. ‘If Louis is there, he’s mine,’ he whispered.
‘And if not?’
The Waterman bared his teeth. ‘Then hopefully I’ll find enough gold to compensate me.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
THE DEAD CITY
Weathered facades. Cracked pillars. Arched doorways. Stairs leading nowhere. Even the skeleton of the Dead City still showed how opulent it had once been. The street they were following wound steeply past crumbled houses. The silence was as black as the moonless night. Jacob thought the first face he saw was an embellishment, the legacy of a talented mason. But they were everywhere, staring out of the grey walls like fossils. Women, men, children.
The stories were true. Guismond had taken the whole city with him to his death. ‘He wanted the world to stand still after his death.’ It was supposed to begin and end with him. Smart Bug!
The Witch Slayer had locked them into the stones of their houses. What had killed them? His final breath? Had he died with a curse on his lips? Jacob thought he could hear their voices as the wind brushed through the empty streets. It groaned and sighed, driving dead leaves in front of it, loosening weathered stones from walls that had been bleached like bones by the passing centuries. Swarms of will-o’-the-wisps dotted them with light, and a few plague-finches were frantically hopping around on the cracked paving stones. Apart from that, the deserted streets with their hemlines of dead faces were still.
They were picking a path through the debris of a collapsed tower, when a man jumped out from behind the remnants of a statue. Jacob hacked off his arm before he could ram his rusty scythe into Fox’s back. His clothes were covered with pieces of glass and metal. A Preacher. His eyes were as empty as those of the dead in the walls. Six more were waiting beneath a triumphal arch, its weathered marble celebrating Guismond’s victories over Albion and Lotharaine. They fought as stubbornly as if they were defending a living city, but luckily their weapons were old, and the men weren’t very well fed. Jacob killed three and Fox shot another before he could push Jacob against the hexed walls. The others fled, though one of them stopped after a few steps to scream curses in the local dialect of the surrounding mountains. He didn’t stop screaming until Fox put a warning shot in front of his feet. The curse was superstition, born of the helpless fear of real magic, but the screams attracted more of the ragged figures. They appeared everywhere between the ruins. Some just stood there, staring or throwing stones at them. Others stumbled into their path with rusty pitchforks and shovels they must have stolen from some farmer nearby.