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‘Bring Louis to the library in one hour. I’ll talk to him.’ Hopefully that sounded harmless enough. ‘And tell him to bring the hand.’

‘Why?’Advertisement

Careful, Nerron.

‘I want to see whether it can point us to the heart.’

Six eyes. They were saying, You’re lying, Goyl. And I know it.

‘The library,’ the Waterman repeated. ‘In one hour.’

The Snow-White method had severe side effects – so severe that in Albion you got hanged for using it. Crookback probably had an even more painful method of execution in store, should he ever learn that it had been used on his son. But Nerron counted on the fact that its effects were easily confused with those of an overdose of elven dust.

One of the kitchen hands boiled the Witch tongue for him in the palace kitchen. The fool thought it was a calf’s tongue. Nerron prepared the apple himself. The fruit was the reason the formula was named after Snow-White, even though her apple had been prepared with a different kind of potion. Nerron cut out the stalk and the core and poured the tongue-broth into it. Black magic was a rather unappetising craft. He sealed the opening with dark chocolate to sweeten the deal. Louis could never resist chocolate.

The shelves were lined with rows of books as neat as those found only in libraries that were never used. Louis’s cousin loved to give himself the appearance of an educated man.

One hour. The Waterman delivered on time. The crown prince of Lotharaine did, of course, not knock.

‘The Waterman says we have something to discuss?’ As usual, he reeked of elven dust and the disgusting eau de toilette he applied as liberally as water. ‘Stay outside!’ he ordered Eaumbre as the Waterman tried to follow him. ‘You stink of fish again. Go and find my cousin. I want to go out.’

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Eaumbre’s eyes brushed Nerron with a bland glance before he closed the door. Lelou obviously hadn’t taught Louis anything about the pride of Watermen. Quite a dangerous knowledge gap.

‘Did you bring the hand?’

Louis held up the sack.

‘I hope you kept it well away from yourself?’

‘Why?’ Louis frowned. The elven dust made thinking even more difficult than it usually was for him.

‘What is Lelou teaching you? Black magic is not particularly healthy. And it’ll be me who’ll have to answer to your father for any side effects!’ Nerron offered him the apple. ‘Here. The antidote tastes disgusting, but I asked the cook to make it a little more palatable.’

‘An apple?’ Louis flinched. ‘I never touch apples. Two of my aunts were poisoned that way.’

‘As you wish.’ Nerron put the apple on a lectern, next to a book on the family history of Louis’s Austrian relatives, which was gathering dust. ‘Go see a doctor if you don’t believe me. And keep an eye on your fingernails. Once they turn black, it may be too late already.’

Louis stared at his fingers.

‘I’m sick of treasure hunting!’ he burst out. ‘All that magical nonsense. I’m so over it.’

He took the apple and eyed it so warily that Nerron nearly gave up hope. ‘Is that chocolate?’

One bite and he slumped over. Nerron caught him before he hit the marble floor. Not so easy, considering Louis’s weight.

He leant over him and blew into his sleeping face. ‘Where is the heart of Guismond the Witch Slayer?’

‘What?’ Louis mumbled.

Nerron cursed so loudly he had to press his hand over his own mouth. Compared to the princeling, the vagrant on whom he’d tried the formula six years earlier had turned into a veritable font of wisdom.

‘Guis-mond the Witch Slay-er,’ Nerron whispered into the royal ear.

Louis wanted to roll on his side, but Nerron held him; he had to apply quite a lot of force against the princely weight.

‘Lotharaine,’ Louis mumbled.

‘Where in Lotharaine?’

Louis shuddered. ‘Champlitte,’ he whispered. ‘White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold.’

Then he began to snore.

He’d be doing little else for the next ten years. Clairvoyance had its price.

Nerron got up. Champlitte. White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold. What the devil? He sprinkled Louis’s clothes and hands with elven dust and tucked a few more sachets into his pockets. Then he dropped the apple into the swindlesack with the hand, and stuffed that into the saddlebag that already held the sack with the head. He opened the door – and found himself staring at the Waterman’s uniformed chest.

Eaumbre looked over Nerron’s shoulder.

‘What did you do to him?’ His voice grated on Nerron’s skin like a wet rasp.

‘He overdid the elven dust.’ Nerron surreptitiously put his hand on his pistol.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the Waterman whispered. ‘Where are you going? You think Crookback will get any joy from his crossbow if he gets his son back as Snow-White?’ The scaly face stretched into a grim smile. ‘But Crookback was never supposed to get the crossbow, was he? You want to sell it to the highest bidder.’

Well, at least he hadn’t guessed the whole truth.

‘And what if I do?’ Nerron’s fingers closed around the grip of his pistol.

‘I want a share. I’m tired of the bodyguarding business. Treasure hunting is so much more profitable.’

And Watermen came with plenty of experience, in their very own way. The girls they dragged to their ponds could vouch for that. The scale-faces showered them with gold and silver to make their slimy kisses more bearable.

Three birds . . . Seems like you’re going to be holding on to one, Nerron. The fattest and scaliest of the three.

A quiet cough.

Bug-quiet.

‘Can any one of those present tell me where I might find the crown prince?’ Lelou was standing at the end of the corridor, his notebook under his arm. What would he be writing at the end of that day? And the prince slept for ten years, his snores echoing through his father’s palace. . . .

Nerron pointed at the library door. ‘Eaumbre just found him. I think you should take a look at him. We were already wondering what he’s doing in the library without a girl.’

They were out on the street before Lelou’s cries alerted the guard by the entrance.

Crookback would find a particularly gruesome way to dispatch the Bug. But Nerron wasn’t going to miss Arsene Lelou.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

FRIEND AND FOE

The devil-horses lived up to their name. On the second night, one of them snuck up to Jacob with bared teeth; and Donnersmarck scalded his hands as he tried to feed the horses rabbit meat. But they were fast.

Border posts, icy passes. Lakes, forests, villages, towns. Jacob felt his fear for Fox eating through his body like a poison. The thought of finding her dead was unbearable, and so he tried to lock it away, just as he’d done with his longing for his father when he was a child. But he failed. With every day that passed, every mile they travelled, the images became more gruesome, and his dreams became so vivid that he’d wake up and search his hands for her blood.

To distract himself, he asked Donnersmarck about the Empress and her daughter, about the child that should not be, and about the Dark Fairy . . . But Donnersmarck’s voice kept turning into Fox’s: You will find the heart. I know it. pqdm.com