Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,11

over by some hungry Heinzel. A few months later he’d met Albert Chanute, and he’d lost his heart for good to the world behind the mirror.

The windows of The Ogre were still shuttered. Jacob tied Alma’s horse in front of the tavern’s door. Only the windows to his own room were open, just as he’d left them. Fox sometimes slept there when he was gone. He’d spent the whole journey lining up the words he wanted to say to her. But there was no version that made the truth sound any better.

Chanute’s new cook was behind the counter, washing the previous night’s dirty glasses. Chanute had hired the former soldier after too many tavern guests had complained about the food the owner cooked himself. Tobias Wenzel had lost his left leg in one of the battles with the Goyl, and he drank too much, but he was a very good cook.

‘He’s upstairs,’ he said as Jacob approached the bar. ‘Careful, though. He’s got a toothache, and the Goyl just raised the taxes.’

The Goyl had been ruling Austry for half a year, and nobody in Schwanstein suspected that the Reckless brothers had not been entirely blameless in this. Not that it would have interested anyone much, anyway. The men were back from the war (those who had survived it), and the Goyl were building new factories and roads, which was good for trade. Even the mayor was still the same. There were bombings and organised resistance in the capital, but most of the country had learnt to live with the new masters. And the Empress’s throne now belonged to her daughter, who was pregnant by her stone-skinned husband.

Chanute barked a grouchy ‘What?’ when Jacob knocked on his door. His chamber was crammed with even more memorabilia than The Ogre’s taproom.

‘Well, I never!’ he growled. His hand was pressed to a swollen cheek. ‘This time I really thought you wouldn’t come back.’ A toothache. Not something you wanted to have on this side of the mirror. Jacob had once had an infected tooth extracted in Vena. Fighting an Ogre took less courage.

‘And?’ Chanute scrutinised him through squinting eyes. ‘Did you find the bottle?’

‘Yes.’

‘See? I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.’ Chanute wiped a quill on his wooden hand and stared at the paper in front of him. He’d been writing his memoirs ever since some drunk patron had told him he could make a fortune from them.

‘Yes, I found it.’ Jacob went to the window. ‘But the blood didn’t help.’

Chanute put down his quill. He tried very hard not to look concerned, but he’d never been a good actor. ‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘Never mind, though. You’ll think of something else. What about the apple? The one in that sultan’s cursed garden? You know the one!’

Jacob already had the answer on his tongue, but the old man looked worried, so he quickly swallowed the truth. Chanute probably would have ridden off himself to find a cure. Chanute had grown old. He wore his prosthetic arm less often now because it caused him too much pain. And his hearing had grown so weak that twice already he’d nearly run into a carriage in the market square. No. Jacob still felt those calloused hands on his skin from all the beatings the old man had given him, but he owed everything he’d achieved in this world to Albert Chanute and to what the old treasure hunter had taught him. He owed him a lie.

‘Sure,’ Jacob said. ‘The apple. How could I forget?’

Chanute’s ugly face stretched into a relieved smile. ‘There you go. You’ll sort it out. And there’s also always that well.’

Jacob turned his back to him. He couldn’t let Chanute see the truth on his face.

‘Damn! I wish that Ogre had chewed off my head instead of my arm.’ Chanute held his hand to his cheek again. ‘You don’t have any moor-root on you?’ Eating moor-root numbed any pain, but it also made you feel for days as if you were being swarmed by will-o’-the-wisps. Jacob pulled the tin that contained his first-aid kit from his rucksack: moor-root, fever-haulm, a wound-dressing salve Alma had concocted for him, iodine, aspirin, and some antibiotics from the other world. Jacob fished out one of the roots and offered it to Chanute. The roots looked like shrivelled grubs, and they tasted hideous.

‘Where is Fox? Is she here?’

She’d been sensing for a while that something was wrong. But as long as there’d been hope, he’d found it easy