Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,60
Only a gas lamp burning on the table. Fox was standing next to it; she was looking at something in her hand. The lamp’s light made her skin as white as milk.
She spun around as he sat up, and hid her hand behind her back.
‘What do you have there?’
She didn’t answer. ‘The moth on your chest has three spots,’ she said. ‘When was the other time?’
‘In Saint-Riquet.’ Jacob had never seen her face look so pale. He sat up. ‘What is that in your hand?’
She flinched.
‘What’s that in your hand, Fox?’ His knees were still weak from the pain, but Jacob grabbed her arm and pulled the hand out from behind her back.
She opened her fingers.
A glass ring.
Jacob had seen a similar one in the Empress’s Chambers of Miracles.
‘You didn’t put that on my finger, did you? Fox!’ He grabbed her shoulders. ‘Tell me the truth. This ring was not on my finger. Please!’
Tears ran down her face. But then she shook her head. Jacob took the ring before she could close her hand. She reached for it, but Jacob put it in his pocket. Then he pulled her close. She sobbed like a child, and he held her as firmly as he could.
‘Promise me!’ he whispered. ‘Promise me you’ll never try something like that again. Promise!’
‘No!’ she replied.
‘What? Do you think I want you dead instead of me?’
‘I just wanted to give you time.’
‘These rings are dangerous. Every second you put it on my finger will lose you a year. And sometimes they can’t be pulled off before they have taken your entire life.’
She struggled free and wiped the tears off her face.
‘I want you to live.’ She whispered the words, as though she feared death might hear them and take them as a challenge.
‘Good. Then let’s find the heart before the Goyl does. I’m sure I can ride. Who knows when they’ll get that coach repaired?’
‘There are no horses.’ Fox went to the window. ‘The landlord sold his only riding horses the day before yesterday, to four men. He boasted to Troisclerq that one of them was Louis of Lotharaine. He had a Goyl with him, with a green-speckled skin. They only stopped briefly and rode on that same afternoon.’
The day before yesterday. It’s even more hopeless than you thought.
Fox pushed open the window, as if letting out the fear. The air that came rushing in was as cold and damp as snow. There was laughter from downstairs, and Jacob recognised the loud voice of the lawyer who’d sat next to him in the coach.
Louis of Lotharaine. The Bastard was hunting the crossbow for Crookback.
Fox turned around. ‘Troisclerq heard me ask about horses because we had to push on urgently. He bribed the landlord to send his workmen to the coach. I told him we’ll pay him back, but he won’t hear of it.’
They would pay him back. Jacob pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. He was already too deep in Troisclerq’s debt.
‘I tried that,’ said Fox.
She was right. No matter how hard Jacob rubbed the fabric, the only thing the tattered handkerchief produced was the card on which were still the same words. FORGET THE HAND, JACOB. It had been good advice.
‘We could ask Chanute to send some money,’ Fox suggested. ‘You still have some in the bank in Schwanstein, right?’
Yes, he did. But it wasn’t much. Jacob took her hand.
‘You’ll get the ring back once all this is over,’ he said. ‘But you have to promise me you’ll never use it.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
TOO MANY COOKS
The best! No, Nerron couldn’t remember ever having felt that good. He’d taken Jacob Reckless’s loot and had humiliated him like a rookie.
Not even the princeling could spoil his mood, even though Louis told everyone Nerron had let an Albian spy get away, and that after he, Louis, had brought him an impeccable virgin. A whole day long the prince refused to set off to Vena, and even now he kept sneaking off with every girl that let herself be dazzled by his diamond buttons. The Waterman spent his nights searching the barns and farmhouses for him. Eaumbre had begun to eye his royal charge with such distaste, Nerron wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d found Louis drowned in a trough one morning. Of course, none of that was mentioned in the journal in which Lelou kept scribbling tirelessly. Instead, it noted every castle they passed, every icy road, and every mountain gnome that threw a stone at them. Nerron checked the tutor’s