Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,63

I’m sure we’ll meet again.’

He joined Fox in the cab.

Celeste . . . Jacob liked calling her Fox.

He watched the cab until it disappeared behind a tram. You will find the heart. He looked around. Where to first, Jacob? To the state archives, where all of Austry’s treasures were catalogued? To the mausoleum where Guismond’s daughter rested among her imperial descendants? He tried to summon the rage he’d felt in the forest, the urge to get even with the Bastard . . . but he felt nothing. As though the moth was actually eating his heart.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

DIFFERENT METHODS

Strange, how humans liked to do their forbidden deeds in cellars. As though crawling underground was enough to remain undetected. A Goyl always would have chosen the light of day.

The man, whose name Nerron had been given by an undertaker, plied his illegal business beneath a well-established butcher shop. The smells wafting through the door above were the perfect disguise for the kinds of goods he traded beneath.

The cellar stairs that led down to his place of business were unlit. They ended in front of a door with an enamelled sign: BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. The man who opened to Nerron’s knock was the same undertaker who’d given him the address. He was as bald as an amber-gnome, and he was hiding a knife under his black frock coat. He waved Nerron into a room that was so dark that only a Goyl could immediately see what was sold there. Jars with eyes, teeth, claws of any kind; cabinets filled with hands, paws, hooves, ears, noses, and skulls of any shape and size. Potent ingredients for giving your neighbour a headache, or your philandering husband a pair of goat-hooves. Harm-spells. That’s what this forbidden craft was called. The Witches dismissed it as human superstition, but even the Empress’s daughter liked to have eyes or teeth placed under her enemies’ beds to harm their health. Nerron, of course, noticed that this particular pharmacy also offered a considerable range of Goyl limbs, which when ground into a powder were supposed to cause paralysis.

The man who traded in all this looked as though he himself had become a victim of his craft. The yellow skin was stretched over his bones as if it had been worn by someone else before. He was wearing a white coat, like all the apothecaries who’d switched from the healing to the hurting kind of medicine because of its larger profits and because the clients could hardly come and complain if the sinister remedies failed to work.

‘The undertaker told you what I’m looking for?’

‘He did indeed.’ The surprisingly full mouth stretched into an obliging smile. ‘It’s about a heart. A very special heart. Very expensive merchandise.’

Nerron emptied a purse of red moonstone on to the spotless white counter. The smile grew even wider.

‘That might be enough. It was quite a challenge to find the merchandise. But I have my sources.’

The apothecary turned around and opened one of the enamelled drawers behind him. It contained hearts of every size and shape; some were as small as hazelnuts, and the biggest one looked like the well-preserved heart of a Giant.

‘You won’t find a finer collection in all of Vena.’ Another smile, proud, like that of a florist praising his roses. ‘The spell that keeps my merchandise fresh is quite complicated and not without hazards, but that’s, of course, not necessary for this heart. This, after all, is the heart of a Warlock. And I probably don’t have to explain what that means.’

He reached for a silver case next to the Giant heart. The heart the case contained was no bigger than a fig and had the consistency of black opal. Guismond’s heraldic animal was etched into the smooth surface: the crowned wolf.

‘As you can see, it’s in pristine condition. It was, after all, in the possession of the imperial family these past centuries.’

The undertaker first, Nerron.

Nerron spun around and smashed the man’s head into the wall before the dolt even realised what was happening.

‘How stupid does one have to be to try and sell a fake stone to a Goyl?’ he hissed at the apothecary. ‘Do you think we’re as ignorant as you people and can’t tell an opal from a petrified heart? One stone’s like any other, right? What do you think my skin’s made of? Jasper?’

He swiped the case off the counter. Disappointing. Very disappointing. Your own fault, Nerron. You’re trying to find the heart of a King, and here you are,