Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,90

come true someday.’ Not a bad lie. Somewhere in the east was a goose feather that supposedly did just that.

‘Someday?’

Jacob shrugged. He wiped the grease off his tied hands. ‘Depends on the wish. One, two weeks . . .’

Hopefully, their paths would have parted by then. They’d been travelling for four days. The Witch must have finished with Donnersmarck by now, unless she’d killed him or turned him into some insect. But taking him before she finished her magic would have meant certain death.

They rested in caves at night. The Goyl always found one, and Jacob was glad for it. The nights were still so cold that he froze, despite the blanket the Bastard had brought him. His arm hurt from the Witch’s knife, and the cuts from Troisclerq’s rapier burnt his skin. But what really robbed him of his sleep was the uncertainty of whether Fox had made it to safety. He kept seeing her weary face. You’re asking too much of her, Jacob. Too often had his only gift to her been fear – experienced together and conquered together, but fear still. Yet in the child-eater’s stable, all of that had been forgotten. Then he’d just wanted to protect her. But in the end, and like so many times before, it was she who had to help him.

‘Don’t you wish it was just the two of us?’ The Goyl had lowered his voice, though the other three seemed to be fast asleep. ‘No prince, no Bug, no Waterman, not even the vixen. Just you and me, against each other.’

‘The prince could be useful.’

‘What for?’

‘He’s related to Guismond. What if you need to have the blood of the Witch Slayer to get into the palace? It is, after all, awaiting his children.’

‘Yes. I thought of that as well.’ The Bastard looked up at the bats stirring under the cave ceiling. ‘But I hate the idea of having to drag that blue-blooded airhead with me until the end. No. There’s always another way.’

Jacob closed his eyes. He was tired of how the Goyl’s face reminded him of his brother’s jade skin. Even the cave looked like the cave where he and Will had argued.

The pain was stirring again in his chest, so suddenly that he could barely suppress the scream that wanted to explode from his lips.

Damn.

He clutched his bound hands to his chest. It will pass. It will pass. How many times now? Try to remember, Jacob! Five. This was the fifth. One more bite. There couldn’t be much left of his heart.

‘What is this?’ The Bastard looked anxiously at Jacob’s pain-stricken face. ‘Did Louis give you anything to drink?’

Jacob could have laughed, if he’d had any breath left. Not a baseless suspicion. The royal house of Lotharaine had a long tradition of poisoning its enemies.

The Bastard pulled Jacob’s hands from his chest and tore his shirt open. The moth was now as black as the onyx in Nerron’s skin, and the red outline of its skull-spotted wings looked like fresh blood.

Nerron recoiled as though he was afraid he might contaminate himself.

Jacob leant against the cave wall. The pain was subsiding, but he probably made quite a pitiable sight. Was this what the Red Fairy had in mind when she’d whispered her sister’s name in his ear? Had she pictured this while she kissed him? That he’d be writhing like a wounded animal, paying with his agony for her pain? Only that she wasn’t going to die of her broken heart.

She has no heart, Jacob.

Nerron poured out the wine he’d brought, and filled the beaker with a brown liquid. ‘Drink slowly,’ he instructed Jacob before putting the beaker in his bound hands. ‘I’m not sure your stomach can take Goyl spirits.’

It tasted like sugared lava.

The Bastard pushed the cork back into the bottle. ‘I have to be careful Louis doesn’t find this. He’d kill himself with it, and his father would execute me. This was the Dark One, I assume? I always wondered how you managed to steal your brother from under her nose.’ He put the bottle back in his sack. ‘The third bolt . . . you want the crossbow for yourself! What if that story is just a myth?’

‘I tried everything else.’ Jacob forced down another gulp of Goyl liquor. It warmed better than any blanket.

‘The apple? The well?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Djinn blood? The ones from the north. Quite dangerous, but . . .’

‘Didn’t work.’

The Bastard shook his head. ‘Don’t your mothers tell you to stay away