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The living room filled with thick silence. Tears might have helped, but she could never cry when she was afraid.
‘Of course. The third shot . . . Guismond’s younger son.’ Dunbar went to the piano and touched the keys. ‘Is he that desperate, that he puts his hope into some half-forgotten legend?’
‘He’s tried everything else.’
Dunbar struck a key, and in that single note Fox heard all the sadness of the world. This was not a good night.
‘So the Red Fairy found him?’
‘He went back to her himself.’
Dunbar shook his head. ‘Then he doesn’t deserve better.’
‘He did it for his brother.’ Talk, Fox. Dunbar believed in words. He lived among them. But the Fairy’s moth was eating Jacob’s heart, and there were no words to stop it.
‘Please!’ For a brief moment, Fox was tempted to point the rifle at Dunbar’s chest. The things fear made you do. And love.
Dunbar looked at the rifle as though he’d guessed her thoughts. ‘I nearly forgot I’m talking to a vixen. Your human form is so misleading, though it suits you very well.’
Fox felt herself blush.
Dunbar smiled, but his face quickly turned serious again. ‘I don’t know where the head is.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Really? And who says so?’
‘The vixen.’
‘Then let’s put it this way. I don’t know exactly, but I have a hunch.’ He picked up the rifle and stroked its long barrel. ‘The crossbow is worth a hundred thousand rifles like this. One single shot will turn the man who wields it into a mass murderer. I’m sure they’ll come up with machines that can do the same soon enough. The new magic is the old magic. The same goals, the same greed . . .’
Dunbar took aim at Fox – then he lowered the rifle.
‘I need your word. By the fur you’re wearing. By Jacob’s life. By all that’s holy to you, that he will not sell the crossbow.’
‘I’ll leave you my fur as a bond.’ No words had ever been more difficult to say.
Dunbar shook his head. ‘No. I won’t ask that much.’
o;Go after him,’ Nerron said to the Waterman.
‘Yes, go after him, Eaumbre!’ Lelou echoed. His voice sounded panicky.
But the Waterman just stood there and stared with his six eyes at the door Louis had disappeared through.
‘Eaumbre! Go!’ Lelou repeated shrilly.
The Waterman didn’t move.
As proud as a Waterman. Even the Goyl knew that saying.
‘Never mind. He’ll be back,’ Nerron said. ‘Our princeling is right. He doesn’t need us to get himself drunk.’
Lelou moaned. ‘But his fa—’
Nerron cut him off: ‘Didn’t you hear me? He’ll be back! We have to find a hand with gilded fingernails. So start looking, Lelou.’
The Bug wanted to reply, but then he ducked his head and began sifting through the bones that had poured out of the alcove.
