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‘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.’
A head poked around the living-room door. The rat-snout was grey, and the cat-eyes were clouded by age.
Dunbar turned around with a sigh. ‘Father! Why aren’t you sleeping?’ He led the old man to the sofa where Fox was sitting.
‘The two of you should have a lot you can talk about,’ Dunbar said. The old Fir Darrig was eyeing Fox warily. ‘Trust me, he knows everything about the blessings and the curse of wearing fur.’
He went to the door. ‘It’s an old tradition from a distant land,’ he said as he stepped out into the corridor, ‘but for the past two hundred years, Albion has believed in the miraculous properties of tea leaves. Even at five in the morning. Maybe they’ll make it easier for my tongue to say what you’ve come to hear.’
His father looked confused. But then he turned to Fox and looked at her with his milky eyes. ‘A vixen, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said. ‘Since birth?’
Fox shook her head. ‘I was seven. The fur was a gift.’
The Fir Darrig heaved a compassionate sigh. ‘Oh, that’s not easy,’ he mumbled. ‘Two souls in one heart. I hope the human in you won’t prove to be stronger in the end. They find it so much harder to make peace with the world.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SAME BLOOD
More nothing. Nerron threw another hand on to the pile of bones they’d already sifted through. Lelou had all but disappeared behind the pile. Eaumbre had smashed up one of the pews and stuck its wood into all the chandeliers, burning as torches, but the night smothered what little light they gave, and thousands of bones were still hidden in the dark, even from Goyl eyes.
What if the hand wasn’t in the damned church? What if it was still somewhere out there in the damp earth? They couldn’t possibly have dug up all the bones!
Nerron had run out of curses. He’d wished himself in a hundred different places, and he must have asked himself more than a thousand times whether Reckless had found the head yet. Still, all he could do was sift through another pale pile of human remains and hope for a miracle.
Lelou and the Waterman were helping him with moderate enthusiasm, but at least there were four extra hands to sort the legs, skulls, and ribs from the bony fingers. The good ones to your pot, the bad ones to your crop – he felt like Cinderella. Wrong thought, Nerron. That only reminded him that Reckless had found the glass slipper before him.
The Waterman lifted his head and reached for his pistol.
