Fearless (15 page)

Fox reached for his hand. ‘How are you feeling? We’ll be there soon.’

Beyond the hills they could see the roofs of Goldsmouth, the home port of the Albian navy. Beyond that was the sea, grey and vast. It seemed calmer than on their crossing.
Good.
Jacob couldn’t believe he had to get on a ship again.

Fox whispered across the table: ‘Do you still have money? Or did you spend it all on the blood shard?’

Jacob knew a ship’s outfitter who sold genuine navy uniforms, but they weren’t cheap, and his handkerchief was becoming less and less reliable. It had produced the last coin so reluctantly, they’d nearly been unable to pay for their train tickets. Jacob put his hand in his pocket, and his fingers touched Earlking’s card. He couldn’t resist. He pulled it out.

THAT HURT, DIDN’T IT? AND IT WILL GET WORSE WITH EVERY BITE. FAIRIES LOVE THE PAIN THEY CAN CAUSE TO MORTALS.

BY THE WAY, I VISITED YOUR BROTHER TODAY.

Fox looked at him.

‘Who’s the card from?’ She tried to make the question sound casual, but Jacob knew who she was thinking of. She hadn’t forgotten the Larks’ Water. And he could remember the pain in her eyes even more clearly than Clara’s kisses.
Maybe you should have told her, Jacob.

He pushed the card across the table. The words were already fading as she reached for it.

‘It’s a magical thing!’ Fox turned the card around. ‘Norebo Johann Earlking?’

The conductor came through the carriage to announce the next stop.

‘Yes. And he didn’t give me the card in this world.’ Jacob got up. The other world suddenly felt so close that the clothes everyone around him wore seemed like costumes. Top hats, buttoned boots, laced hems . . . He felt lost between the two worlds, neither here nor there.

‘What has he got to do with Will?’

Yes, what? It didn’t sound as though this was just about a few heirlooms. Jacob didn’t like it at all, but the mirror was far away, and it might be weeks before he got to see Will again. If he got to see him again.

Oh, to hell with it . . .
He would see his brother again.

Fox lifted the card to her nose. Always the vixen, even in her human skin. ‘Silver. And there’s a scent I don’t recognise.’ She returned the card to him and reached for her coat. Jacob had been with her when she bought it. The fabric was nearly the same colour as her fur. ‘I don’t like that smell. Be careful.’

The other travellers started pushing them towards the door. Though the platform was lost in the steam of the locomotive, the wind brought the smell of salt and tar from the port. Porters. Taxi drivers. There were two porters with wooden seats on their backs; they were waiting for the two Dwarfs who’d been sitting behind them in the dining car. Being barely three feet tall and trying to push one’s way through a train station was no fun.

They took one of the cabs waiting in front of the station. Fox got off at the square where the ships’ outfitters had their shops, but Jacob instructed the driver to take him to the port. They could only hope Dunbar was right with his theory about the Witch Slayer’s head. But to be certain, they had to find a way to get on board the royal flagship first.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IRON FLANKS

T
here they lay, hull by hull. The creaking of wet rope mingled with the screeches of gulls and the voices of men readying their ships for departure. Albion’s navy was matched by no other on this side of the mirror. And that confidence was stamped on the faces of every one of the sailors carrying ditty bags up the swaying gangways, and of the officers leaning on the railing. The flag with the crowned Dragon flapped above them all. Albion wasn’t even keeping the fleet’s mission a secret.

Jacob picked up a newspaper from the wet cobblestones. Every letter of the headline on the front page sprouted curlicues yet was as clear as the headlines in his world.

REGAL FLEET TO DELIVER ARMS TO FLANDERS

From Albion’s Factories Springs Hope in the Fight Against the Goyl

They felt very safe. Everybody knew about the Goyl’s fear of the sea. Albion didn’t supply weapons to just Flanders, either. Her ships also took arms to the north, where an alliance was forming against the Goyl. Almost the entire fleet sailed under both steam and wind these days, and its cannons’ firepower was legendary. But that still didn’t seem to be enough for Wilfred the Walrus.

Jacob stared at the sketch printed on the next page. Though he could barely make it out on the wet paper, his heart began to beat at a ridiculous pace, just as it did when he’d seen the aeroplanes in the Goyl fortress. The quest he’d abandoned so long ago. The trail that had always disappeared into nothing. And he’d stumbled on to it again, in a place where he never would have thought to look.

THE
VULCAN
IN ITS BERTH IN GOLDSMOUTH

Our Tempered Terror of the Seas Embarks on Third Mission to Escort Arms Delivery

Masterpiece of Albian Engineering Sets Goyl Atremble

Jacob put down the newspaper and scanned the row of ships.

To his left lay the ship he’d come to Goldsmouth for: the
Titania
, flagship of the Albian fleet, named after the King’s mother. Three hundred and Seventy-six crew. Forty-five cannons. The grimy waters of the harbour reflected the figurehead, but Jacob only gave her a cursory glance. His eyes were searching for the ship from the front page.

Where was it?

His glance wandered past wooden hulls and masts until it found pale sunlight reflected on metal.

There she was. At the last berth. Grey, ugly, like a steel shark in a school of wooden mackerel. The low hull rose just a few feet above the water and was clad, like the funnels, in iron all the way down to the waterline. In Jacob’s world, the first iron ships had been instrumental in deciding the American Civil War. This, however, was already a much more modern version.

Jacob! Forget it!
But reason didn’t stand a chance. His heart beat in his throat as he picked his way past crates and duffel bags, through groups of seamen hauling munitions and provisions, women saying farewell to their husbands, and children pressing teary faces into their fathers’ uniforms. It was like stumbling through one of his dreams, only this forest was made up of ships’ masts.

Up close the iron ship looked even more impressive. It was enormous, even though most of the hull was hidden beneath the waterline. Four men stood by the gangway that led from the pier up to the deck. Three of them were officers of the Regal Navy, but the fourth was wearing civilian clothes. That man had his back to Jacob. His hair was grey, and he wore it short, just as Jacob did.

What if it was him? After all these years.
Turn back, Jacob. It’s over; it’s in the past.
But he was twelve again. The moth on his chest was forgotten. Forgotten, too, was what he’d come here for. He just stood there and stared at the iron ship and at the back of a stranger.

Jacob!

A cabin boy ran past him, two boxes of cigars under his scrawny arms. A final errand for the officers. He looked up in alarm as Jacob grabbed hold of him. ‘Do you know who that man is? The one standing with the officers?’

The boy gave him a look as though Jacob had asked him to name the sun. ‘That’s Brunel. He built the
Vulcan
, and he’s already planning a new ship.’

Jacob let the boy go.

One of the officers looked around, but the civilian still had his back to Jacob.

Brunel. Not a very common name. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was one of his father’s heroes. Jacob had barely been seven when John Reckless had tried to explain Brunel’s iron-bridge blueprints to him.

All those years, and now there were just a few steps left.

‘Mister Brunel?’ How timid his voice sounded. As though he really was twelve again.

Brunel turned around, and Jacob found himself looking into the eyes of a stranger. Only the eyes were as grey as his father’s.

Jacob wasn’t sure what he felt. Disappointment? Relief? Both?

Say something, Jacob. Go on.

‘Brunel. That’s an unusual name.’

‘My father was from Lotharaine.’ Brunel smiled. ‘May I ask who . . .’

‘Why, that’s Jacob Reckless.’ The officer standing next to Brunel gave Jacob a nod. ‘Quite a different kind of trade. Hunting for old magic. And this man here happens to be very good at it.’ He offered his hand to Jacob. ‘Cunningham. Not nearly as interesting a name. Lieutenant in the Regal Navy. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Thankfully, our newspapers still like to publish reports about treasure hunters, even if they mostly poke fun at the artefacts these days. A medal from the Austrian Empress for a glass slipper. The Iron Cross of Bavaria for a pair of seven-league boots. I admit to harbouring some envy for your trade. As a child I was determined to pursue your profession and no other.’

‘Congratulations.’ Brunel gave Jacob an appreciative nod. His accent didn’t at all sound Lotharainian.

Behind them, torpedoes were being loaded on board. They’d shred any wooden hull like paper.

Cunningham’s eyes followed Jacob as he bade the men farewell. Brunel, however, had already turned his attention to the ship again. Albion’s new magician.

Relief and disappointment. An old hope, all but forgotten. Jacob barely saw where he was walking. Barrels, ropes, crates . . . everything around him was blurred like his face on the dark glass of the mirror.
‘Look at that, Jacob. This bridge is weightless and as perfect as a spider’s web – but it’s made of iron.’
Did he even remember what his father looked like? He remembered his voice, the hands that had lifted him on to the desk so he could touch the model planes that hung above it.

‘Jacob!’

Someone grabbed his arm. Fox.

‘The outfitter wanted a fortune.’ She shot a furtive glance at the sailors hauling sacks of coal to the
Titania
’s cargo hatch. ‘I only had enough for one uniform. Have you found a way to get us on board?’

Damn. He’d found out nothing. He’d so lost himself in memories that he had nearly forgotten he soon would have no future.

‘What’s with you?’ Fox looked worried. ‘Did something happen?’

‘No. Nothing.’ And that was the truth. Nothing had happened. He’d seen a ghost, the same ghost he kept stumbling after in his dreams. It was high time he buried not just his mother but also his father. He’d thought he’d done so already.

He took the bundled uniform off Fox. A few sailors were staring so openly at her that Jacob gave them a sharp look. ‘How will you get on board?’

Fox shrugged. ‘I’ll let the vixen find a way.’

‘That’s too dangerous.’

‘Mister Reckless?’

Jacob turned around. He’d expected Brunel’s slender face, but it was Cunningham who was standing behind him.

The officer bowed stiffly to Fox and gave Jacob a slightly awkward smile. ‘We . . . eh . . . only set to sea in an hour. I would like to introduce you to our captain. I’m sure he’d find some of your adventures very interesting.’

Jacob quickly had a polite refusal on the tip of his tongue, but Fox interceded. ‘Which ship do you serve on, Mr Cunningham?’

Cunningham pointed behind him. ‘The
Titania
. We’re escorting a shipment of arms to Flanders. We sail at sunset.’

Fox gave Cunningham her most seductive smile. ‘It will be our pleasure,’ she said, taking the bundle with the uniform from Jacob’s arms and quickly hiding it behind her back.

Cunningham’s bearded face beamed with delight, and Jacob sent a silent apology to all the reporters he’d ever cursed for the lies and exaggerations they had published about him.

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘We’re in no rush. I wouldn’t even mind coming along for the whole journey. I love going on voyages.’ A more brazen lie had never left his lips.

Cunningham looked as though he couldn’t believe his luck.

The captain of the
Titania
shared his first officer’s passion for treasure hunting. He put them up in the cabin the King himself used whenever he paid a visit to his flagship. When Cunningham introduced them as Jacob Reckless and wife, Jacob had to explain that Fox was only blushing because they hadn’t been married long. It was just one of the many lies he’d have to come up with over the next hours.

The captain served them a dinner opulent enough for a journey of three hundred days instead of three. As the
Titania
weighed anchor, the ship’s cook was serving dessert, and Jacob found it increasingly difficult to ignore the movements of the ship while Cunningham quizzed him about adventures that had been completely made up by some newspaper. When the captain, whose moustache was just as dreadful as his King’s, began quizzing Jacob about the butchering techniques of Ogres, Fox used the bloody subject as a pretext to excuse herself. Jacob would have loved to follow her, but Cunningham wouldn’t let him go. Jacob had to console himself with the fact that by the time he’d be able to get away, Fox would have checked all the guards and escape routes on board. Through the stern windows of the captain’s cabin, Jacob could see lanterns of other frigates, and ahead were the moonlit iron flanks of Brunel’s ship.