‘We never know when death might claim us, right?’ Jacob flicked a spider off his sleeve. Her body was blue, like the amethyst rings Ramée was so famous for.
The old man swatted at the spider as she dropped between his fingers.
‘Spiders, mice, cockroaches!’ he muttered, wiping the spider off the table. ‘The cats can’t keep up with them! I might have to get some of those thieving Heinzel back after all.’
Another favourite subject. Heinzel.
‘Hippolyte, can you tell me something about a piece of jewellery? I saw it in a portrait at the history museum. The stone is black, slightly larger than a grape, set in a mesh of golden tendrils.’
Ramée stared at him aghast. Then he dropped his head, and his shaky hands began to sort the tools on the table in front of him. When he lifted his head again, the eyes behind the thick glasses were swimming with tears.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he panted at Jacob. ‘Is that some kind of cruel joke? I confessed everything to the Empress back then.’
He stood up so abruptly that the diamond he’d been working on was knocked off the table. ‘Did Amalie send you? Sure! What can you expect from a princess who gets herself knocked up by a Goyl!’
Ramée pressed his hand over his mouth as though he could stuff the words back inside. He shot a quick glance at the window, but the only one outside was a Dwarf standing in front of the shop window opposite.
What was the old man talking about? Jacob picked up the diamond and put it back on the table. It glistened like a frozen tear.
‘Nobody sent me,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for this piece myself. I just wanted to ask you whether you could get me a look at it.’
Ramée took off his glasses and agitatedly wiped the lenses with his sleeve. ‘Forget it!’ The words burst out of him. ‘The stone is lost. Just like Marie.’
Jacob took the glasses from his hands. He polished the lenses and handed them back to the old man. ‘Marie?’
Ramée’s hands were trembling as he took the glasses. He pointed at a photograph on the wall next to the door. A black ribbon was tied to the frame. The picture showed a young girl, maybe eighteen years old. Jacob went to the picture. Past reality, frozen by light, acid and silver. Behind the mirror you were still reminded what a miracle a photograph really was. The girl Jacob was looking at had hair so dark that it nearly melted into the sepia brown background. She looked a little stiff – after all, one had to sit still for a long time for a portrait like that – but her eyes were saying, Look at me. Am I not beautiful?
‘It was her first ball.’ Ramée stood by Jacob’s side. Only the heaviness of his steps hinted at the golden feet. ‘I’d just received the necklace, together with a few other pieces from the palace. I still don’t know what kind of stone it was. It had a strange consistency. But it looked so beautiful on Marie’s white skin. ‘Like a piece of night caught in gold, Grandpapa,’ is what she said. Who can refuse his own granddaughter? And it was only for the ball. She never returned. Gone. Just gone. As if she never existed. Her mother grieves so much, she now barely leaves the house. She tells herself Marie ran off with one of the officers who like to hang around those balls. She probably knows that the truth is far more unbearable.’
Ramée pulled back his sleeve. He was wearing a golden bracelet. The fine links looked tarnished, black. ‘You’ve heard about bracelets like this?’
Jacob nodded. Not many goldsmiths knew how to make them. You added a drop of blood to the gold. If the one whose blood it was, was well, the metal stayed bright; if it turned red, the person was in grave danger. And black could mean only one thing.