CHAPTER
15
A SLOW CREAK, FROM THE stairs to the second floor. A foot on the dirt. A voice, low and rough.
“Who’s there?” it said.
I pulled on Tom’s shirt. We ducked under the second display table, the one farthest from the light of the fireplace.
Footsteps came to the door, slowly, cautiously.
“Master? Is that you?”
He took another step forward. I could see a boot, covered in muck and fine white grains, a shred of parchment stuck to its heel. The leg of his breeches, gray wool, was tucked inside.
He came closer, and I could finally see his face. The light was dim, but it was enough to place him. Close-set eyes, sloping brow. Red hair, muscles. About sixteen years old. This time, no blue apron.
It was the apprentice. The one who had been in the shop this morning. The one who’d blocked out half the window, who’d laughed when my master had hit me.
I pushed farther back against the legs of the table. I prayed that the fact that I could barely see Tom cowering at the other end meant we were still in shadow. I also prayed that Bridget wouldn’t make a sound. She nestled against me, trembling. I wondered if she could smell my fear.
Another voice came, whispering from the workshop. “Wat? Where are you?”
“In here,” the apprentice replied.
The second man came into the shop. “Did you leave the back door op—” He gasped.
I knew that voice. I knew it well; I knew it before he stepped into view.
It was Nathaniel Stubb.
He gaped, aghast, at the mess. “Wat! What in the Nine Hells have you done?”
“What I was told to do,” Wat said, sounding annoyed. “Look for the bloody fire.”
Stubb cracked Wat on his ear. “Do you not understand what this is worth?” His eyes bulged. “Is that saffron? You idiot!”
Stubb scrambled to the end of the counter and tried to pluck the golden strands of saffron crocus from the vermilion it had mixed with. He didn’t see the look Wat gave him. Or the way the boy’s fingers gripped the handle of the broad, curved blade in his belt.
“Have you even found anything?” Stubb said. “Or are you just destroying this shop for the sake of it?”
Wat ground his teeth. “It isn’t here.”
“It has to be here. If you hadn’t killed Benedict so quickly, he would have told you where it was.”
The words pierced my heart like an arrow. Part of me already knew that Stubb had had something to do with my master’s death. Hearing it made it hurt all the same.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Wat said, sullen. “He’d already poisoned himself before I could get anything out of him.”
“Because you gave yourself away.”
“I didn’t!”
Stubb looked scornful. “Yes, I’m sure Master Apothecary Benedict Blackthorn chewed madapple by accident.”
The madapple. I’d forgotten all about it. Now I remembered the black, kidney-shaped seeds scattered around the glass jar in the workshop, just before I found my master’s body. I’d thought maybe the Cult of the Archangel had taken them, to use on future enemies. But Master Benedict had poisoned himself.
My mind raced. Why would he do that? To spare himself from the torture Wat was going to put him through, like the Cult’s other victims? Or was it more than that? Wat had wrecked my master’s shop searching for something. Had Master Benedict poisoned himself so he couldn’t tell the boy where it was?
I thought of the hidden message my master had left for me in the ledger. I’d left the page back at Tom’s place, stuffed under the mattress of his bed. It occurred to me that that was probably the best idea I’d had all day. Because whatever they were looking for, the secret to finding it had been given to me.
It was as if Stubb had heard my thoughts. “Why didn’t you at least stay to question the apprentice?” he said. My chest turned to ice.
Wat folded his arms. “He doesn’t know anything. Blackthorn hated him. He wouldn’t teach that boy how to wipe his own backside.”
In the darkness, I put my hand to my cheek. You are useless, Master Benedict had said, and he’d hit me. But all the time, he knew Wat was watching.
Master Benedict had struck me in front of Wat to save me, to throw the boy off my trail. The cruel sting of the memory evaporated, leaving an aching emptiness inside. Oh, Master, I cried out to him. Why did you stay when you knew they would kill you? Why didn’t you come with me instead? Why didn’t you take my hand and run?
“I don’t care what Benedict thought of his apprentice,” Stubb said. “The boy might have seen something, heard something, read something. Find him and question him. Then get rid of him, same as the others, whether he knows about the fire or not. We can’t risk keeping him alive.”
I felt like I was frozen. I think Tom had stopped breathing, too.
Wat shrugged. “Fine,” he said, and he moved to go.
“Not now, you fool,” Stubb said. “How are you going to find where he went in the middle of the night? Do it tomorrow. Finish checking the books.”
Wat scowled. “Do you have any idea how many books this old man had?”
Stubb brought his hand up to strike the boy. “Watch your tongue.”
They locked eyes. For a moment, I was sure Wat was going to pull his knife. Instead, slowly, he reached down and took a leather-bound tome from the floor. He slapped it on the counter, puffing a cloud of orange powder into the air. Stubb coughed. Wat smirked, then started flipping pages.
Stubb returned to the saffron, trying to rescue as much of it as he could. Both of them were facing away from us. That wouldn’t last forever.
We needed to get out of here. Now.
Stubb was blocking the door to the workshop. The front door, behind me, was bolted shut. Maybe I could slip that open and unlock the door while their backs were turned. I almost crawled out from under the table before I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.
The key. I’d left the key to the shop on the counter.
It was still there, dull gray iron in a pile of sugar. I cursed. I might be able to crawl around the far side of the room without getting spotted, but getting to the counter unseen was never going to happen. There was only one way out.
I needed to get Stubb away from the workshop’s door.
I tried to think. A corner of the puzzle cube tucked under Master Benedict’s sash poked into my stomach. I shifted, trying to adjust it so it would stop. Across from me, Tom curled up even tighter. He looked so scared, I thought he was going to cry. I knew exactly how he felt.
But it was looking at Tom that gave me the idea.
I held Bridget out to him. Fingers trembling, he gathered her in massive, gentle hands and held her close. His eyes widened as I slipped away.
I moved around the table, keeping the wood between me and the intruders. There was a gap in the middle of the room I’d need to cross, but I hoped if I stayed in the shadows, they wouldn’t notice me.
I crawled slowly to the other table, close to the fireplace. My heart thumped all the way there. Huddled behind the display, I searched through my master’s sash. Fortunately, Wat hadn’t broken the vials inside when he’d dumped it. I had to pull half of them out to read the labels before I found the three I was looking for.
Sulfur. Charcoal. And saltpeter.
Wat’s ransacking of my master’s books had left torn paper everywhere. I could use that. Quietly, I worked the cork stoppers out and emptied the vials on one of the pages. My fingers mixed the gunpowder as best as I could. Without the pestle, it wasn’t going to be as good as our cannon. I prayed that it would still do.
This close to the fire, I’d have only a few seconds to get it right. I put the paper with the gunpowder on it next to the fireplace. I took a second page and laid it on top, one corner on the gunpowder, its opposite in the blaze.
It caught instantly. The fire curled the paper faster than I’d expected. I scrambled into the open and dived behind the table that hid Tom and Bridget.
Stubb spun around, eyes narrowed. “What was th—”
Suddenly, the fireplace flared. There was a terrifying hiss. Then flame burst outward from the stone, burning pages shooting upward in its draft.
“Fire!” Stubb screamed. “Put it out! Put it out!” Frantic, he scanned the shelf behind the counter for water. Wat ran through the smoke to the fireplace and stamped at it, trying desperately to stop the smoldering paper from catching anything else.
I grabbed Tom by the collar. I pulled. We ran.
• • •
Tom sprinted through the London night, clutching the panicked Bridget. I ran behind him, twisting at every corner to see if we were followed.
Either we lost them or they hadn’t seen us, because we made it to the alley behind Tom’s house without sight of Wat or Nathaniel Stubb. We nearly crushed ourselves at the back door—or, more accurately, Tom nearly crushed me—trying to scramble inside at the same time. I slammed the bolt shut and bent over the table, panting. Tom leaned back against the plaster and slid down, gasping for air.
Poor Bridget struggled in his hands. I had to coax her from him, and hold her to my face until she quieted. She was made of sturdy stuff, that pigeon, because she calmed down well before either of us did.
I went to the window. I looked for a glow, for smoke, for something to announce that the gunpowder I’d set off had flared out of control, that I’d burned my own home to the ground. But I saw nothing, and I knew that by now, if the fire had caught, the alarm would have been raised. Still, I watched, waiting.
Tom looked out next to me, his arm pressed against my shoulder. “Are we safe?” he said.
I didn’t know how to answer that.