CHAPTER
14
“THIS IS MADNESS,” TOM HISSED.
“You said that already,” I whispered.
“And yet, here we are, still doing it. So, if you don’t mind: This is madness.”
He had a point. Sneaking through the alleys of London at midnight wasn’t the smartest idea in the world. At best, you’d meet a parade of drunks. At worst, you wouldn’t see the sunrise. And if you ran into a parish constable on patrol, he’d be as likely to crack your skull as question you, since he’d just assume you were up to no good.
No lanterns hung in the streets. City regulations forbade them after nine p.m. There were torch boys you could hire to light your way, but that obviously wasn’t an option for us. We traveled instead by the half-moon, which cast the city in a foggy silver glow. Fortunately, my home wasn’t far, just three streets away from Tom’s. We dodged behind the clattering cart of the night-soil men, bolted through one more alleyway, then hopped a stone fence, and we were outside Blackthorn’s workshop at the back.
“How are we going to get in?” Tom said. “I thought the Guild Council took your key.”
They had. Except they didn’t know about the key Master Benedict kept hidden, and I hadn’t told them where to find it. At the back corner of the house, a column of cracked brick led up the side of the chimney. I dragged my fingers along it, feeling for the symbol. I found it, etched near eye height on the left side, camouflaged by the brick’s natural pattern.
Tom cocked his head. “Isn’t that a planet?”
He was right. This was the symbol for Mars. I wondered why Master Benedict had used it to mark his key. I was still thinking about it when a frenzied fluttering burst in front of my face. I jumped. Tom gave a little squeak I didn’t know a boy his size could make.
My heart started up again when I saw it was just a pigeon. It flapped its wings and landed next to me. In the moonlight, it took me a moment to recognize her. “Bridget!”
She cooed.
I knelt and scooped her into my hands. She nuzzled against my fingers. “What are you doing out here?” I said.
Tom pointed upward. “Look.”
Right above us, at the edge of the roof, the door to our pigeon coop swung open in the breeze. I cursed. Whatever idiot the Guild Council had sent to feed the pigeons hadn’t latched it behind him. All our birds would be gone. And out in the wild, Bridget could have been hurt.
She wriggled in my fingers, alarmed by my voice. I stopped swearing and stroked her feathers to calm her. She still managed to look offended.
Tom looked around nervously. “We can’t stay out here all night.”
Right again. I cradled Bridget in one arm and pulled on the brick with the symbol of Mars. It slid outward, scraping on the masonry. Behind it was a small nook. Inside was the key to our house.
When I went to the back door, however, it was already unlocked. The same idiot who’d lost our birds hadn’t even secured the house when he left. I was about to start swearing again, but when we went inside, I couldn’t find my voice.
Our workshop had been ransacked.
A low fire left burning in the oven in the corner gave enough light to see the damage. Pots and cookware were scattered across the benches. Books, flipped open, had been tossed aside like garbage. The ceramic jars were overturned, leaving rainbow powder starbursts on the floorboards. Even the ice vault in the floor was open, the precious chipped chunks left exposed to melt.
It wasn’t until Bridget made a strangled cry that I realized I was squeezing her.
Tom tugged on my sleeve. “We need to go.”
I couldn’t. Against Tom’s urging, I went forward, trembling, into the shop. I expected bad. I got even worse.
Half the jars were off the shelves, some tipped over, some shattered, herbs and powders blown everywhere. Here, too, the books were torn apart, pages fallen across the room like an ink-stained blanket of snow. Even the stuffed animals hadn’t been spared. Every one was sliced open, straw sprayed over the rest of the mess.
My shoulders shook. The horrible, hateful monsters. Were they going to destroy everything I cared about? For a moment, I wanted to collapse. But I didn’t break my promise. I just wiped my eyes and stamped the swell back down, let it fuel the anger inside.
My master’s sash lay in the corner, partly covered in blackberry leaves. I dropped the key on the counter and put Bridget there, too. I picked up the sash. It still smelled faintly of Egyptian incense, reminding me evermore of him. I shook the leaves away and wrapped it around my waist. It held me tight.
I hadn’t returned for this, but I wasn’t going to leave it. Not now. I tied it on over my shirt. Then I searched through the wreckage, fingers sifting through multicolored grains, until I finally spotted what I came for, hidden on the floor under a mound of cinnabar.
My puzzle box. My birthday gift from Master Benedict. Mine.
I held it, letting its weight press into my palm. For one small moment, it felt like everything was all right again.
“Should she be eating that?” Tom said.
I turned. Bridget, on the counter, was pecking away at a pile of fine white crystals.
“Bridget! No!” I ran over. She marched away, flapping her wings.
I dipped a finger in the powder and touched it to the end of my tongue. I tasted sweetness, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only sugar. Harmless, thank goodness. Though I imagined what Master Benedict would say if he caught me feeding valuable sugar to a pigeon.
That’s when it hit me. It was valuable.
Sugar, blackberry leaves, saltpeter, cinnabar . . . apothecary ingredients traded for a fortune at the market. Even if the burglars didn’t understand what all the goods were worth, we had jars of powdered gold and silver, obvious prizes to take. Instead, we stood in a king’s ransom scattered like sand.
Then I realized something else. It was the dry ingredients that littered the shop. Powders, minerals, leaves. All of them. Not one of the jars left on the shelf contained something solid. And none of the jars with liquid had been touched.
Books torn apart. Stuffed animals shredded. Dry goods dumped.
Whoever had ransacked the shop hadn’t come here to steal. They were searching for something. Something specific, hidden by my master. Something so valuable, they were willing to throw away hundreds of pounds’ worth of ingredients to find it.
And they could read the labels on the jars.
I jammed the puzzle cube under my master’s sash and picked up Bridget. “We need to go.”
Tom sounded exasperated. “That’s what I said.” He half jogged toward the workshop door. I followed him, then ran straight into his back.
Bridget squawked and ruffled her feathers. I stepped back. Tom stood frozen in place. “What are you—” I began, but he held his hand up, eyes wide.
Then I heard it, too.