The Blackthorn Key (21 page)

Lord Ashcombe wasn't saying anything. Tom, on the other hand, was babbling. I was too far away to hear a word of it, but he looked terrified. Lord Ashcombe stared at him, black eyes piercing.

Keeping my head down, I crept into a nearby alley between the jeweler's workshop and the ironmonger next door. Under better cover, I peeked my head out again. Lord Ashcombe was still listening as Tom ran his mouth. One of the King's Men stepped from Tom's home, carrying something. He gave it to Lord Ashcombe. The King's Warden held it out wordlessly to my friend.

I caught the glint of sunlight off silvery metal. Lord Ashcombe was holding my puzzle cube.

Tom's eyes went wide. He started babbling again, even faster than before. Slowly, Lord Ashcombe reached out with his free hand and grabbed Tom's hair. He twisted, forcing Tom to his knees.

Tom's mother ran from inside her home. She knelt in
the mud next to her son, begging Lord Ashcombe, babbling as fast as Tom was. Tom's father started in, too, face red and sweaty, gesturing angrily down the street, the way I'd left his house when he'd thrown me out. The King's Warden barely acknowledged them, his eyes never leaving my friend's.

Lord Ashcombe had to know
I'd
taken my puzzle cube, not Tom. According to the law, that didn't matter. Finding it in Tom's house marked him as a thief. The penalty for that was death.

I bowed my head. I couldn't just leave Tom to Lord Ashcombe. If the King's Warden was going to make someone take the blame for the theft, it had to be me.

I stepped into the street.

“Hello, Christopher,” a small voice said.

It came from behind me, back in the alley. I turned.

It was Molly. She smiled at me from the shadows, her mop of soft curls tumbling into her eyes. At four years old, she was young enough that she had trouble pronouncing some of her letters.
Hewwo, Chwistophuh.

I blinked. “Molly?”

Her smile widened. “Come with me,” she said.
Come wiff mee.

“I . . . I can't,” I said, though I wished so much that I
could. “Your brother's in trouble. I have to help him—”

“No.” Molly reached out her small, delicate fingers and wrapped them around my hand. She tugged. “Come with me. You have to. Tom says.”

“I can't.”

“Tom says.” She pulled as hard as she could, which didn't budge me an inch. “Tom says. No. Noooo!” Molly started to cry as I took a step toward Lord Ashcombe. “I promised! Tom says!”

In the distance, Lord Ashcombe let go of Tom's hair. It looked like Tom might faint. His mother seemed to be thanking the King's Warden over and over again. Lord Ashcombe ignored her. He said something to Tom, and Tom nodded like mad. The King's Men had already begun to talk to the neighbors, some of whom pointed in the same direction Tom's father had, the way I'd left his house. It appeared Tom had convinced Lord Ashcombe that he really didn't know where to find me.

The little girl yanking at my fingers seemed to tell a different story. “Come
on
,” Molly said. “Tom
says
.”

I waited a moment more, to see that Lord Ashcombe wouldn't change his mind and haul Tom away after all. When he finally stalked off down the road, I sighed. “All right.”

•  •  •

As soon as I agreed to go, Molly's mood changed instantly, as is the way with young children. Hot tears flipped to a gentle smile, which she kept as she wandered in front of me through London's back alleys. She hummed to herself, occasionally skipping for a few paces, playing some unknown game.

“What were you doing in the alley?” I asked her.

“Finding you.” She looked up at me proudly. “Tom sent us to find you, when he seen the scary man come. But
I
did it.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a little hug. “You're the best.” She beamed at me for a moment, head resting against my hip. Then she spotted a butterfly and chased it, jumping to try to catch it as it fluttered up into the air.

When I'd started following Molly, I'd assumed she was leading me around the long way to the back of Tom's house—though God help me if either of his parents saw me now. But we just seemed to move aimlessly from alley to alley. Our trip was taking forever, we weren't getting any closer to Tom's place, and my back had had more than enough.

“Do you know where we're going?” I said.

“Uh-huh.” Molly scanned the sky, hoping the butterfly would return. “Tom says take you to the Black House.”

“The Black House?” I didn't recognize the name. “Who are the Blacks?”

Molly giggled. “Not
Black
, silly.
Black
.”

“I see,” I said, though it had been a long time since I'd understood four-year-old logic.

It didn't take much longer to become clear. In the last of the uncountable alleys, we came upon . . . I didn't know what to call it. It wasn't a house anymore.

What had stood here had once been the largest home on the street. Last summer, a fire had gutted it. The top floor was completely gone. The second floor was halfway to ash, too, just bare, blackened walls and charred timbers piercing upward like giant toothpicks. In one corner, the bottom of the house had collapsed, leaving nothing but rubble and splintered oak.

The black house
.

Cecily was in the alley. She paced, hands tugging at the front of her lavender dress. When she spotted me and Molly, she glanced over at the back door of the house. It hung loosely from a single wobbling hinge, swaying back and forth behind the man waiting for us.

Dr. Parrett smiled. “Welcome,” he said.

THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE
was just as scarred. Soot streaked across fire-licked beams that somehow still supported the upper story. Dried mud tracked over every floor, so thick it was like we were still in the streets. Above the fireplace, a ruined painting of some long-forgotten landscape hung from a broken frame, oils melted, canvas crumpled.

Dr. Parrett. Poor, mad Dr. Parrett, whose family had died in the blaze last summer, still living here with the ghost of his son, James.

Molly didn't seem bothered by the house at all. She stared in fascination at the ruins around her, too young to
understand what it really meant. Cecily wasn't so calm. She wrapped her arm around mine and pressed against me. I pressed back, chilled to the bone, wondering if James's spirit was really still here.

“My son is sleeping,” Dr. Parrett whispered, “and he has to work on his studies tomorrow. So don't you lot stay up all night.” He wagged his finger at me good naturedly.

“We won't,” I said. It was all I could do not to make the sign of the cross.

“You can stay with James, in his room. It's in the back.”

He lifted a lantern from the mantel and led us around the rear to a small room without a door. A bed with a straw mattress was tucked into a corner. The straw was fresh, and unlike the rest of the house, there was no mud in here. Everything else was badly burnt. Scraps of shriveled damask peeled away from the pitted wall. The bed's headboard was charred and broken. One leg was gone, the corner propped up by a pair of bricks. A soot-stained pillow rested at the head, and beside it, a worn woolen knight doll with a missing button eye.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Dr. Parrett said.

He smiled and left. Molly immediately went for the doll. She plunked herself down on the floorboards, and
soon she and the knitted knight were having a conversation about where his horse had gone.

“How did you all know where to find me?” I asked Cecily.

“We didn't.” She huddled against me, glancing at the blackened walls. “When Tom saw the King's Men coming, he was worried you might go back to the house. So he sent my sisters out to look for you. He asked me to arrange a place for you with Dr. Parrett.”

My battered body overcame the chill at being in James's room, haunted or not. Slowly, I lowered myself to the straw. My back howled, then cooled to a low moan, the weight finally off it. Cecily helped me down, looking concerned.

I took stock of what was left of me. My cheek was tender and swollen where Martin had hit me. The skin on my shoulder, where my shirt had torn on the cobbles of the street, was scabbed and stinging. My finger, cut by the vial I broke in Oswyn's office, throbbed mercilessly, though the bleeding had stopped, at least.

The cut on my finger wasn't the most painful of my wounds—my back won that prize easily—but it was the most dangerous. Already the joint grew red and puffy, tender to the touch. If untreated, it could turn the humors of my body sour and poisonous. Fortunately, I still had my master's
sash. I tried to lift my shirt to get at it. My back didn't like that.

“What can I do?” Cecily said.

I tugged at my shirt. “Help me pull this off.”

She did, sliding it over my head gently as I gritted my teeth. I packed the wound on my finger with spiderweb from one of the vials from the sash, and smeared aloe from another one as well. A strip torn from the bottom of my shirt made a bandage, which Cecily tied on tight. She did the same for the scrape on my shoulder. Then she sat behind me on the straw and examined my back, where the corner of the desk had rammed into me.

“It's really red,” she said.

“Can you press on it? I need to check if anything's broken.”

“Won't that hurt?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “Yes, it will.”

It did. But apart from an angry red triangle the width of a melon over my spine, it didn't appear that I'd broken anything. I was definitely in for an unpleasant few days, though. I wanted desperately to drink a bucket of poppy tea, but with the Cult of the Archangel and Lord Ashcombe both hunting me now, I was afraid to dull my mind. I pulled out the vial of willow bark and swallowed half of it
instead. The bitter powder made me grimace. Beyond that, all I could do was lie down on the straw and take the pain.

•  •  •

Tom came at sunset, carrying a small burlap sack and a leather pouch in the same hand. He had a purple splotch on his face, the bruise already forming where his father had hit him. Molly leaped from the floor, still clutching the knight doll, and ran to her brother. “I found him!” she said proudly, pointing at me as I sat up.

“You did very well,” Tom said. He pushed his sister's curls away from her eyes and patted her cheek.

Cecily sat next to me on the straw, her arms wrapped around her knees. “Any problems?” Tom asked her.

She shook her head. “Dr. Parrett's very nice.”

“Can you take Molly home?”

She stood. “Of course.”

Molly handed me the knight, then threw her arms around me. It set my back to moaning again. I didn't mind.

“Thanks for helping me,” I said to her. I waved my bandaged finger at Cecily. “And thank you, too.”

She gave me a shy smile, then put her arm around her sister and left. When they were gone, I turned to Tom. “I'm sorry,” I said. “Are you all right?”

Tom shrugged. “Father's given me worse.”

I was more worried about Lord Ashcombe. “Will he come back for you? I saw he found my puzzle cube—”

“Lord Ashcombe doesn't care about your puzzle cube. Here.”

Tom handed me the sack he was carrying. Inside were a pair of sticky buns. Just seeing them made me feel human again.

Tom watched me wince as I leaned against the ruined headboard. “What happened to you?” he said.

Mumbling over mouthfuls of sticky bun, I told him about the Hall, about being trapped by Martin and Wat and the Elephant while they lured Sir Edward and Oswyn away. I thought he'd be shocked, but my story barely seemed to register. I also told him about my discovery.

“Isaac has the key to the mural in the crypt,” I said.

“Oh?” Tom didn't seem interested. He waved his hand at James's charred bedroom. “Sorry about this. It's the only place I could think of. I didn't figure anyone would look for you here.”

I sat James's woolen knight next to me on the bed. “I'm grateful to have it. Thank you.”

“The King's Men are bound to be watching the gates
out of London. Maybe, once I figure out what the patrols are like, you can sneak down to the docks and get out.” Tom handed me the leather purse.

It jingled when I took it. I pulled the drawstring open. Silver glinted in the light of the flame. I counted three shillings, and at least a dozen pennies.

I was stunned. “Where did you get these?”

“My father's strongbox, in the bakery,” he said.

“Are you mad? Your father will kill you. I can't take this.”

I held the purse out. Tom put his hands behind his back and stepped away. “Passage will cost a shilling at least,” he said. “More, if they think you're desperate. One of our regular customers runs a barge. I think he could be bribed. I'll ask him if he'll take you.”

“Take me where?”

“I told you. Out of the city. You can't stay here.” Tom looked into my eyes. “You do realize that, don't you?”

“But . . . listen, I think I've figured it out. One of the Apothecaries' Guild Council members, Valentine Grey, was at the Hall today. I don't think the rest of the Council knew he was there. Then I saw him speaking to the Elephant. I think maybe he and Martin were Valentine's apprentices. If that's true,
then Valentine's in the Cult, too. If I tell Lord Ashcombe—”

“You can't go to Lord Ashcombe.”

“I know I still don't have any witnesses, but if I explain, I mean, Lord Ashcombe was there yesterday; he knows why I wanted my puzzle cube—”

“Oh, God's truth, Christopher,” Tom huffed. “You don't
listen
sometimes. Lord Ashcombe doesn't care about your bloody puzzle cube. He thinks you're to blame for Master Benedict's death.”