The Blackthorn Key

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.