by Kevin Sands
“Many things. How sick do you want to be?”
“Well, don’t kill me. And I’ll need to get better quickly.”
I thought about it. “Syrup of ipecac is the easiest.”
“What will that do?”
“Make you throw up.”
She deflated. “I hate throwing up.” I gave her the vial. She walked away, grumbling. “The things I do for you.”
I looked over at Tom. “It was her idea.”
• • •
Cooper let us back in. “Sir Edmund is in the drawing room, my lord,” he said. “He’s been worried about you.”
We left our coats with Tom. According to our plan, Tom would pretend he and Moppet were heading to the servants’ quarters but would instead wait for us near the entrance, just in case we needed to make a quick escape—or worse, the sort of help only his sword could provide.
“We must see Sir Edmund immediately,” I said to the steward. “I have strange news. Is Julian around?”
“No, my lord. He’s out, as usual. Shall I send him to you when he returns?”
“Yes,” I said, though I didn’t really want that. The fewer people around, the better.
Cooper escorted Sally and me to the drawing room, where Sir Edmund was chatting on the couch with Álvaro. “Baron!” he said, relieved. “Thank goodness. I had no idea what happened to you.” He looked at me chidingly. “Though I have my suspicions.”
“Your suspicions are correct,” I said. “We went to Hook Reddale.”
He huffed. “My lord . . . you placed yourself in great danger. To say nothing of the Lady Grace. Why—look at her, she’s positively green.”
He wasn’t just saying that. Sally’s skin had taken on a distinctly greenish hue. “I’d better sit,” she said, her voice warbling.
“Here, here. Have my seat.” With a grimace, Sir Edmund stood to give Sally his spot on the couch. Álvaro helped him to the neighboring chair while Sally took his place, holding her stomach.
“Are you unwell, my lady?” Sir Edmund said, with genuine concern. “You didn’t . . . did you see . . . ?”
“The White Lady?” I said. “No. We found a different sort of villain. Someone shot at us.”
“What?”
This was the tricky part. I couldn’t lie about what had happened at Hook Reddale. After all, if Sir Edmund was working with Julian, he’d already know his son tried to kill us. A lie would make him realize he was a suspect. Instead, I told him the story we’d worked out on our way here.
“I think we stumbled upon a band of brigands,” I said. “I suspect they’ve made a base in the abandoned village.”
Sir Edmund looked shocked. “But . . . the White Lady. Surely no one would test her wrath by living there.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps they’re only using it to stockpile supplies. But there’s no doubt someone is running about the village; we saw their tracks. And the arrows that nearly killed us came from no wraith.”
“It’s almost impossible to believe. There must be some sort of—my lady?”
Sally had half risen from the couch. She clutched her stomach and moaned. Then she vomited all over Sir Edmund’s rug.
Everyone stood, alarmed. “Cooper! Cooper!” Sir Edmund called, and he limped to Sally’s side. He’d gone as pale as she had. “She’s afflicted by the curse of Hook Reddale.”
“No,” Sally croaked. “I have . . . another affliction. Christopher . . . please . . . my medicine . . .”
She bent over in Sir Edmund’s arms and vomited again.
“Where is it?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she gasped. “It wasn’t among my things. I must have left it in my chambers this morning. It’s in my little orange bottle—” She retched. A thin string of bile dripped from her lips.
“Your servants,” I said to Sir Edmund.
“Of course, of course,” he said, and he turned to Cooper, who’d just arrived. “Rally the household. Search the lady’s quarters for her medicine. It’s in an orange bottle.”
“I’ll go, too,” I said. “I’ve seen the bottle before.”
“Of course, of course. Hurry, my lord.”
Sally heaved again as I ran out with the steward. Cooper collected everyone he saw along the way, until I was leading a small army in livery. We made it all the way to the stairs before I skidded to a stop.
“Wait,” I said. “I just realized: My man might have her bottle. I’ll ask him. You search her chambers. Look everywhere. What you’re looking for is about three inches high, and orange, with a cork stopper. You can’t miss it.”
“Yes, my lord,” Cooper said, hurrying them all upstairs.
And finally, at last, I was alone.
CHAPTER
38
THERE WAS NO TIME TO waste. I had, at best, a few minutes before the servants would return empty-handed.
I sprinted to Sir Edmund’s study and flung open the drawer in the desk. The velvet bag with the bone of Saint Benedict was there, next to the silver box. Hands trembling, I pulled the needle out.
The silver cylinder glinted in the lamplight; the needle looked almost alive. The crosses around the top winked in the flame. And as I looked closer, I noticed a faint engraving along one of its hexagonal edges.
I hadn’t seen that before. I peered at it closely and could just make out the words.
Et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos
It was Latin. A quote from the Gospel of John. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
It was almost obscene. If Sir Edmund were a fraud, then—
I blinked. Suddenly I felt dizzy.
Those
Et cognoscetis veritatem
words. I’d seen
et veritas
those words
liberabit vos
before.
My knees buckled. The world spun, too fast.
But those words. Not on the needle. Where had I seen them?
On a shelf, a memory whispered.
Yes. Yes. They’d been written on a bookshelf, the inscription burned into the wood. But not here. Not in Seaton. Not in Devonshire. It was before. Before the shipwreck.
The bookshelf. It opened. There was . . . a staircase? Down? And . . . a man?
Yes. A man. An old man. Not Master Benedict. But I felt something.
Friendship.
Love.
The books, in the bookshelf. The book . . . seller. His name . . . Tom had said it.
Isaac.
I remembered him. I remembered him.
My heart swelled. Isaac. I know you.
The dizziness remained. I fought it. And still I remembered—
Running. I was running—why was I running?—
I fell against the desk.
Stop, Master Benedict said.
I can’t. I can’t. I’ll lose it.
You must stop. You don’t have much more time.
I heard footsteps. I dove behind the couch as a pair of boots clomped past the door.
The memory. I didn’t want to lose the memory. It felt so good to remember. But the pain . . .
The pain?
The pain was in my finger. I lay there, breathing, as the world stopped spinning, and looked down to see I’d stabbed myself with the pricking needle.
I pulled it out, wincing. Blood welled on my skin. I sucked on my fingertip, the flesh throbbing in time with my beating heart.
Well, there was no doubt the thing was sharp. It had bled Sally, and now me. And yet Sybil had claimed the needle was a fraud.
He plunged the same needle into Alyson’s side, she’d said. But there was no pain. And when he drew the needle out, there was no blood.
This needle couldn’t help but draw blood. Could Sybil have been wrong? Could her daughter really have been a witch after all?
If she wasn’t, then Sir Edmund must have cheated. But how could he do that with a needle this sharp? I could only think of one way—and that was to ma
ke sure the needle never went in at all.
And now I remembered something Sir Edmund had said. I performed the test myself, so none could attempt trickery by sleight of hand.
Sleight of hand?
What if he was the one playing the trick? What if he’d never stabbed the accused at all? If he’d turned the needle to the side, slipped it past the skin, it would still look to the court like he’d plunged it in.
No, that wouldn’t work. The court might not see his deception, but the supposed witch would. She’d know he hadn’t pricked her. All she’d have to do was turn her body and call for him to do it again. They might disbelieve one girl, but all eleven he’d condemned? Impossible.
It had to be something else. I rooted through the desk again. Behind Saint Benedict’s finger bone, I found a sheaf of papers. A quick glance at them showed—
That was interesting. They were receipts. All of them listed payments to Edmund Darcy, all from men living in Essex, most of whom were members of the peerage: barons, counts, marquesses, even a duke. The amounts weren’t small: dozens of pounds. In a few cases, hundreds.
My mind raced. Sybil had claimed Sir Edmund was selling innocence—or guilt—according to someone’s ability to pay. Could he have been so foolishly arrogant as to have kept evidence of his own crimes?
I scanned them more closely, and I saw: He might be arrogant, but he wasn’t foolish. All the receipts said things like for services to the town of Chelmsford or for efforts in prosecuting the evil from our lands. There was no evidence here. If Sir Edmund was a fraud, I thought, what a delight these papers would bring him every time he looked at them. They would be a record only of his cleverness.
I put the papers back in the desk. My time was running out, and I hadn’t found anything at all.
Forget everything else, Master Benedict said. The needle is important.
He was right. If there was fraud, the needle had to be the key. I studied the thing again, turning it over, close enough to the lamplight that its heat seared my cheek. I’d missed the engraving before. Maybe I’d missed something else.
But what could that be? The silver was polished, pristine—
No. Wait.
It was not pristine. The silver was scratched. Near the top, between the arms of one of the crosses, I saw faint grooves. They curved from the cross’s vertical arm to its horizontal.
It looked like wear. Yet nowhere else on the silver did I find similar marks.
Why on earth would such a spot show wear? And why would the grooves be—
Curved, I thought.
I placed my thumbnail on the leg of the cross. I pushed it in the direction of the grooves.
And it turned.
A faint click rattled inside the cylinder. I stared at it. Then, slowly, I placed the needle against my palm and pressed.
The needle slid in.
Not into my hand. Into the cylinder.
I let go. The needle sprang back out.
The test, I thought. Heart thumping, I pulled the collar of my shirt down until my upper ribs were exposed. I laid the point of the needle against my chest, like I was an accused witch, on trial. Then, with a quick prayer, I drove the needle in.
It was strange. I could feel the prick of the needle on my flesh, the press of the cylinder surrounding it. It felt like the needle had gone into me. But there was no real pain, just the discomfort of the point against my skin. And when I drew the needle back, there was no blood, just a faint indentation where it had pressed.
Fingers shaking, I turned the cross back to its original position. I tested the needle again—and now it wouldn’t budge.
This was it. This was how he’d done it. The cross on the end was the trick: By turning it, it switched the needle from fixed to collapsible.
There was nothing holy here. It was pure evil. Sir Edmund, false witchfinder, deciding with a flick of his thumb whether the girl before him was innocent or guilty. And if he chose guilt, the poor accused wouldn’t even know how she’d been duped.
Sybil was right. Sir Edmund was nothing but a fraud.
CHAPTER
39
I HAD HIM. THIS NEEDLE was proof, pure and undeniable, that Sir Edmund had committed terrible crimes.
And yet I didn’t know what to do.
He needed to account for the lives he’d taken. But those crimes were twenty years old. The problem now was the missing children. How could I prove he was part of that? I didn’t even know why it was happening.
And I didn’t have any more time to think about it. I made sure the pricking needle was back in its locked position, then replaced it in its box. I exited the study, listening. It sounded like the servants were still up in Sally’s quarters, searching for a bottle that didn’t exist. That wouldn’t last for long.
I made my way back to the drawing room, forcing myself to walk slowly. And yet the slower I went, the more I imagined I could feel a bow being drawn, a broadhead aimed at my spine. The sensation got so strong I had to turn and look.
The hall was empty. I took a breath. Stop panicking, I scolded myself. They may want to stop your investigation, but what you told Tom and Sally is true. They can’t attack you here. It would bring down the wrath of Lord Ashcombe.
Then I paused. They couldn’t attack us here . . . if our deaths were seen to be foul play. But an arrow in the back wasn’t the only way to get rid of someone. I thought of my master’s poisons, hidden in that cherrywood box at the Blue Boar Inn.
I shook my head. Sir Edward couldn’t poison us. How would he explain all our deaths?
My blood froze as I realized: Our own deception would provide him with the means.
I sprinted back to the drawing room. Sally was lying on the couch, looking miserable. Sir Edmund and Álvaro hovered over her, the Spaniard pressing a cool, damp cloth to her forehead.
“We can’t find it,” I said, letting my real panic show through. “Your medicine isn’t here. Are you sure you had it with you yesterday?”
Sally glanced over at me.
“I mean, really, really sure?” I said.
She got the hint. “I . . . don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t see it yesterday, but I didn’t need it.”
“So where’s the last place you saw it? Somewhere else?” I prompted.
She paused. “I had it in my room at the inn,” she said finally.
I turned to Sir Edmund. “We have to return to Seaton.”
“My lord,” he said, startled. “The lady is in no state to travel.”
“She’ll be in a worse state if she stays,” I said. “She must have that medicine. We have to go.”
“It’s too far. Too late in the day. And the snow is too deep to take you in my carriage. If your servant goes to collect it—”
“He can’t. As you said, it’s too late in the day. By the time he reaches Seaton, it’ll be too dark for him to return. He’d have to wait until morning—and she could die by then. We’ll have to chance it.”
“Wait—”
The last thing I was going to do was wait. I didn’t want to give Sir Edmund an opportunity to think of a good reason to leave Sally here. Ignoring their protests, I scooped her into my arms and ran from the drawing room.
“Baron!” Sir Edmund called. Álvaro tried to help him follow, but with his foot, he couldn’t keep up.
I whispered as I reached the entryway. “Tom!”
Tom stepped around the corner. Moppet clutched the leg of his breeches, Bridget nestled in the crook of her arm. Tom’s hand was over his shoulder, already gripping Eternity’s hilt.
I shoved Sally into his arms and grabbed our coats. “We need to go.”
We bolted from the estate and ran along the river, Moppet hanging off Tom’s back. I didn’t dare slow until we’d reached the woods. There we stopped, puffing, Sally lolling in Tom’s arms.
“Are you still sick?” I asked her, worried. “The ipecac should have worn off by now.”
“Oh, I’m feeling better,” Sally said c
heerfully. “I just like being carried.”
• • •
Once we were certain we hadn’t been followed, we stopped running. A few hundred yards through snow was bad enough; we couldn’t possibly keep it up over miles. Still, the fear in our guts kept us moving, heads on a swivel, searching the woods for buzzing arrows.
“I thought you said we’d be safe at the estate,” Tom said.
“That was before we showed up claiming Sally was sick.” I cursed. “We gave him the perfect way to poison us. If Sally’s ‘strange illness’ were caught by the rest of us, if we were trapped by snow in Sir Edmund’s house without medicine . . .”
Tom’s eyes widened. “So Sir Edmund really is behind this?”
“I’m almost sure of it. At the very least, Sybil was right: He’s a murderer.” I told them what I’d discovered about the pricking needle. They listened, faces grim. It was terrifying to realize we’d stayed the night with a killer.
“We still need to figure out what he’s doing with the children,” Sally said. “How are we going to do that from Seaton?”
“We’re not going to Seaton. We’ll follow the river south until we pass the bridge at the fork. Then we’ll use the same trick Julian’s been using: We’ll walk through the water to cover our tracks.”
“To where?”
I could only think of one place to hide.
• • •
It was well past nightfall by the time we reached Robert’s farm. With the cloud cover, we had no moonlight to guide us. Fortunately, the river laid out the path, or we’d have been lost. As it was, we slipped and stumbled through the snow until the farm’s lights glowed with blessed relief.
When we thumped on Robert’s door, he was surprised but pleased. “My lord! How—” He broke off as he looked us over. “Are you all right? You look terrible.” He flushed. “Er . . . I mean . . .”
“No need for explanation. We feel terrible,” I said. “Would we be able to stay in the cob house tonight? I’ll pay you.”
He was offended I’d even suggested it. I thanked him profusely as he escorted us to the house. “I’ll bring food, and more blankets,” he said. “Anything else you need?”