He broke his stance and reached me in three firm strides. “Keep silent, Wintour. We’ll not be long.” My father yanked me from the room, striding back the way we’d come. The door clicked behind us, but he didn’t stop. As we traveled down the tunnel, my thoughts took a new turn—I was an inconvenience. He clearly had no qualms about eliminating inconveniences . . .
We entered an offshoot we’d passed on the way there.
No light. How could he see—
I rammed into his back. He’d stopped. A crack and then a spark flew past my face. I jerked away as a flame blossomed on a torch head. Light.
Father leaned against the tunnel wall and dragged a hand down his mask. Had he brought me here to kill me quietly?
He leveled a gaze at me. “Thomas . . . forgive me.”
I backed away. “Let me go.” I took another step back. “I won’t bother you again.”
He pushed off the wall and I stumbled. Suddenly I didn’t want a mask. I just wanted my life, or a sword with which to defend myself. “Please, Father!” I held out a hand, all pride gone.
He grabbed it. “Stop.”
“Let me go and I’ll never tell a soul. I’ll return to Yorkshire.” My voice caught and I tried to tug my hand away.
I awaited the ring of steel, but instead Father grabbed both my shoulders and shook me hard. “Stop this! I am not going to harm you. Thomas, look at me.”
I obeyed, staring into the impersonal eye holes of his mask. What did his true face look like beneath?
“I am not going to harm you.” This time his voice caught. “Take a breath and then open your ears. We have little time and I have much to tell you, though it goes against my better judgment. Can I trust you?”
I nodded, feeling more like a boy than ever before.
Father released me and I straightened as his words finally penetrated my mind. He wasn’t going to kill me. He was going to give me information. “Yes. You can trust me.”
“Do you consider yourself a Keeper?”
Swallow. “Yes. Though I have much to learn.” Like how to avoid communicating with White Light.
“Good. That will make this easier. Igniters have been using White Light to control multiple colors for the past eighty years, feeding off the lust for color power. Keepers protected the language of the White Light for twelve centuries. Once the Igniters rebelled and stole the language of the White Light, our beloved Europe was cursed with the Stone Plague.”
He kept his voice low. “Wintour and I have made a pact with three other men to free England of the plague . . . and Igniters.”
Too much too fast. “How can you possibly do this if the plague is a curse?”
“It’s a curse linked to Igniters. Igniters are hunting us down and having us hung or beheaded. King James is allowing Keeper executions. He’s annihilating us.”
He took a deep breath, as though gathering the strength to continue speaking. “To free the Keepers, to stop this plague”—he stretched out his fingers inches from my stone eye, but not close enough to touch—“we must put a Keeper on the throne.”
His voice turned to steel. “We have vowed to kill King James.”
Before I could respond or even move, he rested one hand on his sword hilt and gripped my shoulder with the other. “You must decide. Now. Are you in or out?”
In or out? Was he serious?
“Do you understand what I’m asking, Thomas?” His fingers bore into the muscles of my shoulders.
“I understand.” And at last, I did. My father was asking if I wanted to stop the plague. He was asking me to join the cause.
To these I could answer yes! But there was another side. He was also asking me to be part of a plot to kill the king. I’d most certainly be hung for treason if I were caught.
It was a lot to think about.
Still . . . doing this might stop the plague. I’d be cured—or at least not dead. Then I’d have my mask.
I looked at Father’s mask. Did he want me to join?
“The decision is yours alone to make, Thomas.” He released my shoulder.
Mine alone . . . a man’s decision.
I wanted to be healed. I wanted England to be healed. I wanted to be part of something great.
I breathed deep through my nose. No matter my answer, there was no going back. I was committing to either treason or cowardice. I’d been a coward once already that day.
No longer.
I clasped Father’s shoulder with the firmest grip I could muster. “I’m in.”
Six
Father knocked the mud from his boots on the threshold of the Bear at Bridgefoot. I hung back, the sting of stone tugging at the skin around my eye. I couldn’t enter—the innkeeper would expel me.
“Come, Thomas. It’s only an inn.” Father opened the door and raucous reveling billowed out, thickening the air with noise as efficiently as a well-used pipe did with tobacco smoke.
“I’m plagued,” I snapped.
Father tensed. We stood in stalemate. “The Bear has seen worse than your face, son.” He transferred his hat to my head and walked inside. “Just keep your head low.”
I tugged the hat down and followed. The few intoxicated patrons who looked up focused mainly on Father and his Black mask, then averted their gazes. Father strode past the blazing hearth and rough tables sticky with mead. I followed him up a set of stairs and into a room, trying to ignore the scent of roast lamb filling the inn.
A bedstead rested against a wall with a straw mat beneath a mattress. A folded blanket and quilt sat at the foot. Opposite it, a table, washbasin, and chamber pot. A carry pack lay near the washbasin.
“Bed here. I will take the truckle bed.” He retrieved an extra quilt from a chest near the table and then pulled the straw mattress from beneath the bedstead. Straw stuck out from the seams and indentations from too many bodies. “I’ll bring food in a moment. Then I must go out and speak with Catesby.”
Without another word, Father left. No information about the plot I’d joined. No direction for the future. If not for his pack being left behind, I would have questioned his return. The moment the door closed behind me, exhaustion and hunger resurfaced with a slap. My knees buckled and I caught myself against the wainscoted wall.
After a second thought, I allowed myself to slide down onto the prickly truckle bed. I’d not have Father take the servant’s mattress for my sake. It received me like an embrace—though I’d received so few of those that I wasn’t sure I’d recognize one.
My eye drifted closed. I managed to kick off my boots so as not to muddy the quilt more than my grungy clothes already did. Despite Father’s assurances, I still expected a sheriff and the innkeeper to burst in any moment.
As my muscles slowed, my mind quickened. I’d done it. I’d found Father, though our reunion had been less than satisfying. I had joined his plot to kill King James.
To kill. The. King.
That would earn me my mask. But a final question swirled in my foggy consciousness before I drifted off . . .
Was my mask worth a murder?
The bedroom door burst open and I sprang to my feet. “Let me get my boots on,” I blurted before my vision cleared.
Father stood in the doorway carrying a lit candle in one hand and balancing a tray in the other. No sheriff. No innkeeper. No tattletale maid. I swayed as the sleep-dizziness passed, then hurried to aid him.
I reached for the candle, but he shoved a platter of roasted lamb and potatoes forward. “Take this instead.” I snatched the tray and cleared space on the small table. It took every ounce of restraint to keep myself from ripping a chop from the platter with my teeth.
Father gestured to the food. “Eat.”
I needed no further encouragement. I tore a chunk of meat from the bone, trying to restrain myself from stuffing it all in with one go. He pulled up a stool. “I’ve ordered a bath for you. And tomorrow we will get you a set of day clothes, boots, and your own hat.”
I swallowed my lamb.
“I’ve no coin.”
“You can go to the market—it is the beginning of summer season and hawkers will be looking for errand boys.”
My eye narrowed. “I am not a boy.”
Father chuckled. “There is nothing shameful about being an errand boy if it will provide food for yourself and loved ones.”
Who were Father’s loved ones? Apparently not his son. “I don’t need your advice.” I wasn’t here for a relationship. I was here for my mask and to fight for the Keepers.
Father sighed, then lowered his lamb chop. “Thomas, I’m sorry I wasn’t . . . there.”
“Are you?” I snatched a potato as though it were a weapon. “Then tell me why. Why didn’t you come?” That was all I really wanted to know.
“This silent war between Keepers and Igniters . . . is still fresh. New.”
“I know—”
“When I was a student at St. Peter’s, the headmaster was a Keeper. I married his daughter, in fact. Your Headmaster Canon is the first Igniter. You were under the influence of an Igniter. How could I give you a mask when I knew they’d train you up in White Light? How could I watch you take a Color Test against my very morals?”
“I’ve never been an Igniter! If you hadn’t cut me off, you’d know that! Norwood kept me safe. Grandmother and Grandfather Bainbridge remain loyal Keepers. I never desired anything more than to bond with Grey.”
“I know that now. I saw you bleed—there was no White in your blood. You’re no Igniter.”
“Then give me my blasted mask!”
“I haven’t even made it, Thomas. My focus is the plot. When time allows—and Catesby permits—I will make your mask when you are ready.”
I glared. Might as well get my glares in while I was still maskless. “So tell me about this plot.”
“It’s fragile—we’ve constructed only the base plan.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“Before King James took the throne, he made a promise to protect Keepers. To lift the oppressive laws. To be an ally. But once he took the throne, he exiled us. He commanded practicing Keepers to leave this country. He broke his word.”
“But . . . where would we go?”
Father shrugged. “That’s not his problem. So we are going to eliminate him, create a new Parliament, and raise up one of his heirs in the Keeper way. By freeing England of an Igniter king, we will also free England of the plague. It is perpetuated by the one who sits on the throne.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that aspect, but at least I understood the deeper reason behind the plot. And I was proud to defend my people. I was proud to stand for something.
The next couple of days taught me a lot about Father’s patterns. He slept during the day, went into town in the evenings, and left at night. His comings and goings reeked of mystery, but whenever I asked, he said, “In time.”
I used a string to bind my patch to my face so I could go out but had to be cautious about it slipping. I took brief walks and jousted with branches to regain what muscle was consumed by my travels. The market provided no employment, but I sought it every day. Coin in my pocket would permit me to purchase a new sword. And once I had a sword in my hand, I could show Father some of my skills. I didn’t need a mask to be a warrior.
When Father returned to the inn one night with a package of new clothes, I barely managed a thank-you. “Why didn’t you let me join you?”
“I had other errands to run. I found myself at the shop and took care of your needs since it was on my route.”
I stared out our room window that hung over the Thames. Ship masts bobbed back and forth, stretching higher even than our window. “So I am to be left in this room like baggage?”
“It is your own choice to act like baggage. You’re not helpless and you weren’t raised helpless. You had St. Peter’s, as I did. Our paths are not so dissimilar, Thomas. Only I left school with a vision for my future.”
I spun from the window. “Our paths are not so dissimilar?” I sneered. “I am plagued and maskless. Tell me, can you relate to those?” I gestured to his stoic Black mask. “Try taking that off for a day. See how it changes you.”
Father straightened. “A man’s mask is his honor. His identity.”
“Your mask is your pride.” To my knowledge, no one but Father and Emma Areben left their mask on day and night.
“You can’t understand—”
“So teach me!” I gripped the windowsill, feeling a satisfying crunch of wood beneath my fingers. “I am at your mercy. Teach me. Train me.”
Father barely seemed to breathe. Then he clasped his cloak and swung open the door, like he had every previous night. Mask tight, boots clean.
“May I come with you?” I asked this time.
He paused in the doorway. “Can you handle a sword?”
“Well enough.” I’d let my sparring speak for itself.
“‘Well enough’ loses duels and costs hasty men their lives.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You are dueling, then?” At his silence, my patience flickered. “I’m getting the impression you’re trying to tell me no.”
“I’m trying to inform you of how prepared you will need to be to join me.”
“Why not inform me of your outings? That seems the best way to prepare me rather than these vague tidbits.”
“The night breeds terrors that prey on the helpless. Those oft cannot be fought.”
What sort of terrors? Did he mean people? Or something else? “What makes you able to fight them?”
He looked over his shoulder. “I am a Judas.” With that, he left.
And I understood. Only Judases could speak the language of Black. It was tricky—trickier than Yellow or Red. At night, all things were Black. That gave other ill-intending Judases a hefty power.
I had no color power.
I had no sword.
But neither piece of knowledge stopped me from following Father.
Seven
I threw my cloak over my shoulders, pulled on my stiff new leather boots, and slipped down the stairs. Father bid the alewife good eve and then exited, heading left through London Bridge. Night had fallen. People milled about London Bridge, clinking ale cups and sharing secrets under the noise of the rotating waterwheels in the bridge arches.
Father was swift. His black clothing mixed with shadows as naturally as though he were one. As he passed a glowing brazier, I caught the sword strapped to his side.
My heart thundered and I quickened my pace. The new boots squeaked as though I trod on a mouse with each step. I stopped to rub a little mud on the exterior, keeping my eye on my father. I didn’t want to get involved in whatever he planned to do. Not yet. I wanted to observe. To know.
We exited London Bridge and the moonlight eased the strain of locating him amidst the shadows. He headed up Grace Church Street, then turned left toward Cheapside. Just as quickly, he turned right around the corner. I slowed and peeked into the alley. Nothing. Had he entered one of the houses?
Wait. There. A swish of cloak. I hurried so as not to lose him—my boots sounding louder and louder the farther we got from the revelers. But when I turned the corner again, there was nothing. I glanced behind me. The moon no longer seemed so bright.
I stepped back into the shadows, only then realizing how quick my inhales came. I slowed my breathing. If I’d lost him, I’d lost him. I slunk out of the alley back onto Grace Church Street, allowing the moonlight to reach my path once more.
Steps clicked on the cobblestones behind me. I spun as a firm hand clamped my shoulder. “You think I didn’t know you were following me?”
“Yes, actually.” I tried to sound as nonchalant as he did. I pushed his hand away. “And why shouldn’t I? I have a right to come and go as I wish.”
He steered me toward London Bridge. “But a gentleman with integrity will respect the wishes of another.” He stopped and faced me. “Your curiosity not only endangers you, but it endangers me and my mission.”
“You�
�re on a mission?” For the plot?
“I have my own purposes and I will share them with you. But not tonight.” He turned on his heel and disappeared in the alley shadows branching off Grace Church Street.
This time I didn’t follow. But I didn’t return to the Bear either.
I stood in the street, grimly aware of my failure at stealth. Blasted boots. I took in the night of London, feeling both dangerous and foolish for lingering in the abandoned dark. Better that than feeling worthless and bored in the Bear.
Tell me about it. Let’s do something fun.
I whipped my head toward London Bridge.
Yes, I’m talking to you, Thomas.
Someone—no, something—knew my name. The mystery color voice. White. I backed away from the bridge. What did it want with me? Payment for freeing me from the prison cart?
How about a game of hide-and-seek? The hollow echo of the bodiless voice in my mind made the child’s game sound sinister.
I turned opposite its voice and barely kept from running, as though I could outpace a voice in my head. White breeds greed. That was what the Keeper from Fleet Prison said and I could see what he meant. An itch inside my chest wanted to answer. To speak to White . . . to ask how it freed me from the prison cart.
And to ask what else it could do for me.
I settled for a brisk walk, the air suddenly chill in my lungs. The Thames flowed on my right, reflecting the moonlight as I passed alleys that led to the bank. Multistory houses tilted toward me from my left. Reaching for me.
I glanced over my shoulder, as though the color could follow me. How could White Light exist in the darkness? I saw no White anywhere.
Thooooomas. From my right.
No more fun and games. From my left.
I need you tonight. By the water.
I lurched left and sprinted up an alley, almost shouting, “Leave me be!” but that would mean acknowledging it. And that was the first step to becoming an Igniter.
I paid no mind to the street names I passed, but every time the voice said, This way! I went the opposite. I should have returned to the Bear like Father said.
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