The Mapmaker's Apprentice (Glass and Steele Book 2)

by C. J. Archer

  "How curious," I said. "Is it from the same hoard that this map is supposed to reveal?" I studied the map upside down, but it didn't show any signs of a location, either with light or any other type of signal.

  "I'm trying to concentrate," McArdle growled.

  "Answer her," Matt growled back.

  McArdle sighed. "I bought them off a rag man many years ago. They were in his collection of buttons. They responded to me, growing warm upon my touch, so I knew they were magic."

  "But magic shouldn't last long," I said. "Only weeks or days, not years. This coin is ancient."

  "The magic itself doesn't last, but the residue lingers for centuries, perhaps forever. That's the warmth we feel."

  "What does gold magic do?" Matt asked.

  "Magic does the one thing that people want most from that object. With maps, it's to direct you to a location. In the case of gold, what does everyone want?"

  "More," I said on a breath.

  "Precisely."

  "But if you can make gold multiply, you ought to be a very wealthy man, Mr. McArdle. I mean no offence, but I don't see evidence of that."

  He sighed. "The spells to multiply gold disappeared long ago. As far as I am aware, there are no other gold magicians left in the world, except me. I can't make more, I don't know the spell. I can only feel the residue of the magic infused into golden objects by my ancestors who did know the spell." He picked up the coin again. "The last gold magicians died out in ancient times."

  "Hence the hoards," I whispered. "How extraordinary."

  "How frustrating. I have the ability, but I don't know how to use it."

  I understood his frustration. "So you now earn a living selling magical gold objects to wealthy collectors. Objects that you find through archaeology with a little help from your magical sensitivity."

  "It's not illegal," McArdle whined. "I have a right to earn a living." He studied the coin again.

  "You said 'they' and 'them' just now when referring to the coin," Matt said. "Did you buy more than one off the rag man?"

  "There were two matching ones, both with a shank attached. I gave the other to Daniel to help him draw the map."

  Matt glanced at me at the same moment I looked to him. "Mr. McArdle," I said, "is it possible that Daniel had that coin on him when he disappeared?"

  "I wouldn't know. Why?"

  "Earlier today I was able to find Matt by combining my watch magic with that of a map magician," I said, the words tumbling out in my excitement. "I was able to locate his watch because I'd handled it before. I've worked on it in the past. Its location lit up on the map. If Daniel is still in possession of the coin, and your coin is responding to the hoard, and we have a map that shows where that hoard is—"

  "We might find him that way."

  "Two locations should be revealed," Matt said. "One for the hoard and one for Daniel's coin."

  I prayed Daniel had kept the coin with him and the map didn't lead us to his house or the gutter where he'd lost it.

  "Put your hand back on the map, Miss Steele," McArdle said quickly. "Let's see if we can replicate the experiment."

  "I don't think it has anything to do with me," I said. "There are non timepieces involved. Try it on your own while holding the coin and concentrate very hard."

  "Very well." He bowed his head, his palm pinning the map to the door as if trying to push the carriage over. He drew in two steadying breaths and let them out slowly. "The coin is warming again! And look at the map!"

  A small pinprick of light pulsed, piercing the surrounding darkness and lighting up that area of the map. It was difficult to see, upside down, with the densely packed streets in that part of London, but I could just make out the street name.

  Only it was just one light, not two.

  McArdle dropped his coin back in his pocket and the light extinguished, shrouding us once again in near darkness.

  Paper scrunched as McArdle took down the map. Then he ran off.

  Matt swore and made to go after him.

  "Let him go," I said, catching his sleeve. "We have no need of the map now." We watched as the deep shadows on the other side of the street swallowed the figure of McArdle.

  "You saw the location?" Matt asked. "I couldn't make it out."

  "I did, and I think I know why the map only showed one light."

  "Why?" he asked, opening the carriage door.

  "Daniel and the hoard are together. Bryce!" With a hand on my hat, I poked my head out the door. "Bucklersbury Street, poste haste."

  "Bucklersbury?" Matt said, climbing inside. .

  Bryce removed the lamp cover and urged the horses forward.

  "It makes sense that both the hoard and Daniel are there," I said as the carriage lurched. "In the case of the hoard, it's there because Bucklersbury happens to have been an important part of Roman Londinium. That's why there are two digs in the street at the moment, one with the mosaic floor where you and Willie were taken, and the other nearby. Whether the hoard is in one of those excavations or elsewhere in the street, I couldn't quite tell from the map."

  "But why would Daniel be there? It's too much of a coincidence that someone happened to take him to the same place where the hoard is located."

  "Not necessarily. You and Willie were taken to a construction site where building had been halted to conduct an archaeological dig. While the site wasn't in use, it made the perfect place to hide you. No one would stumble upon you and no one could hear your shouts. Whoever took Daniel might have come to the same conclusion and is keeping him at one of the sites."

  "Or it may be someone working with Abercrombie, if it was Abercrombie who organized our kidnapping."

  "That's certainly a possibility too," I said.

  Matt tapped his fingers on the seat beside him and jiggled his knee as if he couldn't stand to sit still. I reached out and touched his knee to stop it moving as opposed to anything more intimate. When I realized how it must seem, I went to withdraw but he laid his hand over mine, trapping it.

  "I don't want there to be a connection between Daniel's disappearance and the Watchmakers' Guild," he said gravely. "That links your situation to Daniel's. It's one thing to have them all wary of you, but another entirely to think they would consider…abduction."

  Or murder. It was a thought that had crept up on me lately, too; one that I didn't dare dwell on. "Let's not assume anything until we know for certain."

  Matt turned away and stared into the inky blackness, his silence creating a void between us. I tried to think of something to say to lighten it, but everything sounded awkward in my head.

  It wasn't until he squeezed the bridge of his nose that I realized tiredness might be the cause of his silence. He may have napped while in the cellar, but that had been a few hours ago. He also hadn't used his watch in some time.

  He opened his jacket and I thought he'd reach for it, but instead he pulled the revolver from his waistband. "Do you know how to use this?" he asked.

  "No!"

  "Pull back the hammer, aim through the sight here, and squeeze the trigger. It's loaded with six cartridges."

  "Why are you telling me this? I won't be using it."

  "Just in case."

  "Matt! Nothing will happen to you. Or me. There's no need for a gun at all, surely."

  "Just in case," he said again, setting the revolver on my lap.

  I picked it up between my thumb and fingertips and set it on the seat beside me.

  He rubbed his forehead and bowed his head.

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  With a sigh, he removed his gloves and reached into his jacket pocket. "I will be." He pulled out his watch, opened the case, and tipped his head back as the magic washed through him.

  The boney fingers of the scaffold reached into the black sky above Bucklersbury Street on not one but three construction sites. Bryce pulled up outside the building with the mosaic floor and Matt got out. A figure huddled in a recessed doorway, knees pulled to his chest, ba
re feet protruding from his trouser legs.

  "McArdle was on foot," Matt said, his gaze sweeping the street. "We beat him here."

  "Not necessarily," I said. "If he knows the lanes and streets in this part of London, he might already be here. We traveled by the better lit, wider route which is also longer."

  "Stay here."

  "Why? Only McArdle knows we're here, and he doesn't pose a threat."

  "I see threats everywhere. Sometimes there aren't any, and I've over-reacted, but sometimes my caution pays off."

  I made a miffed sound in the back of my throat. "You rarely act cautiously, Matt. You're haring off now, aren't you, without a gun and into a dark building?"

  "Please, India, just stay here."

  He sounded so tired and aggravated that I nodded to ease his mind. "If you're not back in ten minutes, I'm coming in," I told him.

  "Fifteen. Bryce, a lamp."

  Bryce unhooked one of the carriage lamps and passed it down to Matt.

  "If there's any trouble," Matt told him, "drive off as fast as you can."

  He crossed the street and disappeared into the building with the mosaic floor. At least this site he knew.

  I opened the window and rested my hands on the sill, resisting the urge to check my watch every five seconds. My resolve didn't last long. I couldn't stand it and opened the case. Not even five minutes had passed.

  A figure emerged at the end of the street. The vagrant in the recessed doorway lifted his head then returned it to his knees almost immediately, as if it were too heavy to hold up. The figure carried a lantern that swung as he walked, creating an arc of light on the pavement. It wasn't until he passed beneath a streetlight, however, that I saw his face.

  McArdle. He must have stopped to fetch a lantern. I wasn't sure whether to alert him to my presence, or Matt's, and was in the process of making up my mind when he slipped behind the scaffold into one of the buildings. It wasn't the same building that Matt had entered.

  I waited. The next five minutes dragged, and I considered going inside after Matt anyway. Surely that was long enough for him to search the site.

  The horses shifted and the vagrant looked up again as another man approached along the street. This one carried no lantern and I couldn't make out his face.

  He paused at the head of the street. What was he waiting for? After a moment he continued and entered the same building site as McArdle. But why? And without a light, too?

  Unless he was there for the same reason as us—to find Daniel or the hoard. Could he have overheard us at the guild hall? Someone had certainly been there as McArdle revealed himself, but I'd assumed it to be a passerby who'd walked on. Perhaps he hadn't.

  Perhaps he was Daniel's kidnapper and he'd heard everything we said.

  I needed to warn Matt. I couldn't just sit here and let him stumble into danger.

  I grabbed the gun and my watch from my reticule. I hung the chain around my neck and the case bumped against my breast. "Stay here," I told Bryce. "I won't be long."

  "But Miss Steele!" he protested. "You stay. I'll go."

  "And leave me with horses I can't control?"

  He grumbled something that I couldn't make out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt emerge from between the scaffold structure. I tried to signal to him, but he didn't see me in the dark, and I didn't want to shout and alert anyone to our presence.

  The crack of a gunshot rent the still night air.

  My heart leapt into my throat and I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the street. Everything else, however, suddenly came to life. The horses reared then bolted, despite Bryce's shouted commands. He managed to hold on to the reins and keep the carriage upright, despite one wheel climbing the gutter. He couldn't stop the horses, however, and the conveyance rumbled out of Bucklersbury, once again plunging the street into near-silence. The vagrant scuttled away, and tiny rat or cat claws scratched the pavement, but otherwise, there were no sounds.

  Matt shut off his lamp and slipped away in the dark. He hadn't seen me.

  The gun felt heavy in my hand. The watch at my breast warmed then pulsed. Warning me? Urging me on?

  All I knew was that Matt had no weapon and had gone to confront a man who did.

  I crept up to the building that McArdle and the newcomer had entered. The light was so dim in this part of the street that I had to feel my way past the scaffold by hand. I tripped up the first step. With the gun in my right hand, I was unable to catch myself and landed heavily on my knees. Wincing, I pushed up.

  The building's demolition hadn't been completed. The facade was still in place, held up by the scaffold, but the internal walls, floors and ceilings had been removed. A staircase led nowhere and three levels of glassless window frames looked down on my approach like ghostly eyes. Higher still, the open roof revealed the starless London night.

  Where were the men? I squinted into the darkness and, at the very rear of the property, saw the glow of a faint light on the floor. I crept closer but was still a considerable distance away when I realized a figure lay flat on the floor near the light.

  I didn't dare call Matt's name. It may not even be him.

  Hardly breathing, I picked my way across the dirt, careful not to trip over the planks left lying about or stumble into the piles of rubble. I looked around for pits left by archaeological excavations but saw none.

  The light brightened as I drew closer, and I realized it came from a cellar below floor level. I was almost within hissing distance of the figure when he swiftly and silently rose into a crouch. I recognized Matt's build, the set of his shoulders. Before I could whisper his name, he placed his palms on the ground then plunged into the cellar.

  I hurried to the trapdoor and fell onto my hands and knees. Pain burned my scraped knee. I bit my lip until it subsided and peered through the trapdoor.

  Smooth stone steps led down into the cellar. A lamp cast a soft glow over a pit several feet wide and a foot below the cellar floor. An archaeological dig, but not for a mosaic floor. The pit simply contained low, broken walls and little towers of neatly stacked stone, each reaching knee height. Fresh earth filled the far end of the pit and more earth was piled up on the side, ready to be pushed in. It must be the finished excavation Mr. Rosemont from the museum had mentioned.

  From my vantage point, I couldn't see Matt or anyone else, but I heard grunting. Someone came into view, bent at the waist and moving slowly backward. He was dragging…a body!

  Bile burned my throat. A chill crept up my spine. Not Matt. Please don't be Matt.

  I searched the room and spotted him in the shadowy corner, crouching behind a wheelbarrow. Thank God.

  Matt watched the man dragging the body too. The man had shed his jacket and his waistcoat rode up, revealing a gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. It was impossible to determine the identity of either the victim or his murderer, but one had to be McArdle.

  Victim. Murderer.

  The words wedged in my brain, their implication so awful, so unfathomable, that I couldn't think past them. All I knew was that Matt was down there in the same room as a man with a gun who'd already used it to kill.

  I looked at the revolver in my hand, resting on the ground. I silently repeated Matt's instructions—pull back the hammer, aim, squeeze the trigger. It didn't sound too hard.

  I clutched it in both hands and pointed it down into the cellar at the man dragging the body. Now what? Alert Matt to my presence? But how without alerting the murderer?

  My watch burned fiercely at my chest, the pulsing so strong now that it must be visible. I didn't dare look down and check. At least it remained silent.

  The murderer drew closer to the pit and, with an almighty grunt, rolled the body into it near the pile of earth. The body landed face up, wedged between the stacks, legs and arms skewed awkwardly. The murderer straightened and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He jumped into the pit and maneuvered the body until it lay flat. The light from the lamp didn't
reach to the base of the pit and I still couldn't make out the victim's face.

  I watched as the murderer shoveled soil over the body, burying it. Nobody would find it once it was entirely covered and the floor replaced for the new building. The murderer intended for the victim to disappear, for his family to be left in the dark, forever to wonder what happened to him. Who would do such a callous thing?

  Matt still didn't reveal himself. He must be waiting for the man to get closer.

  Sweat dampened my brow, despite the cool air, but I didn't dare let go of the gun to wipe it away. I didn't dare take my gaze off the scene below me. I waited, like Matt, for the murderer to leave.

  He finished burying the body and threw the shovel aside. Breathing heavily, he hauled himself out of the pit and dusted off his hands. He surveyed his work and, with a nod of satisfaction, picked up the lamp that I'd seen McArdle carrying earlier.

  He approached the steps and suddenly looked up, directly at me.

  Ronald Hogarth!

  The apprentice reached for his gun. "Throw your weapon down here," he shouted. "I know you won't use it so don't pretend to get cocky."

  I had no time to consider my options. Matt lunged, but Hogarth heard his approach and kicked out at the last moment. The boot hit Matt square in the chest, knocking him back. He coughed and wheezed, trying to catch his breath, but the force had winded him. He pressed a hand to his chest where he'd been struck, and where his watch sat tucked away.

  What if it had broken? Oh God.

  "Don't move." Hogarth aimed his gun at Matt. "Neither of you move or I'll kill him."

  Chapter 19

  My watch pulsed wildly on the outside of my chest, matching my heartbeat on the inside.

  "Stand in the pit!" Hogarth ordered Matt. "You," he said to me, "I told you to throw down the weapon or I'll kill your husband."

  I didn't correct him. He must still think us to be Mr. and Mrs. Prescott. "No," I said, my voice shaking. Every part of me shook, from the hands that held the gun to my toes. "You think I won't shoot you, but I assure you, I will. If you pull that trigger, I pull mine."