As Tom’s new schooner sailed north, he kept close to the coastal colonies, stopping in Savannah, Charleston, Cape Fear and a few small towns in Virginia and Delaware. Once he reached Newport, Rhode Island, he decided, he would turn and make the long leap across the Atlantic to the British Isles. He collected a suitable inventory of supplies as he went, spending a little here and a little there, making sure he’d get across the Atlantic without running short of anything mid-voyage. The consequences would certainly be severe, but Tom was confident that the Uyl Talisman would keep the wind blowing in his favor. Whenever he went ashore in the colonies, he took off the wrapping he’d worn since Isla del Sol and dressed himself in his old shirt and trousers. He’d found a white uniform in a trunk in the captain’s quarters, which would come in handy later. It was the only one of three that fit him. Tom didn’t believe his presence in the colonies would attract any trouble, but he had no way of knowing the current American political weather or the colonists’ attitude toward the Bureau or the Eight. Had the Eight had any involvement in combating the Revolution? Probably not, he reasoned. If anything, they may have helped incite it. Still, he kept his stops brief and his conversations briefer. However, once back onboard his ship, he did not hurry from port to port.
Traveling at this pace served more than one purpose. Not only did it allow Tom to recover from his more severe injuries and the robust, lingering effects of being poisoned in Isla del Sol, it also gave him some time to consider his plans for returning to America with Molly. His excursion up the eastern seaboard was a hunt for a quiet place to begin life again in the free world. For whatever reason, he was particularly charmed by the Outer Banks as he passed by them on his way toward Virginia. It was a place of secrets, long beaches and hidden coves that disappeared with the tide. One night off the coast of Hatteras, he anchored in the shadow of the lighthouse and watched it as Yata sat on the foremast and sang. Tom filled himself with rum and bread, imagining a time when pirates would have been lurking around the same spot, hoping to lure ships in with false beacons, wrecking them in the shallows and robbing them blind. Another day he sailed past Ocracoke Inlet, the watery grave of the man they once called Blackbeard. Before leaving the Outer Banks, Tom came to Kitty Hawk, where he purchased some paint and spent an afternoon renaming his schooner Lucia’s Heart, which he thought was particularly clever.
*
In the late morning of October 10th, a peculiar little schooner called Lucia’s Heart came cruising into the River Thames and was spotted and intercepted by two ships of the British Navy guarding the mouth of the river. The schooner raised an English flag and gave itself up peaceably, coming up alongside the warships and dropping an anchor. The captain of the Prowess tied a rope to a cleat and threw the rest across the gap between his ship and the Lucia’s Heart as the schooner’s captain appeared. The man on the schooner, dressed in the white uniform of a high-ranking Bureau officer, collected the rope and tied it to his own ship. He appeared to be alone, and he looked ragged—tanned and unshaved. Phillip Kilby, captain of the Prowess, looked at the man and then looked up at the sky above the Lucia’s Heart, where he saw a kite made from a white uniform, flying happily on a string tied to the top of the mizzenmast. Kilby stood aside as his men dropped a gangway between the two ships, and then he spoke to the man on the schooner in a business-as-usual tone of voice, ignoring the kite and assuming it had a connection to the silly, absent look in the ragged man’s eyes.
“Before you proceed, I must require that you present letters authorizing your vessel to pass this point. I also require a manifest of the names of your crew. Have you any cargo which is to be delivered or sold?” Captain Kilby, monotone and unsuspecting, rubbed his red beard and blinked his eyes in a tired way as his men crossed over onto the Lucia’s Heart and began turning things over.
“May I ask why all of these precautions are necessary?” the man on the schooner replied, reaching into his jacket pocket and taking out a neatly folded handful of letters. One of the sailors took them to Kilby, who waited on the other side of the gangway.
“Of course,” said Kilby. “Effective as of this April past, the Minister-General George Abrams issued the Protection Act—”
“Minister-General?” the man on the schooner interrupted.
“Yes, George Abrams bears both his former title and the title of the acting Minister of England while the Crown is being passed to a successor,” explained Kilby. “Following the regicide—”
“Regicide?” The man on the schooner had apparently been away from England for some time, judging by his reaction to almost every word Captain Kilby had said.
“Oh, I see now,” said Kilby, thumbing through the letters he had been given. “It is no surprise you haven’t heard of these incidents. I beg your pardon. I did not realize I was speaking with the Lord Rainer Young himself. Yes, your uncle and the Bureau have been organizing the country and its military ever since the assassination.”
“I had no idea!”
“Very shocking. I don’t know how they managed it.” Kilby shook his head and folded the letters.
“Who exactly?”
“The clans, according to the Bureau’s report. Probably those Grey-Reivers.” He said it as if the name left a foul taste in his mouth. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, why is it you’ve come back to England alone? You have been granted your governorship in the new Caribbean territories, I presume?”
“Yes I have, but the most disastrous of circumstances have befallen Isla del Sol.” Tom feigned a sorrowful look and stalled long enough to craft a good lie. “I’ve no men remaining. I left the islands with a crew of five, none of whom lived to see this day.”
“What on earth happened?” asked Kilby, genuinely surprised.
“Those savage sea-people! They attacked us without warning, killing anyone and destroying anything they could. We had the numbers we needed to outmaneuver them, but we had to protect the citizens and could not divide our forces and hope to win the battle. I ordered the retreat, but the savages sank all but one of my ships as they fled.” Tom frowned and looked as weary and passionate as he could without looking at Kilby’s face, for he feared he would laugh. He pocketed his letters as one of Kilby’s men returned them.
“What an outrage!” Kilby exclaimed. “I will not delay you any further. I presume you are going to the Minister-General about this?”
“That is precisely my reason for returning. I must return to Isla del Sol with speed and bring justice to the rebellious tribes.” Tom narrowed his eyes and looked into the distance.
“That will be all. All hands come back aboard,” Kilby ordered, waving his men back to the Prowess. “We’ll not keep Lord Young. We’ve more ships to attend to before the noon patrol.”
“Good day, Captain,” said Tom as he weighed anchor and parted ways with the Prowess, sailing into the Thames and getting out of sight as quickly as he could.
The Prowess sailed across the mouth of the river and rendezvoused with the Horse of Neptune II. After his men moved the gangway, Captain Kilby crossed and greeted the ship’s crew and headed for the captain’s quarters. Knocking three times he stood aside and folded his hands behind his back. The door opened.
“Ah, Captain Kilby,” said Roger Locke, extending a hand and asking Kilby to come inside. “You’ve brought me the manifests of the Lucia’s Heart, I take it?”
“Not quite,” said Kilby. “As it turns out, that was Lord Rainer Young.”
“Lord Young? On that little schooner?” Locke didn’t believe him.
“My reaction was the same, suspicious as I am, but he presented his letters and was dressed in his uniform. He said the colony in Isla del Sol was attacked by the local tribes, and he’s come to request reinforcements from the Minister-General. I can’t imagine what the battle must have been like. The man looked terrible. I’ve never met the lord before, so I couldn’t recognize his face, but I wonder if I would have been able to in the condition he’s in.”
“Lord Young,” said Locke, thinking out loud, “should have looked to be no older than twenty-five years of age, with a lean frame. He usually wears his hair long. It’s of a gold color, but not too light.”
“That’s what he looked like,” said Kilby, shrugging.
“What about his crew?” asked Locke, sitting down at his desk and beginning to write a report.
“Had none with him. Said he and his men retreated, and the few who had accompanied him did not survive this long.”
“Retreated, you say?” asked Locke. “Yes, that’ll be Lord Young. Thank you, Captain.”
“I thought about offering him an escort, but I was not sure—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. Under the Protection Act we don’t have the authority to part any of our ships, and in any case we can pray that chicken-heart doesn’t make it to London,” said Locke. He paused as he dipped his quill in the ink well on his desk and joined Kilby in a good laugh.
In a few hours’ time, the Lucia’s Heart had made it to London. All the wharves and docks along the waterway were busy, and though it was not the time of day Tom preferred to arrive, the traffic on the river allowed him to slip into the city fairly unnoticed. Staying in uniform, he sailed his schooner to Hutch’s Wharf, where he felt it would be safest to keep the Lucia’s Heart, and perhaps, if Molly and the others were in London, they had left The Roatán Butterfly in the same place. Incredibly, Tom was not intercepted by any more navy ships bulldogging the river. Nearly all the public wharves were crawling with white uniforms, but not all the private ones were. Hutch’s Wharf was one such place that had avoided infiltration one way or another.
Before the Lucia’s Heart even reached the piers, Tom could tell The Roatán Butterfly was not among the ships hanging about the wharf. He tucked his schooner in as close to the shore as possible, taking some time to fold up the sails on the two masts. He knew breaking down everything entirely would not be wise, in case he needed the schooner to be ready to sail in an emergency. Jacob Hutch loped out onto the pier and waved once he realized Tom wasn’t a merchant he’d been expecting. Tom waved back and finished his work, leaving the ship once he’d gone through the desk in the captain’s quarters and gathered up his money and his old clothes, including the loin wrapping. Putting these things in his sealskin bag, he climbed down a rope ladder and onto the pier. He spoke to Jacob Hutch only briefly.
“Charlie! How are you?” Jacob chuckled and shook Tom’s hand.
“Aching to be home,” answered Tom, forcing a casual smile.
“Certainly, certainly,” said Jacob, nodding and watching the sky. “Looks like rain.”
“Well it’s as good a reason as any to be on my way then. I’m hungrier than a man with a hole in his gut.” Tom shook Jacob’s hand again and bid him farewell. “By the way, how’s business?” he asked.
“Ships coming in, and ships going out,” was his answer. It meant Hutch’s Wharf was still doing well, but what Jacob really meant was that he was still bringing in the valuable stuff—gems, magical artifacts and the like—despite the Bureau crackdown. “When you leaving again, Charlie?”
“Soon, likely,” Tom called back, heading down the pier.
“Oh, Charlie, I forgot to mention …” Jacob jogged down the pier.
“Yes?” Tom turned halfway around, really wanting to go.
“A man came by here and told me if I was to see you, I should tell you he left you something, and ‘when you get home, you should look at the moon,’ but I dunno what he meant by it.”
“Did he give a name?” asked Tom.
“No, but he said he was an old friend of your groundskeeper.”
“Ah, all right. Thanks, Jacob.”
A walk through the streets of London wasn’t what it used to be. It was impossible to turn a corner without seeing white uniforms on patrol. Everywhere he walked, Tom received salutes from soldiers he did not know. Acting his part, he walked tall and strode down each street with false confidence, trying not to turn his head to stare curiously at every little thing the Bureau was up to. A few times he held his breath as he took a right or left turn and walked within an arm’s reach of another uniform, hoping no one would address him. They never did. Most were new recruits.
Whoever the Eight were, Tom mused, they had seized control of England; that much was clear. But how dangerous could they be? After all, someone had thought Rainer Young to be competent enough to carry the title of Third. It then occurred to Tom that if Rainer Young had been the Third, George Abrams was probably one of the Eight. Not only was he the man running England, he was Young’s uncle, and probably the nepotistic authority that made Young a governor in the first place. As Tom walked across town, he could not help but wonder so many things. There had to be six other individuals involved in what the Bureau was doing all over Europe and in the Caribbean. What was frustrating was that they could be anyone, and they could be replaced. Alecandre Love had been replaced by Rainer Young. Who had taken Harlan’s place as Second? What did the Eight want? They were undoubtedly proficient, but he got the impression they must be like a quarreling bunch of children, arguing about what game to play.
As much as it bothered him, Tom had to remind himself not to care too much. What power-hungry madmen wanted was no concern of his. The Eight had already involved him enough through his brother. And look what that caused, he thought. It did not matter to him that the Bureau was looking for him, or why. They probably had a list of bounty heads miles long. The only reason Tom was special was because he had a history of escaping capture, making him famous, like the Holy Grail of criminals. The wealthy and powerful squirmed knowing Tom was alive, but in the way gluttons worry about one little fly buzzing into the room and landing on their feast.
Worrying about conspiracies beyond his control was not improving Tom’s mood, so he put all of it out of mind and concentrated on the more important matter of finding Molly and a new home. His old one was waiting for him when he arrived, but it felt different, unused. The grounds were not as tidy as he was used to seeing them, and the windows were a little dusty.
“Mihi nomen est Crowe,” he said, holding out his hand and touching the front door. There was a weak reaction to the spell. The locks squeaked but did nothing, and the wood groaned quietly. Tom turned the knob and pushed, taking a moment to force it open because it was jammed in a strange way. After a fifth push it swung open and he went inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Hello?” His voice and footsteps were the only sounds to be heard. No one had been in the house for some time, and many things were gone—anything that could have stored something, like cabinets or drawers, were open or missing. The furniture was still where it was supposed to be, but the house had otherwise been emptied. When he went upstairs he saw the same thing. The library seemed emptiest of all. Wall to wall, the bookshelves were bare. Only the halos of dust where things used to sit were left. Magical artifacts, spell books and foreign oddities—gone. Even the rubies in the magic candles leading to the rooftop observatory had been taken. The only room that had been left alone was the observatory itself. Tom didn’t suspect common robbers. He knew it had been the Bureau, and he knew his home was surely not the first or last to have been stripped. Only things that would have been of interest to a magesmith or the authorities had been taken—nothing of actual monetary value. In fact, his telescope, which was made up of numerous moving, gold parts, hadn’t been touched.
Almost everything Tom ever collected and put in his house had vanished, and yet he felt strangely fine. He had intended this visit to be his last, and now it would be easier to leave, having nothing to lose. The clouds outside were passing and the late afternoon sun turned his observatory gold and orange. The light revealed dust particles hanging in the air and dashing about as if there were something to be excited about. Tom sat down in a chair behind the eyepiece of the telescope. Cleaning it off with a little cloth, he looked into it and couldn’t see a thing. The lens was dark, but he hadn’t ever put
a cap on it. When he swiveled the telescope, something on the lens moved and shifted position, and suddenly the bright sunlight was visible. Tom got up and climbed up on the table; looking into the lens, he found a sealed letter. Strange that anyone, including himself, would have left a letter in such a place, but as Tom recalled, Jacob had said there would be something for him, and now the riddling message he had conveyed made sense. Keeping his balance, Tom dropped to the floor and opened the letter, unfolding it and reading:
Thomas,
If you should find this letter, and I hope you do, it means you have safely returned to London. I don’t know if Ozias ever mentioned my name to you, but I cannot reveal it in this correspondence. Before I begin, I regret to tell you that Ozias has passed away. Soon after the Bureau of Immortal Affairs entered your home they condemned it, and Ozias and your housemaid came to us. Ozias resisted the intruders, but they did not harm him. I believe his age got the better of him, and he left us during the night. This letter was written after the Bureau searched your home and, as you have already discovered, seized almost everything you own. I am aware that for a number of years you lived in this house under an assumed name. Do not be alarmed, because I do not believe the Bureau is aware, but we cannot safely assume anything anymore.
The purpose of this letter is to warn you that the Bureau is in control of lawmaking policies and the military in England as of April this year. Our King has been killed, and the circumstances surrounding his death reek of foul intentions. My friends and I know the Minister-General George Abrams had something to do with it, but the Bureau has publicly placed the blame on your kind, specifically the Grey-Reiver clan. Members of more immediately local clans like the Nockholt and Weybridge are falling under scrutiny as well. They vanish, and in a few weeks time they reappear on the execution block or in the gallows. It is presently July, and now vampire cults are experiencing assassinations and hostile reorganizations. Don Violanti Pagani of the Red Legion was killed many months ago. Since then, the Parisian House of Roses has taken up residence in the former Pagani estate. The London Black Coats have dissolved entirely. Speaking of which, we know that Corvessa, the matriarch of the House of Roses, is the Fifth. Perhaps you have heard of the Eight by now? They are the ones making the Bureau’s decisions. They belong to no country and have an agenda all their own. They wish to undo the cults and clans of Europe and control the world magic trade. That is all we have learned so far. They are headed by the Minister-General George Abrams, who bears the title of Eighth. As I said, Corvessa is the Fifth and Lord Rainer Young, nephew of Abrams, is the Third. He replaced Alecandre Love, who is now dead or missing. Your brother, Harlan, was the Second, but he too died and was replaced. The new Second is here in London, but we haven’t a name for him or her yet.
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