“He won’t tell me.”
Because he knew Emma wouldn’t approve. He knew Emma hated Dee. I’d bet my rapier Henry was meeting with Dee. I’d never introduced him to Father, so he’d had to pursue someone else famous and skilled to train him.
But why would Dee take Henry on as an apprentice if Henry had no color power? Dee was intent on deepening knowledge and making connections that got him closer to the crown. Then again, once we blew up Parliament, Henry would be the new Baron.
“Will you go out again tonight?” she asked. “To help the Keepers?”
“I think so.”
A pause. “I will go too. With you.”
“Why would you do that? You’re an Igniter.”
“Just because I’m an Igniter doesn’t mean I want people to be murdered or imprisoned for coin.”
As if I didn’t already respect her beyond what I believed humanly possible. “You would do that?”
“Your comment about the Keepers at that hanging got to me, Thomas. In a good way. In a changing way. You were right—I’d spared no thought for them. I don’t want to be like that. And once my thinking changed, the colors obeyed me even better and I painted your portrait.”
“Funny how we both taught each other the same lesson.” I helped her up from the grass and we made our way back toward London Bridge. “Are you certain you want to help me?”
She popped an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to try to stop me? You have only a sword and I have only a mask. Together, we are a force to be reckoned with.” She sounded like she wanted this. This danger and adventure. I couldn’t deny her that.
“What about Henry? If he finds out—”
“Remember, he’s gone at night too.” A sly grin painted her face. “I’ll meet you here at midnight.”
“In that case . . . bring your mask.”
Twenty-Nine
The prison carriage stopped at the side gate of the Tower of London, led by two Igniter captors.
It hadn’t been hard to find the Tower in the dark. As we’d wended our way from the Strand in the shadows, my sword did not clank against stones or bushes. We’d kept to the edges of the lanes but did not venture onto any grass—its soft whooshing would betray our presence more than the fall of leather on packed dirt. Emma followed me softly, though her skirts swished more than I would have liked.
We’d arrived in the alley without a whiff of detection. It was hard to quell my saunter. I’d done it as well as Father could have. He would be proud. And even if he wasn’t, I was proud of how far I’d come.
I was no longer the boy hiding behind ale barrels at the Duck and Drake planning to steal a man’s coin purse.
The creak of metal hinges refocused my thoughts. Two guards came forward from the Tower to meet the cart. The Igniters held up a bundle of masks. The guards took the masks, then handed over coin to pay for the captured Keepers.
I looked at Emma with a silent, “Are you ready?”
Her wide eyes met mine and I caught the sound of her excited quickening breath. I felt like I was finally giving her something—a moment of action, of power, an opportunity to show herself . . . even if it was just to me.
She nodded and we made our move.
Emma went for the cart. I went for the men—two guards and two Igniters.
I sent the point of my sword where it would best serve us—through the mask straps of the two guards. Before they could respond, I’d sliced the masks off the Igniters too. Then the swords flew. At last, something I could defend against.
I lunged for the guard on my right and released my skill. My sword tip drew blood. So did his. Scratches, slices, twirling. He lunged and I spun to my left. Steel caught my sleeve, but not flesh. It didn’t take the others long to surround me.
With a snap, I slashed my blade into my opponent’s side. Shallow, but enough to cause him pause. I leaped out from the midst of them and darted a glance to the cage. Emma sent a quick color command to one of the Igniter’s boots, securing him to the ground. He cried out and lost balance.
“Keep your focus!” I called. I appreciated the help, but she needed to save her color energy for if things went awry.
Emma gave a sharp nod, then slammed a rock against the door lock. Voices cried from behind the bars and wood. Calling for freedom.
An Igniter spun toward the noise, then lunged for his mask in the dirt. I stabbed my sword toward his hand. When he recoiled, I kicked the mask out of the way. I was tempted to stomp on it and shatter it . . . but that was one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do. It broke the standards of honor.
Arms cinched around my body from behind. I yelled as a guard yanked my sword from my hand. I stomped on his bare foot and my heel cracked through bone. He screamed and released me, stumbling backward until he tripped over the boots he’d abandoned after Emma’s color command.
Well done, Emma!
She hadn’t gotten the prison cart door open yet. There must be a color command on the lock. The Igniter on the ground retrieved his mask and turned toward her.
“Emma!” I yelled in warning.
She looked up, sent a spray of dirt at his face, then ran. The men didn’t pursue. Ha. The fools thought she was fleeing.
I went after my sword—dropped by Broken Foot—but the other Igniter used his color power to send my cape up over my face. I batted it away, but four arms trapped me. The cloth slid away at the same time that one of the guards yanked up my sleeve and sliced his blade across my forearm. I flinched as a burst of blood flowed forth. Deep red beneath the moonlight.
“I don’t see any White in ’im.” The guard wiped his blade on my sleeve.
“Does he have a mask?” one of the Igniters said.
The guard felt around my belt. “No. But I can kill him right here and still get coin from our captain.”
I tensed.
Broken Foot dragged himself forward with a drawn dagger. He wouldn’t even give me the honor of death by sword? I tried to throw off the other guard restraining me, but I might as well have been wrestling an oak.
He yanked my head back, exposing my throat. I got in one last swallow.
Then the prison cart lurched so violently, every Keeper prisoner cried out. Broken Foot spun. The cart bucked again. It creaked and then rose.
Into.
The.
Air.
I stared slack-jawed. Higher and higher it went. The occupants screamed. Bony fingers gripped the metal bars. Then the wheels began to spin, as though a giant hand cranked them. Faster and faster.
How . . . ?
The guards stared with arms drooping. The Igniter captors reeled back.
Then I saw her on a rooftop, arms outstretched and entire body trembling. Emma was lifting the cart. Alone. It had taken six Browns to push the thing into the Thames when Norwood drowned. Yet there she stood, showing her power to the world.
The White Light in her veins pulsed so strongly it shone through her clothing like morning sunbeams. The Igniter beside me dropped to his knees. I barely found my footing enough to make a break for it, toward the alleys. There was nothing I could do by gaping.
The wheels broke from the wagon. One after the other, they spiraled toward the guards and Igniters—one for each man.
Crack.
The first guard fell like an abandoned rag doll. The second wheel hit the next guard before he’d even checked on his fellow. The two Igniter captors tried to run, but Emma sent them sprawling. Once they woke, their headaches would rival any they’d had after a full night of reveling.
I paused, balanced on one foot. All seemed done, but then with a gasp from Emma, the prison cart crashed to the street and split apart. Keeper prisoners shoved cracked timber off themselves and stumbled out of the wreckage. One retrieved their bundle of masks.
Another stood in awe, staring up at where Emma had stood. “Why . . . why would an Igniter save us?” one asked.
“Come on!” The first ran into the dark. The other followed while two young bo
ys darted away, snatching up the Igniters’ masks as they went.
A window lit above. We’d woken nearby residents.
I searched the rooftop for Emma. Where was she? Then I thought of what she’d done. Having used that level of color power, she could be incapacitated . . .
“Emma!” I bolted to the back of the alley and found her access point to the roof—barrels pushed up against the herringbone brick walls. I scrambled up, hauling myself to the roof by a support beam. I crawled to where she’d stood, but she wasn’t there. More lights came on as I knocked wooden shingles loose.
She must have fallen.
I slid down the shingles, ignoring the slivers that bit my thighs, and dropped to the ground with a grunt.
The Tower had awoken.
The town had awoken.
“Emma!” I shouted.
“Will you stop shouting my name for all the street to hear?” she hissed from behind me.
I spun. She leaned against the brick wall, mask hanging around her neck, breathing hard but looking exhilarated. The glow from the White Light in her veins dimmed with each pulse.
This girl . . .
“Time to go.” I took her gloved hand and we sprinted into the darkness.
Not quite the smooth rescue that Father would have orchestrated, but we’d done the job. We were still breathing heavily several minutes after we stopped. “You were brilliant,” I said.
“I’ve never done something of that magnitude before.” She wiped her curls from her forehead.
“How did you manage it?”
“It was more like a feeling. I barely had to think and the colors obeyed. Everything felt so—right.”
I tried to imagine what other people might say—what the king would say—if they saw what Emma had done. They would fear her. And fear turned people wild.
Still, I was proud of her. And I found myself drawn to that glow in her skin.
The guard had cut open my arm and plain red blood had run out. A confused disappointment formed in my throat. Why didn’t I feel like a Keeper? Why didn’t I feel the conviction that Father and Catesby and Percy seemed to hold on to? What was I?
Not masked, barely Keeper, and certainly not Igniter despite the few times I’d talked to the White Light. Seeing the glow in Emma’s skin and the joy on her face, recalling what she’d done to that cart . . . made me want to talk to it again.
It made me want to understand.
Thirty
13 July 1605
“My collapse will likely last a week. Maybe two.” Dee stood before the caved-in tunnel in his bedclothes.
“Thomas will care for you,” Catesby said from beside the cot we’d carried into the cellar.
Dee nodded. “I know he will.”
I didn’t like being assigned the nursemaid to Dee, especially when I was so confused about my commitment to this plot.
Catesby, Wintour, Jack, and Percy crowded into the cellar with me. Dee couldn’t fix the tunnel, but he could lift the dirt long enough for us to retrieve the gunpowder. Or so he said.
“Are you ready, men?” Dee asked in a somber voice.
We all nodded as though steeling our nerves for a death duel. Catesby, Jack, and Percy all wore their masks. Wintour’s was still cracked beyond repair but remained on his belt all the same.
Dee took a breath that filled his chest like a swollen cow carcass. Then he tied his multicolored mask to his face. He didn’t even use color power to knot the ties—not wasting a single ounce of the energy that would be sent to the tunnel.
He faced the mouth of the tunnel as a soldier of the sea might face a leviathan. The rest of us held our breath. Dee’s inhales and exhales filled our ears. He seemed to be steeling himself for the job. That or gathering energy from the audience. He was a performer, after all.
He lifted his hands. German spilled from Dee’s mouth. A great rumble shook the cellar. I squinted, though no dust reached my eyes. Dee had control over even that.
The great timbers that had lodged themselves in the wall of the tunnel cracked and then rotated. Dee swept an arm to the side and the beams lurched upward, forming a square arch in the tunnel. Rocks and dirt showered the floor of the tunnel.
I looked from the upright beams to Dee’s quaking body. Was he weakened? Was he almost depleted? Catesby seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he moved the cot closer behind Dee, to catch him upon collapse.
But then Dee opened his mouth wide like a gaping fish and released a bellow that would have shaken the tunnel by volume alone. Wintour grimaced and I imagined the passersby above hearing Dee’s roar.
Perhaps they would blame it on the plague bale that still hung in front of the Whynniard house door.
His roar sent a blast up the tunnel, shoving debris and dirt mess back into place in the walls—leaving behind a smooth, cleared pathway into the earth.
Wintour, Keyes, Percy, and Jack darted into the tunnel and rolled out the barrels one by one. I pulled them out of the opening. Dee grew pale. He trembled and dust fell in the tunnel.
“Hurry!” I shouted.
The men ran up again. A third time. Sending barrels rolling toward the opening—one after the other. I hauled them out, shoulders burning.
A timber beam crashed to the floor. “Get out of there!” Catesby hollered.
They obeyed and barely stumbled through the opening when the dirt crashed down with a rumble and Dee’s body melted onto the cot. All of us panted. We’d rescued thirty-six barrels of gunpowder.
For the first time since losing his mask to this plot, Wintour cracked a smile. He might have even let out a whoop had the public streets above not been so near.
Percy pushed past me and the two of them aligned the barrels as easily as a boy might roll a hoop along a country path.
And so the plot continued.
27 July 1605
King James was said to return from his hunting trip tomorrow. Apparently killing wildlife was more important to the king of England than the fact his people were still killing each other.
While the king was away hunting, certain men spent their evenings moving the last of the gunpowder barrels from the Whynniard house across Cotton Garden and into the undercroft of his own Parliament.
I was one of those men. Still plague-free and using both working eyes to take in the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder stacked atop each other against the back wall. The sight of them sent my heart racing. The last steps of the plot were in order.
And for some reason, I continued to help. And help. And help.
Because I was too unsure to make up my mind.
“Dee says the plague persists because such a wild Igniter king sits on the throne.” Percy brushed the dirt off his hands. “He warned that when the king returns to London, there will probably be an outbreak.”
Dee had been talking like that ever since he woke in the Whynniard house. He had returned to his home this afternoon and I was pleased to be rid of him. I’d barely been able to take a free breath on account of his needing care or food or cleaning or reading material or sending me out to scatter seeds for the brainless pigeons and ducks. His neediness had made slipping away to meet with Emma almost impossible these past two weeks.
We stacked logs of firewood for another hour to cover the gunpowder. With it all near the fireplace, it looked like a regular stockpile. The perfect cover-up. One portion remained thin enough to access the gunpowder—both to check it and to light it. When the time came.
Who would be the one assigned to lighting the match?
Once finished, I took the cart back to Catesby’s. I did so armed, just in case. Emma and I had spent night after night rescuing Keepers—every time she could slip away. It was harder for her lately because Henry had been staying home—further convincing me that he was training under Dee.
She would often try to explain to the Igniters that their choice to capture or kill Keepers was wrong. They never listened. Lust for dominance and money did that to some people, but I a
dmired Emma for trying.
On the way home from Lambeth, I passed by Emma’s house on the Strand. The lights were still on. As Parliament grew closer, I hadn’t decided yet if I would tell Emma of my involvement—or ask her advice.
The more time we spent together—me seeing her understand the White Light inside her—the more we began to meld.
As one team.
As one mind.
Did that mean I was becoming an Igniter?
Every now and then I slipped my sword blade along my finger to make sure no White ran in my blood. Sometimes I was relieved.
Other times . . .
Father would arrive home soon with my mask. I was ready for it, but not for the reasons he might’ve thought. I wanted to see what would happen when I bonded. What would the colors do? What would White Light say? And how would I respond? I knew in my heart that I would try speaking the language of multiple colors. Why shouldn’t I? I trusted Emma’s approach to color power more than anyone’s.
I walked the river, not yet ready to return to the Whynniard house. I kept my eyes open for the cloaked figure. After speaking with Emma, I couldn’t stop picturing the man as Henry Parker. But Henry had no color power, so it couldn’t be.
It was foolish to seek the cloaked man again. He’d already proven he could best me, but he hadn’t killed me. A desire for understanding—for truth—gnawed at my gut. A new feeling. It meant sometimes thinking along the lines of what Father had instructed but then also sometimes venturing away from those lines to find the answers for myself, as Emma advised.
My train of thought felt rebellious, but also . . . organic. Cleansing. Like that was what men were supposed to do. Be seekers of the answers and the truth. To be above the influence and opinions of the outspoken.
Father said he’d done that, yet he refused to talk about White Light when I asked. His pursuit of truth meant nothing if he wasn’t willing to share it.
My scouring of the banks and alleys revealed nothing. I saw a few shadows here and there, but nothing more than a few revelers, plagued beggars, and entwined couples. I gave coin to the beggars, along with whispered promises that a cure was coming, then returned home and slept fitfully, a blinding voice whispering in my mind . . . in my dreams.
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