The Crimson Shard

by Teresa Flavin

  “Sunni. Find Amelia,” Blaise urged. “They’ve taken her that way.”

  He moved forward, his arms outstretched to grab Henry’s attacker by the back of the neck, but someone came from behind and hauled him aside. Just as he was about to fight back, a familiar voice made him stop.

  “Are you mad, boy?” asked the man. “This way.”

  A body was pushed hard against Blaise’s side. He could not see who it was, but from the wide skirt brushing his leg, he guessed it was Sunni. The noisy mob parted as powerful hands steered them toward the exit. There they hit a tide of oncoming bodies streaming into the Rotunda and were maneuvered through, gasping and sweating.

  Blaise tried to turn, but the voice said, “Face forward.”

  They squeezed through the exit and were guided around the curved side of the Rotunda to a place where fewer people milled.

  “Stop here,” said the voice, releasing the grip on his arm. Blaise whirled around and faced Wheatley. The man’s other hand was still on Sunni’s shoulder.

  “Why did you make us leave, Mr. Wheatley?” he said hoarsely. “We were trying to help the Featherstones!”

  “And call attention to yourselves? You would have been taken.”

  “Now what?”

  The beak nodded up and down. “Trevelyan has gone after Miss Featherstone — who should never have been here in the first place — and no doubt Henry Featherstone is dealing his attacker blows he shall never forget.”

  “That’s good news, I guess,” said Sunni, trying to twist gracefully out of Wheatley’s grip. But he would not let go.

  “It is, indeed,” Wheatley said. “But we must make haste. It is too dangerous to stay here now.”

  “Your hand is hurting —” whispered Sunni.

  “Can you let go of her shoulder, please, sir?” Blaise asked as politely as he could.

  Several passersby looked curiously at them, and Wheatley said under his breath, “I apologize,” as he dropped his hand to his side.

  Sunni sprang away, panting under her mask.

  “I do not mean to harm you,” Wheatley said breathily. “Far from it. You know so many things I wish to know. Things I must know!”

  Blaise took Sunni’s arm, saying nothing.

  “I will help you, but you must also help me.” Wheatley held out one hand. “Come, we should leave this place now.”

  “How are we to help you?” Sunni asked. Blaise held her arm fast, and they made no move to go anywhere.

  “You need my red elixir, but it has a price.”

  Blaise’s blood rose. “A price?”

  “It is little to ask,” said Wheatley, his open hand curling into a fist. “In exchange for my elixir, I demand to go with you to the future.”

  “You can’t come with us!” said Sunni, incredulous. “You belong in our time as much as we belong in this one — not at all!”

  “You have nothing without me,” said Wheatley between gritted teeth. “I am taking the trouble to make the elixir, at no small risk to myself.”

  “That doesn’t mean you should use it yourself,” said Blaise. “And you won’t be able to if we don’t tell you where the painted door is.”

  “Tell me where it is, or I shall not give you my elixir!”

  “You said you’d help us, not hold us to ransom,” Sunni said, indignant. “We’re not bargaining.”

  “You deny me so much as a glimpse of your world,” Wheatley croaked. “You would keep me chained to this time, when I, more than any man in this century, deserve to go to yours!”

  A cool breeze swirled up, catching cloaks and causing a loud rustling in the trees. Sunni’s skin prickled at the sight of a dark shape darting behind a trunk in the distance.

  “Blaise,” she mumbled, “we can’t stay here.”

  “My home is safe.” Wheatley’s tattered cloak billowed. “Come with me now!”

  “No. I want to make sure the Featherstones are all right,” said Blaise. “Let’s go, Sunni.”

  Wheatley’s mouth hung open. “You would throw my assistance and hospitality back in my face?”

  “Your price is too high.”

  Wheatley lunged. “How dare you!”

  Another gust rattled the leaves as Sunni and Blaise bolted away toward the network of paths around the Rotunda. Wheatley pursued them briefly, then staggered to a halt and stared after them.

  “You shall return!” His voice followed them on the wind. “You have nowhere else to go. And I am the only one who can help you!”

  Sunni held her mask tight with one hand and her leather satchel with the other. Her shoulder was rubbed raw from the strap, but she kept pace with Blaise. “What are we going to do now?”

  “I think we should head back to the Rotunda,” said Blaise, constantly checking over his shoulder as he slowed down to a rapid walk.

  “Then why are we going this way?”

  “It’s the long way around. More chance of shaking off Wheatley.”

  “What if we can’t find the others?”

  Blaise’s voice was gruff. “Don’t worry about that now!”

  He and Sunni wove in among strolling guests parading up and down the walkways, watchful that Wheatley had not caught up. Blaise turned into a quieter path leading down toward the river.

  “This isn’t taking us back to the Rotunda,” Sunni protested.

  “It will eventually. There’ll be a turn.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “It’s just for a little bit longer,” he said.

  The farther they walked, the more the crowds thinned out, as did the number of twinkling lanterns. The path grew darker and darker. The Thames was a horizontal black stripe ahead of them, bordered above by a starry indigo sky.

  “This is creepy,” said Sunni, looking all around her as they came to a junction with another path. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay, okay. We want to be heading in that direction,” said Blaise, turning left. “This should take us toward the Rotunda.”

  “It looks like a dead end.”

  “No — I bet there’s another turn but we can’t see it from here.”

  “I don’t know.” Sunni stopped and peered at the solitary path. They were completely alone. “Remember what Henry said.”

  “There’s no one here.” Blaise offered his hand. “Come on.”

  She followed him, unconvinced, and they walked farther up the new path, chilled by the wind off the river. With every step, the buzzing sounds of the crowds grew fainter and silence surrounded them. She wanted to rip the mask from her face so she could see properly, but she didn’t dare.

  “This is a lonely place to find oneself,” said a languid voice behind them.

  Sunni gasped as she and Blaise whirled around. Some distance away, farther up the path, stood Throgmorton. He was dressed completely in black except for a gold-embroidered waistcoat that glinted in the light of a nearby lantern.

  “You are well disguised,” he said, standing completely still. “But when I noticed two young figures talking with a man-bird about going to the future, the costumes became pointless.”

  Blaise took Sunni’s arm and began to move away.

  “Corvo’s three magical paintings!” Throgmorton said. “You know where they are, and you will tell me now.”

  “We are not telling you anything!” Blaise replied angrily.

  “Then you have had your last chance. Livia and I are leaving before Starling’s house is destroyed, and with it, the painted door. It is the only way back to your time.”

  Destroyed! The word shot through Sunni’s head. Why should it be destroyed? Once again, she envisioned the blue plaque on the front of Starling House, its words and numbers fuzzy and hard to remember. Had destroyed been one of them?

  “What are you talking about?” Blaise shouted.

  “Even I cannot change destiny, Blaise, much as I would wish to. The Academy was always destined to end in September 1752. I have made the most of it while I could.”

&
nbsp; “You’re making this up, like everything else you’ve told us!”

  Destroyed. Sunni’s memory of the blue plaque snapped into focus as if a lens had been adjusted. Destroyed on 14th September 1752.

  “The house will be destroyed at some point in the next few hours. It will be impossible to pass through the painted door, for it will not exist anymore.”

  “No, you’re wrong! It won’t be destroyed until September fourteenth,” shouted Sunni, clutching at Blaise’s cloak. “I read it on the blue plaque at Starling House.”

  Throgmorton’s laugh rang out. “But the calendar changes at midnight!”

  “He’s right,” Blaise whispered. “Today is September second, and we’re about to lose eleven days.”

  Henry’s words came back to Sunni: At midnight we shall jump past them, as if they never existed. She frantically counted on her fingers: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. “Oh no — tomorrow is September fourteenth!”

  Sunni almost staggered and fell as this sank in. Her head began to spin, trying to cope with the enormity of it.

  “Correct!” came Throgmorton’s voice. “And it will soon be midnight.” He cupped his hand around his chin. “I am certain your stepbrother, Dean, will help me find the paintings instead. I shall see him very soon.”

  “Dean! Stay away from him,” Sunni gasped. “He doesn’t know anything!”

  “You shall pay the price for defying me.” Throgmorton’s embroidered waistcoat glinted as he raised one arm high. “Stay in this world and see how you fare.”

  He brought his arm down, and several nearby tree trunks seemed to come alive as hunched figures emerged from behind them.

  Blaise and Sunni took off in the opposite direction, their satchels flying.

  “Run away!” Throgmorton’s laugh faded. “Run away for the last time.”

  “Come on!” Blaise pulled Sunni off the path and out of the lantern light. Her feet moved jerkily in her high-heeled shoes, as if some outside force were operating her legs. They cut through brush and round statues, interrupting kissing couples and pick-pocketings in progress, outrunning Throgmorton’s henchmen. At last, they burst onto a brightly lit path full of laughing revelers and merged with a crowd moving like a lazy river. They pushed into its center, camouflaged by people’s tall wigs and outlandish costumes.

  “Can you see any of them?” Blaise panted, peering around through his eyeholes.

  “No . . .” Sunni tried to catch her breath. “We’ve lost them . . . I think.”

  Blaise unbuckled his satchel and squinted at his watch hidden there. “If this is right, we have only a little more than an hour before midnight.”

  “No!” Hot tears started down Sunni’s face. “What do we do?”

  “We get transport — fast. If we can outrun Throgmorton and get back to the house first . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s our last chance. We’ve just got to get back there!” He yanked the mask from his face and tossed it into the bushes.

  “Okay.” She cast her mask aside and rubbed the tears from her face. Blaise put his arm around her shoulders and they moved with the crowd toward a long rectangular pool, glittering with reflected light. In the pool’s center was an ornate pavilion, with a pagoda-like roof, connected to land by a short footbridge. People milled around the pavilion, leaning out from its angular corners and waving to others on shore.

  When they got to within a few yards of the footbridge, Blaise slowed down and scanned the people inside.

  “What?” whispered Sunni.

  “We need to find Henry and the others. He’s got a carriage.” His lip drooped in disappointment. “I don’t think they’re here.”

  “How are we ever going to find them?” She gestured at the brightly lit Rotunda in the distance. “That place is packed, and they might not even be there anymore.”

  “Then we’ll find another way to Jeremiah’s.”

  They dodged in and out of the hordes, careful not to be followed, then sneaked through the exit, where a jumble of horse-drawn vehicles vied for space. Once again they had to push past hawkers, porters, and angry drivers; dodge more manure; and slip through gaps between coaches that might shift at any moment.

  When they came to the edge of the jam, Blaise began asking drivers to take them to Phoenix Square, but the carriages were either reserved or were asking exorbitant fees. “Let’s find Henry and Amelia’s coach. Maybe the driver will take us if we explain. And if that doesn’t work, there might be cheaper carriages farther away from here.”

  As they turned into the back streets of Chelsea, the lights of Ranelagh Gardens and the Royal Hospital disappeared. Nearing Wheatley’s house, Sunni half expected him to leap out at them, but she kept telling herself that he was still at the masquerade. She wrenched her foot on some rubble and cursed under her breath, wishing they were as clever as Sleek at weaving through the dark. Soon, Blaise bent down and tore the fussy ribbons off his shoes.

  “I think the Featherstones’ carriage turned here after it let us out,” he said, taking them down a side road just before Wheatley’s dark house.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Look,” said Blaise, pointing at three silhouettes walking ahead of them. Two men were escorting a woman between them. “Hurry!”

  They caught up, getting so close that they could hear one of the men.

  “I am delighted I arrived when I did, Miss Featherstone,” the voice said. “For once I was pleased to be delayed, for it meant I could fight that villain off.”

  “You have your uses at times, Martingale,” said the other man.

  “It’s Henry!” Blaise squeezed Sunni’s arm. “Mr. Featherstone! Miss Featherstone!”

  The trio spun around. Even in the dark, Sunni could see that the Featherstones’ masks were gone. Martingale was also barefaced.

  “Blaise and Sunniva?” Henry’s mouth hung open. “By heaven, we lost you in the fray! We hoped you were with Wheatley but saw no sign of you.”

  “He’s still at the masquerade. Please, sir, we need to go to Phoenix Square immediately!” said Sunni.

  Henry hesitated, as though he might demand some explanation on the spot, but Amelia put her arm firmly on his and he relented.

  “Come, then,” he said, and they hurried to the inn, where the footman was snoring on the backseat of the carriage.

  “Wake now, man,” Henry barked. The man was out and up in his seat like a shot, allowing the party to squeeze inside. “Take us to Phoenix Square immediately.”

  The startled footman stuttered, “Y-yes, sir, but I am not certain where Phoenix Square is.”

  “By heaven, we should have brought Rowley instead.”

  “He might have been recognized from last night. You said so yourself,” said Amelia.

  Sunni put her head in her hands. “Now what?”

  “Fear not. I know the way,” said Martingale. “Jeremiah Starling lives in Phoenix Square.” He shouted directions from the window, and the carriage clattered out of Chelsea’s village streets.

  “You know Jeremiah Starling?” asked Sunni, astonished.

  Martingale looked at her curiously. “Featherstone and I are acquainted with Starling from Old Slaughter’s coffeehouse, though we have not seen him in months. But how would you know him?”

  “The Academy is in Jeremiah Starling’s house. He made the painted door — and if we don’t get there by midnight, we can never go through it again!”

  “The painted door is in Starling’s house, made by his own hand?” asked Martingale, aghast.

  “Yes, and it’s going to be destroyed on September fourteenth!” said Sunni. “Throgmorton is going to escape before that happens, and we have only one more chance to get through.”

  “Destroyed on September fourteenth!” said Henry, pulling out his pocket watch and squinting at it in the gloom. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” said Sunni. “It’s part of history. That’s why we have to get back through t
he door before it happens.”

  “If I am seeing my watch correctly, it is just after eleven o’clock,” Henry said. “You have little time — and no red elixir.”

  “My brother is right,” said Amelia worriedly. “What will you do without the elixir?”

  “We don’t even know if it works,” said Blaise. “All we can do is get to the painted door and see if we can find a way through somehow.”

  “If you do not succeed tonight, perhaps Wheatley can discover another way when his elixir is ready,” said Martingale.

  “We have to go through that door,” said Sunni mournfully. “It connects to one in our time.”

  “Besides, Wheatley put too high a price on his elixir,” Blaise said. “He demanded to come with us to the future in return for it.”

  “What? Wheatley set a condition upon his assistance?” Martingale was astonished.

  “I cannot believe he would do such a thing,” said Henry, outraged.

  “He won’t get anywhere without the painted door,” said Sunni.

  “That is some comfort,” said Henry. “But I am appalled that Starling let such evil-doing happen under his own roof.”

  “I don’t think he had any choice. Throgmorton controls everything,” Blaise said quickly. “He has a hold over Jeremiah. We think it’s about money.”

  Martingale shook his head. “This does not surprise me. Starling is a talented painter, but poor as a church mouse and in debt.”

  The carriage made a turn into the heart of Covent Garden and stopped abruptly.

  “Sir, there is a problem ahead,” shouted the footman from his seat in front. “A blockage of carriages, and something burning in the road.”

  “As we feared, there is mischief afoot. I shall have a look.” Henry jumped out of the door. When he returned, less than a minute later, he was breathless. “We can go no farther east through Covent Garden. It is nearing midnight, and a mob has gathered, angry at losing their eleven days. They are moving south apparently, in packs like wolves, intent upon making trouble.”

  Sunni reached forward and squeezed Amelia’s hand. “We can’t wait.”

  “You must,” Amelia objected. “It is not safe —”

  Before anyone could say or do anything, Sunni pushed herself through the narrow door. Blaise jumped out after her, mumbling, “Thanks for everything.”