The Blackthorn Key (20 page)

I turned and ran the other way.

MARTIN DARTED OUT OF OSWYN'S
office as I fled past it, eyes wild, face bloody. I sprinted forward to the end of the hall. There was another exit right by Oswyn's office. I had no idea where it went. On the other hand, “where” was “elsewhere,” which had to be better than “here.”

The arched door sheltered a narrow spiral staircase. I bounded down as fast as I could go, each step shooting pain across my injured back. Martin followed, his leather heels scraping on the stone, the Elephant's footsteps clomping farther back.

As I ran, I realized the lantern I was carrying wasn't
going to be much of a weapon. But I could use it for something else. Halfway down the stairs, I threw it behind me. The glass shattered. Oil splashed everywhere, amber dripping over the steps.

It worked even better than I'd hoped. Martin leaped after me, trying to close the distance. His heel slipped in the oil. He slid off the steps and pitched face-first into the wrought-iron railing. It gonged, like someone was ringing a church bell. He tumbled down.

I didn't stop to watch. Martin was out of it for a moment, but the Elephant was still stomping after me. At the bottom of the stairs, the narrow passageway opened into another corridor on the second floor, going north. I ran, trying every door. All of them were locked.

I heard voices behind me. Martin, swearing. The Elephant, shouting back. I turned to the right, down one hall, then left, into another. I found more steps and went down them.

I ended up on the ground floor, in a chamber I recognized. The clerks' offices, where Oswyn had told me to stay. And past that, the courtyard. I ran outside and skidded to a stop.

Wat was waiting at the entrance to the Hall.

I froze. He coiled, as if to chase me. He didn't. Instead, he scanned the empty windows. “He's here! Down here! In the courtyard!” he shouted.

It took me a second to realize why he wasn't coming after me. He didn't have to. He'd covered the only exit. All he had to do now was wait for Martin and the Elephant. And he wouldn't have to wait long. I could already hear them on the steps.

There was nowhere else to go. I turned and ran into the laboratory.

I'd been here once before, after my test, when the masters had shown us around the Guild Hall. There was one main entrance to the lab complex, which contained three different rooms. The central chamber, for general preparations, was a cluttering of workbenches covered with bins, casks, barrels, and pipes. A doorway on the right led to the distillery, which pumped the scent of alcohol into the prep room. Another doorway on the left held the ovens of the cook room. Each of the three main chambers, I recalled, had a smaller storeroom attached to it, holding various ingredients.

What I hadn't recalled, unfortunately, was that none of the chambers had any windows through which I might
escape. Most of the light in the workshop came from the candles set in the walls, already burnt down to nubs. More light spilled from the door to the cook room. I fled in there, hoping someone was still working.

No such luck. The only sign of life was the fires left blazing in the dozen massive ovens. The masters had put pots on the grills to simmer long-cook recipes while they took their day of rest. I was alone.

And I was trapped once again.

“In there!” Wat shouted from the courtyard. “He went in the lab!”

It was over. They'd cornered me. And, I realized, I still had the secret to the crypt in my pocket.

Isaac has the key.

I pulled the scrap with the deciphered code from under my master's sash and threw it into the nearest oven. It curled instantly, crisped to ash. I almost cast in the page from the ledger, too, but I couldn't. I saw my master's handwriting on the paper and I . . . I just couldn't.

I crammed the paper back under the sash and hunted desperately for a weapon. Here, at least, I had better choices than I'd had in Oswyn's office. A heated plate of iron, say, cooking on the fire. Or a poker, to use as a spear or a club.

I shook my head at my foolishness. I wasn't King Arthur. I wouldn't be slaying any giants today. The Elephant alone could crush me just by thinking about it. And even if I got past him and Martin, Wat still guarded the exit with his knife. I'd never get out of here in a straight-up fight.

What I needed was a distraction, like the last time I'd run away from Wat. Well, this was a laboratory. And if there was one thing I
could
do, it was make distractions.

I ran to the storeroom at the far side of the cook room. It was so stuffed with ingredients, I could barely get inside. I'd never seen such a selection. Five-, ten-, twenty-gallon glass jugs held a dizzying rainbow of liquids. The ceramic jars were so big, they looked like they were built for whales.

The first thing I needed to do was buy some time. I found two ingredients: sugar and saltpeter. Together, they were the best distraction makers in the world.

I dragged the jars into the cook room, ceramic scraping along the stone, ignoring the howling pain in my back. My plan would work better if I could melt the ingredients first, but I didn't have the time. So I just tipped both jars over near the doorway that led back to the prep room and tossed their spilled contents together with my fingers.

Voices carried from the central chamber.

“He broke my tooth,” Martin whined.

“Quiet,” the Elephant said.

“I'm going to kill the little worm.”

“You're not going to touch him. Now shut up and let me listen.”

I crept to the nearest oven and used a set of tongs to grab a glowing coal.

“Games are over, Christopher,” the Elephant said. “Come on out.”

Footsteps came closer to the doorway, moving cautiously.

I dropped the coal in the heap of white on the floor.

There was a hiss.

“What's that?” Martin said.

Then the powder burst into flame. Smoke poured from the mound as a rose-red wall of fire erupted, keening like a banshee.

“Back!” the Elephant shouted from the other room. “Get back!”

I fell to the stone and scrambled away, just as scared as the others. I'd never mixed so much sugar and saltpeter before. The inferno spattered hot caramel drips at my shoes until the grains were spent, leaving a charred splotch on the
flagstones. Smoke filled the room, a fog of white. I could barely see inches in front of my face.

“God's breath. He set the Hall on fire,” Martin said.

“Christopher!” the Elephant called. “Get out of there! You'll kill yourself.”

He wasn't half wrong. The smoke was what I'd wanted; the haze would hide me, and keep the others out for a minute or two. But the cloud billowed everywhere, stinging my eyes and choking my lungs. I ran back to the storeroom, hacking and heaving, gasping for air. I grabbed a spare apron and tied it around my face, covering my nose and mouth, hoping it might filter some of the smoke. It helped a little, but I couldn't stay in here much longer.

Still, I'd bought myself a bit more time to work. I'd have loved to make another cannon, but I'd burned up all the saltpeter. I couldn't mix gunpowder anymore. I needed something else.

The smoke was so thick, and my eyes watered so badly, I could barely read the labels on the jars. But there, among the other white powders, was natron. And there, on the other side in a twenty-gallon glass jug, was vinegar.

I grabbed another of the apprentice's aprons from one of the pegs and dumped the natron into it, twisting it at the
top to form a heavy pouch. Then I overturned the jug and let half the vinegar inside glug out onto the floor. It splashed everywhere, soaking my shoes, drawing up into a row of burlap sacks of wheat by the door, staining them maroon.
If I survive this
, I thought,
there won't be a master in the Guild who won't have me flogged
.

The sour scent of vinegar mixed with the smoke and made me cough even worse. I squeezed the pouch of natron into the wide, open mouth of the jug. Then I pressed the giant stopper back in so it trapped the top of the apron in the neck of the bottle. A stomp from my shoe drove the cork deep enough to hold.

It took a second for the remaining vinegar in the jar to start soaking through the canvas. The liquid started to fizz.

“Christopher.” The Elephant called out, still waiting for me by the doorway in the central chamber. “You can't get away. Come on out, now. We just need some information. We won't hurt you if you tell us what we want to know.”

Did I really look that dumb? He was right, though. It was time to come out. The jug wouldn't hold forever; the cork stopper was already straining against the glass. And the smoke was making me dizzy.

I hefted the jug, sending another scream down my
back. Now, one more weapon, that's all I needed. I found it through the fog in a small pot with a long handle, bubbling on the stove with a sticky brown goo that smelled like Satan eating beans. I pulled the pot from the fire. The iron bottom scraped across the grill with a metallic screech.

“Christopher,” the Elephant said.

The weight of the pot set my whole arm wobbling, bringing new cries from my wounds. I crept to the doorway that led back to the central chamber, the jug with natron and vinegar still weighing down my other hand. It was gray everywhere. I couldn't see them. I needed to see them.

I coughed. “You promise you won't hurt me?”

“Absolutely,” the Elephant said.

There.

I threw the steaming goop toward his voice. I heard it splash on stiff linen. He screamed.

I bolted from the door, jug in one hand, the now-empty iron pot in the other. The smoke was thin enough here to see the goop had hit the Elephant square on. He was soaked, a nasty brown starburst on his chest and neck. He trumpeted, arms flailing, trying to pull his clothes from his scalded skin. Martin, his mangled lip and cheek covered in blood, backed away from his comrade in fright.

He spotted me coming from the smoke, but too late. I swung the pot at his head. It clanged against his skull hard enough to wrench from my hand, bouncing across the floor, ringing over the stone. Martin crumpled like a sack of meal.

That's for Master Benedict
, I thought.

I ran out through the prep room back to the courtyard. I carried the glass jug in both hands, now, all my muscles joining my back in howling against its weight. The vinegar inside had already turned into a bubbly pink foam. The cork squeezed upward in the neck.

Wat was waiting. He drew his knife, that long, curved, wicked blade.

But I didn't intend to fight him. Halfway across the courtyard, with the last of my strength, I hurled the jug toward where he stood. Wat watched it fly through the air, surprised. It was a clumsy thing, easily sidestepped. He did, just like I'd hoped.

I dived, skidding across the stone to slam into the back of the well, putting it between me and Wat. The jug hit the ground.

It exploded. The glass shattered with an earsplitting bang, sounding like the biggest cannon in the world. The fearsome pressure from the mixture of vinegar and natron
blew shards so far, they plinked off windows on the third floor, pitting the courtyard brick like a thousand Saracen arrows.

Chips of glass, flecked with pink foam, rained down beside me, where I lay protected from the blast behind the cover of the well. I stuck my head over the rim to see what had happened.

Wat writhed on the ground, still gripping his knife, the blade scratching against the stone. His right side, from boots to hair, was plastered with red. I didn't know if it was vinegar or blood. I didn't stay to find out. I sprinted past him, flung open the door to the Hall, and fled into the street. After what I'd just done to the place, I knew I'd never get to return.

I RAN, LUNGS BURNING ALL
the way. It seemed like the whole of London stared as I sprinted past, stinking of smoke and vinegar, coughing to hack up a lung. Still I ran, on the edge of panic, only one thought in my mind.

Blackthorn.

Home.

It didn't matter that the shop wasn't mine anymore. I didn't know where else to go. Even if it hadn't been Sunday, Isaac's place was too close to Apothecaries' Hall for me to go there now. Plus, I didn't know how much I could trust the man. And I wasn't welcome at Tom's.

I gave myself an excuse to go home again: ingredients.
I'd used up two more of the vials in Master Benedict's sash in my escape. Without those, and the ingredients in the lab, Wat would, at this very moment, be slitting me open like a Sunday pig.

That wasn't my only excuse. Tom's place was on the way home from the Guild Hall. Maybe he'd be outside, and I could see him for a moment without his family around. He'd got in trouble because of me. I wanted to see him, say I was sorry. Say goodbye.

I had to be careful. I shuddered to think of what Tom's father would do if he saw me. I'd have to be even more cautious about going home again. There was a good chance the shop was being watched. Wat and the others might be back at the Hall, but Stubb wasn't. And if I'd learned one thing today, it was that anyone, anywhere, could be part of the Cult.

In the chaos, I'd forgotten that Lord Ashcombe was looking for me, too. I didn't forget for long.

•  •  •

By the time I'd neared Tom's place, I was so out of breath, I could barely walk. My back, protesting all the way, spasmed with every step.
Just a few more streets to go
, I told myself, and then I could rest. I was concentrating so hard on staying on my feet that I nearly ran into the lion's den.

Tom
was
outside his house, but he wasn't alone. Lord Ashcombe was there, too.

I nearly tripped on the cobbles. I stumbled to the safety of the doorway of a nearby jeweler and pressed my back against the wood, panting heavily, lungs on fire.