Fawkes

  And me responding.

  The king returned. People talked. Some cheered. Percy kicked things.

  The sooner this plot ended, the sooner I could make my own way in life. If our plot succeeded.

  A crowd hovered on the banks of the Thames with the king back in Whitehall. Searchers of gossip. They liked to see which nobles came and went from the palace. I joined in as a scout.

  As ladies left Whitehall and passed me by, I pretended to stroll as though enjoying the view, but gossipers always had a higher pitch than the average converser. All the better to gather information.

  “Isn’t that the boy who was cured of the plague on Lady’s Day?”

  Blast. I continued to walk, knowing by the increase in their voices that they’d turned to glance at my back—not pausing in their chittering. “Do you really think Dee did that? Do you think he can heal the plagued?”

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” the first woman asked.

  “No, I was out in the garden with—Well, I was out in the garden.” Her friend gasped, but the second woman plowed on. “Anyway, I heard Dee sent the king a warning against an upcoming plague outbreak.”

  Dee did what?

  The first woman waved her hand as though shooing a bee. “How can anyone know if an outbreak is coming?”

  I strained for the other woman’s response, but by then they were too far away. Dee sent the king a warning. I wondered if Catesby knew that he was consorting with the king. Trying to earn his favor.

  And what better way to earn the king’s favor than to reveal a plot of regicide?

  No. Catesby trusted Dee. Dee had completed his role—he’d retrieved the gunpowder and set the plot back on course. But could he really predict an outbreak?

  I tapped my skin. Still healed, but still stiff on the inside.

  Night fell and I ended up at the Thames. The waters lost a bit of their stench once the sun set, allowing the cool breeze to flow over the banks. It was the one peace I really found. Perhaps it was the idea of the water constantly moving, traveling, going. It was never stuck.

  Never like me.

  It made me feel free. In a couple of months I would be free—either through death or through the success of the plot and reception of my mask.

  I passed two beggars asleep in a doorway—one snoring and the other whimpering. It wasn’t cold out, but perhaps his thin frame was chilled. As I passed them by, he wiped something from his arm. Liquid. Blood?

  I slowed, but a cry from ahead claimed my attention. A young lady stood arm in arm with a tall man on the threshold of one of the nicer houses. But before the door closed, I caught her concerned exclamation: “I’m bleeding, Joseph. Right here on my wrist.”

  “Well, what did you do this time?” a male voice replied as the door closed. Moments later, light shone through the oiled linen over their window as a candle was lit.

  A shadow passed between two trees far up the bank. My blood curdled with premonition. Pigeons clucked and pecked at the ground by the Thames, making it difficult to hear the shadow’s footsteps.

  I quickened my pace. With the moon blocked by tight alley roofs, it was a strain to see much, but then the stars illuminated the flash of a knife as the figure passed a group of gentlemen. One let out a surprised exclamation. His fellows laughed.

  What was happening?

  I brushed past them, giving the body of a stone rat a wide berth. A pool of blood spread on the ground beside it. The trail of sliced flesh and Stone Plague sent me into a run. I softened the slam of my boots and checked my breathing, wrapping myself in the cloak of silence perfected through Father’s training.

  Then I saw him. Hooded. Swift. Silent.

  A dark mass gliding up the street with purposeful speed. The man passed by a sleeping beggar, but not before I saw the jab of a blade, heard the surprised grunt, caught a splash of blood.

  This man was cutting people. Beggars, ladies, gentlemen, rats.

  Was this Henry Parker?

  I waited for him to round a corner, then knelt by the still-sleeping beggar. The cut was shallow. So what was the mysterious figure’s purpose?

  I continued my chase, but when I turned the corner, the alley lay dark and empty. I drew up short. Either the man had broken into a run or he’d . . .

  I looked over my shoulder in time to see the figure raise his stone-bladed dagger. There was no reflex quick enough to dodge in time, but he didn’t throw it. He caught himself.

  As though he knew me.

  He backed out of the alley, but I lurched after him. “Wait.” The moonlight caught a piece of his mask. A line of Yellow, a splash of Green, a streak of Red crisscrossing—

  His dagger flew.

  I ducked and rolled. The blade stuck in my shoulder. I yelled and drew my sword as I found my feet, my shoulder stinging. With a mutter, the dagger tore from my shoulder and returned to his hand. I gritted my teeth, but when I looked up, he was gone.

  Dee.

  I pursued, but no shadow or alley or window light had anything to show. Already my mind questioned what I saw. I cupped a hand over my wound.

  The color power this man used on the docks matched Dee’s skill. When he thought I’d seen his mask, he sent my hat brim over my eyes. Tonight, when I saw him under the moonlight, he stuck me and fled.

  I needed to find him. What was he doing?

  I hurried away from the alley, away from the bleeding beggars. I forced myself to pass by the Duck and Drake where Wintour lodged, because if Dee was watching me, he would surely silence me for good if he thought I was going for help. I unsheathed my rapier, but he could command it out of my hands. It was more for the sense of safety and defense.

  Against every instinct, I returned to the Whynniard house.

  I locked the door behind me and closed the shutters. My hands trembled as I lit the candles. My hands never trembled—it would weaken my swordplay. Perhaps it was from blood loss.

  I stripped off my clothes to examine the gash on my shoulder—on my sword arm. Annoying.

  The blood ran down the back of my shoulder. It burned. I craned my head but couldn’t quite glimpse the whole cut. Then . . . I caught a color. A flash woven in with the red and flesh tones. My breath caught. Was that . . . Was there color power in my blood? Did I see . . . White?

  I ran to the cellar, taking the steps two at a time, dripping blood behind me. I grabbed one of the torch mirrors we’d used when tunneling and stumbled back up the stairs into the light. I angled the mirror behind my shoulder, straining to get a view.

  Too much blood.

  I rested the mirror on the windowsill and crouched down so I could see my shoulder and attend to it at the same time. Using a rag, I smeared away some of the blood, examined it on the cloth. Nothing. I looked in the mirror again.

  There.

  White?

  I touched it and brought my fingers in front of my face. Red.

  I got as close to the mirror as I could without smearing blood on it, the trembling making its way through my entire body. The light color grew. Mingled with more blood. Wait . . . It wasn’t white. My knees buckled. The grey color lining my cut like the raised stitching of a buttonhole was the Stone Plague.

  It was back.

  How could it be back? My mind answered the question even before it finished asking it. Dee. His strange dagger had somehow infected me. He was infecting the gentry, the common folk, the beggars.

  My breath clogged my throat, fighting to get out.

  Dee, who fed pigeons that then fell from the sky like giant hailstones.

  Dee, who was the only man able to cure me of my plague.

  Dee, who warned of an outbreak.

  He didn’t just know about the plague. He controlled the plague.

  And he’d infected me.

  The longer I stared at my new wound, the less control I maintained over my panic. Blood pulsed and pulsed. The bits of stone stared at me like eyes through a red face. I tried to block it with my free hand. Blood bubbled out
of the wound. The stone scratched the pad of my finger. Dread poured into my gut. I couldn’t be plagued again. I couldn’t let this happen.

  I couldn’t let Dee get away with this. His cure was a lie.

  Even now, he was either watching my door or continuing to cut unsuspecting people so they would walk around unknowingly spreading the plague to their friends and families. Tomorrow people would think there’d been an outbreak. They’d blame it on the king’s return.

  The stone pushed against the palm of my hand.

  I removed my hand and looked again. It was still there, like a dead island in a sea of blood. Was it wider than before?

  I snatched the mirror from the sill and held it right above the plague, angling toward the candle flame. As I watched the reflection, a portion of plague cracked and then crawled over another centimeter of my skin.

  It was . . . spreading.

  I whipped a knife from the food board and set the blade against the skin of my shoulder. I hesitated for a moment but then remembered how my plague defined me. How it crippled me. How it made me weak in Father’s eyes and unworthy in the eyes of others.

  I stuffed my hanging shirtsleeve into my mouth. Deep breath through the nose.

  Then I sliced through my flesh, peeling off the portion of stone in one swift motion. The shirtsleeve muffled my scream but did nothing to stop the violent trembling that racked my body. The dagger fell from my hand.

  I couldn’t stand. The wound screamed with me until I ran out of air. Once I took a breath, logic returned and I tore the shirt from my mouth, using it to stop the blood.

  A sickening ache spread through my chest. When I looked in the mirror next, my face was pale. Blood cascaded down my arm, dripping onto the floor and running down my pants.

  I smeared away the mess and grimaced as the cloth rubbed the raw of my wound. But I had to know if I got it all. I couldn’t rest or heal until I knew I’d cut the Stone Plague away. I leaned close to the mirror, angling my shoulder close to the glass.

  Red. Blood. Liquid. Flesh.

  Grey.

  “No.” I dropped the cloth and shoved my bare fingers into the wound, numb to the pain in my desperation to feel what I thought I saw. Then a rough scratch. The stone was still there. Too deep to cut out.

  It had sent down its roots.

  As I stared in the mirror, the stone made its appearance. A cracked line from the wound ran along my collarbone. Chills sprang from crown to toes. I stared at the string of stone. A tiny thread of plague wriggled like a worm beneath my skin, then wended its way from my collar up to the soft flesh of my neck.

  It . . . was alive.

  The worm broke into ten smaller threads and spread like a tree stretching its branches. Up the left side of my neck. Scaling up my jawline and clawing its way to my eye. My bloodied hand fell away from my shoulder.

  I was a dead man.

  “Wintour,” I whispered. “I must get to Wintour.” To warn him—to tell him about Dee.

  I fumbled for the latch, not caring if Dee was outside.

  The door swung open just as the skin on my face stiffened. I could feel the plague’s fingernails picking their way across my flesh. To my eye.

  I blinked once before the left side of the street went dark as plague overtook my eye. Only it didn’t stop there. The branches spread. Blended.

  I crashed into the doorframe.

  The branches connected into a spiderweb.

  I stumbled over the threshold.

  From webbing to a sea, the plague flowed from my left eye up to my forehead. The headache came like a hammer to my skull and I clapped a bloody hand to my temple, not realizing I still had the mirror in it. The glass smashed against my skull and shattered.

  As I careened into the night, I held a shard in front of my face. I couldn’t tear my gaze away, even when the plague rolled across my forehead to my remaining eye.

  I was watching myself die.

  And the one thought that broke through the cloud of despair was that I didn’t want to die alone.

  I lifted my eyes. The last thing I saw before the plague took my other eye was the bale of straw still on its hook in front of the Whynniard house.

  My vision darkened. The headache sent me reeling backward. I collided with the ground and gasped for breath in the darkness. Was the plague seeping into my lungs?

  The bale creaked over my head. A knife pierced my brain.

  I couldn’t see.

  Couldn’t think.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  I sucked in a final wisp and tried to shout. For Wintour. For Percy. For Jack.

  The plague poured down my throat and barely a whisper emerged, carrying the name of the only one I truly wanted beside me. “Fa . . . ther.”

  Thirty-One

  I’m the only one who can save you, Thomas.

  Not . . . you.

  Why won’t you let me?

  I . . . can’t.

  You’re being stubborn, you know.

  Father. Keepers. The plot.

  And Emma?

  Emma . . .

  She and I are one. Is that distasteful to you?

  No. She’s . . . I want to be like her.

  But she is like me.

  You are . . . dangerous.

  Yes. Yes, I am.

  . . .

  But I’m worth it.

  I am . . . afraid.

  I am here.

  Very well . . . Do as you will.

  A hand in mine. Warm breath on my face. Darkness. Silence. But not death. Not yet.

  White

  Thirty-Two

  15 August 1605

  “How long . . . been like this?”

  Words slipped into my consciousness, jumbled. My sluggish brain tried to piece them together.

  “. . . plague outbreak . . . King James’s return . . . three weeks . . .”

  Confused. Overwhelmed. I wanted to return to the darkness.

  “Three weeks?”

  My mind latched onto this voice—the fishing line that hooked my curiosity . . . my desire to find the light.

  “The seizures stopped . . . days ago.” This tone carried familiar notes too. “I’m sorry, Guido. He . . . useless to . . . plot.”

  “I will not abandon him.”

  “He is not dead . . . but neither is he alive.”

  The words came smoother now. Where was I? Who was I? Why the darkness?

  Movement. Cloth on cloth, leather on wood, click, click, click. A creak. A latch. Silence.

  The line to the trusted voice broke. No more words to hear. Nothing to draw me out of my prison. I descended once more into the darkness.

  16 August 1605

  “Thomas.”

  A spark of light. I groped for it, wanting to be freed of the dark sludge. Help me.

  “Thomas.”

  I pulled myself from the sludge, the darkness dripping from me as the fishing line slowly reeled me up. Out. Toward the light. Again. The line slowed, slowed, stopped. Darkness lapped at my ankles, trying to sink its fingers back into me and return me to my mental coffin. Don’t leave me!

  “Thomas?” This time the voice carried despair. But the line tugged me upward again. Away from the sludge. My lungs filled. My mind awoke.

  I knew that voice. Deep. Rich. Craved.

  Father? No response.

  “He’s gone, Guido. Nothing more than a breathing body.” That voice halted my upward motion. Was it talking about me? “We have limited resources as it is. You need to let him go. We can’t have you catching the plague too.”

  Click. Click. Click. A creak. A closing door.

  No. Don’t leave!

  The fishing line grew slick as the darkness tried to loosen my grip. Somehow I knew that if I descended into that dark pool again, I’d never resurface.

  Something shook me. My entire consciousness lurched from the movement. “Surely you can hear something. The plague isn’t in your ears.”

  The line reeled me up so fast I barely managed
to keep hold. Then I was out. I was free and I was awake.

  “F . . . Father?” I wasn’t sure if the full word actually came out. Transferring the word from my mind to my lips left me gasping. My mouth barely moved.

  I was awake. And with my waking came a flood of memory. Plague. Plot. Death. Dee.

  I tried another word, but a grunt came out.

  “Thomas!” A movement on my mattress. I sagged to one side.

  I tried to lift my eyelids. They didn’t obey. Where was the light? Why couldn’t I open my eyes? I lifted my left hand. Just barely. It flopped onto my stomach, but then another hand was in mine. A strong and callused one.

  “Catesby!” Father’s shout pierced my mind like the clang of London’s bells. Perhaps Father noticed the tension in my limbs because he lowered his voice again. “Thomas, are you truly awake?”

  “I . . .” I couldn’t say more—one, because it took so much effort to form a single sound, and two, because I didn’t know if I was. I couldn’t see. But with every word he spoke, my mind woke more.

  Noise burst into the room. Voices. Catesby and Wintour and Percy and Father. And suddenly I was being moved and jostled. Too many voices. Water down my throat. A call for a healer.

  Not Dee, I thought. Not Dee.

  It took two full days before I was able to speak normally again. I never once returned to the slimy darkness that had consumed me for—according to Father—three weeks.

  They got me sitting up again.

  They got me breathing right again.

  They got me eating solid food.

  But no one could get me to see again. According to Wintour, he’d found me two days after my collapse—two days after a massive plague outbreak. He’d found me seizing on the ground. I’d remained in and out of seizures for weeks—neither speaking nor responding to any prompting or call.

  My sight was gone—the majority of my face fully stone. Eyes. Forehead. Cheeks. The left side of my neck and shoulder. But not my throat. Not my airway or mouth or nostrils.