Crispin toyed with his dagger hilt, raising it slightly from its sheath. The metal gleamed in the dim light. “I’m having difficulty believing you.”
“It is the truth, Master Guest,” pleaded the man he had cornered.
“Prove it, then. Get me into that guildhall.”
The man sucked in a breath. He wiped his nose futilely one last time, smearing blood on his face, before he nodded. “Peter has the key.”
Crispin looked to the other one. “Are you Peter?”
“Me? Oh, no! Not I. I am Damian Fallowell.” He nodded in an abbreviated bow. “And this … er … this-” He gestured to his companion cringing under Crispin’s menacing posture. “This is Cosmas Blusard. We are not the keeper of the keys.”
“Then you had best take me to him.”
“But we can’t do that!” cried Cosmas.
Crispin turned calmly to him. His dagger was in his hand. “Why not?”
The alchemist stared cross-eyed at the dagger in front of his face and slumped down the wall, knees nearly buckling. He licked his blood-smeared lips. “A good question. I truly don’t see why not.”
“Cosmas!”
“You don’t have a dagger in your face, Damian!”
“Oh, very well! We shall be thrown out of the guild for this. And after all the trouble we went through. We’ll take you to Peter.”
Crispin couldn’t help but feel he was getting in deeper than he liked. It was a simple matter for Jack or himself to easily break into the guildhall, but there was obviously more to all of this than he was aware of.
“Lead on,” he said, sheathing his dagger.
The two alchemists took Crispin and Jack down several alleys off of Old Fish. They came to a dead end at a crumbling wall in a narrow close. Crispin drew his dagger and Jack did likewise. “What is this?” Crispin demanded.
Cosmas blinked at him stupidly. Mouth open, face smeared with blood, he was the picture of perplexity. “It is the way in,” he said, indicating some distant point in the darkness.
Crispin stepped between the men and grabbed Cosmas’s arm. Jack followed suit and curled his fingers around Damian’s arm above the elbow, digging so deep that the man winced. “Then we’ll go in together,” said Crispin.
Cosmas stumbled as he tugged Crispin with him. The crumbling wall reminded Crispin of Lenny’s hideaway. Thinking of the thief caused a hollow in his belly. Or was it only part of his earlier nausea that was rearing up again? He felt sweat ripple over him and he swallowed an excess of saliva that had flooded his mouth. Was it guilt he felt at banishing the thief from his presence? The man wasn’t worth the trouble, this he knew. But still. Crispin felt he had let the man down, hadn’t cultivated him enough. Though not every thief could turn out to be a Jack Tucker.
He looked over his shoulder at his apprentice. Face chiseled into a stoic expression, Jack steered his charge forward, his dagger clutched in his other hand.
This illness that had overtaken his belly was making Crispin unsteady, but he tried to mask it by pushing the alchemist forward. The crumbling wall was only a façade, hiding the true entrance to a dark parlor.
Cosmas tried to pull away, but Crispin yanked him back.
“Master Guest, I must … light a candle.”
Crispin released the man and covertly clutched his stomach. “Very well. Make haste.”
He followed the alchemist with his gaze as he stumbled about the room, finding a tinderbox. A spark lit all the points of their faces before flame touched candlewick.
Cosmas held up the lit candle on its silver sconce. The light shone dully on lackluster blond locks that hung to his shoulders. “He is in the next room. I’ll get him.”
“No,” said Crispin, adjusting the grip on his dagger. “I’ll get him.”
He strode to the door. He didn’t bother knocking. He lifted the latch and pushed through.
He beheld a room full of the instruments that were becoming familiar to Crispin, with bubbling cauldrons and foul smells. A man sat at a tall writing table, bent over parchments and books. A quill was poised in his ink-stained fingers. A candle on the desk lit him and his work in a pool of golden light. Perhaps he had not noticed in his industry that the hearth had nearly gone to glowing coals and the room was cold. He did not look up as he said, “Yes?”
“Men to see you, Peter,” said Cosmas. “I tried, but I couldn’t prevent them. It’s … it’s Crispin Guest and his apprentice.”
At that, the man raised his face. He squinted into the darkness, peering at them. He pushed away from the table and hopped off his high stool. “Crispin Guest, you say?” He spied the dagger and the grip Jack still had of the other man. “Yes, I see.” He smiled. His dark hair hung straight down over his ears. He wore a skullcap on the back of his head like a tonsure. His face was long and pale, clean-shaven and sallow. He looked to be a man who seldom left his dark room.
Alchemists, Crispin snorted inwardly. He looked around the room, assessing. Yes, the same smells as Flamel’s shop, the same clutter, similar beakers and retorts. Cobwebs in the corners and an unused broom leaning against a far wall under a shuttered window.
“He wishes to enter the guildhall,” Damian said in a loud whisper.
“Does he? And why is that?”
Crispin sheathed his dagger with one brisk slide. “Because I was led there. Do you know by whom?”
Peter raised his dark brows. “I presume you mean the one who has been leading you about London on a merry chase. No, I don’t know who this puppet master is. And I don’t care to know. I do not approve of his methods.”
“You seem to know quite a lot.”
“Like you, Master Guest, I observe.”
“You didn’t happen to observe the man who abducted Perenelle Flamel, did you? Or who killed the apprentice Thomas Cornhill?”
He gestured toward Damian. “Is that necessary?”
Jack was still holding the man’s arm with one hand and his dagger with another. “Is it?” Jack asked Peter, mimicking Crispin’s tone.
“Perhaps not,” Crispin told him. “You may give the man some relief, Master Tucker. And sheathe your dagger. I’ll tell you if I think you need to withdraw it again.”
Jack quickly complied, showing all and sundry who he believed was in charge.
Crispin smoothed his expression. “And now … Master Peter, is it? I would appreciate your cooperation in this. My first priority is to find Madam Flamel alive and unharmed.”
“And you believe our guildhall is the means to that end?”
“I don’t know what I believe. I only know I was led there. And your peers, here, have told me that your hall is no longer in use.”
“I don’t believe they would have said that precisely, Master Guest. I think that rather, they must have intimated that it has fallen into disrepair. That doesn’t mean we haven’t used it.” He looked down at the ring of keys hanging from his belt. “Now then. I take it you are in a hurry?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us go now.”
They returned quickly to the guildhall as the bells struck Vespers. The blue shadows of twilight lay like ribbons along the street. Most of the snow had been melted by recent rain, but the clouds were heavy again, and the gray surrounding them was more drizzle than mist, which began to fly about in lazy loops like midges in the summer. It was becoming snow again, and each tiny flake winged over Crispin’s head. But their dizzy dance only exacerbated his nausea. He licked his dry lips and tried to ignore it, thinking of anything but how miserable his belly felt.
Peter lifted his keys. Saint Peter, Crispin thought, with the keys to the kingdom.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was warped and scraped along the tiled portico inside, pushing dried leaves with it into a musty pile. The place felt as cold as a tomb and was just as stark. Empty of everything but its checkered tile floor and statues of saints scattered here and there. Crispin walked into the center of the room, uncaring whether these alchemists wanted him to or not. His gaze rose to the vaulted ceiling and its cobwebbed stone. Lancet windows were sealed with cracked glass. Still others were covered with wooden shutters keeping them dark and safe, like closed eyelids.