He looked at me oddly. “What… puzzle?”

“In the Templar letters. The four you sent me.”

He shook his head. “Not… us. We sent you… nothing.”

I sat there, stunned, as the world spun around me.

The Templars… hadn’t sent the letters?

But then… who…?

All the blood drained from my face.

Because I knew who had sent the letters. I knew.

I’d been tricked right from the start.

A charred hand grabbed my wrist. “Your… enemy. You must… find… the priest.”

“What priest?” I said. “Do you mean Father Bernard? He left Paris before we did. I don’t know where he’s gone.”

“Find… the priest!” the man gasped.

Then Domhnall Ardrey, last of the London Knights Templar, died in my arms.

CHAPTER 52

BOOTS CRUNCHED THROUGH THE RUBBLE, approaching from behind.

“So,” Lord Ashcombe said. “You found the traitor.”

“He wasn’t a traitor,” I said quietly.

Lord Ashcombe frowned. “Explain.”

“Ardrey told me so.”

“The easiest thing in the world, to claim innocence.”

Lord Ashcombe turned to go. I had to keep the Templars’ secret; I knew that. But I couldn’t let this man take the blame for treason.

“Look at his wrists.”

Lord Ashcombe regarded me a moment. Then he bent down to examine the body.

“Ardrey was caught in the explosion,” I said. “He’s completely burned—except for one spot: his wrists. They weren’t burned, because they were protected. By that.”

I pointed to the charred, frayed rope farther back among the stones. Lord Ashcombe picked it up, brought it over. When he laid it against Ardrey’s wrists, it matched the unburned parts perfectly.

He peered closer now, examining the skin. There was still an imprint of the rope in the flesh.

“He was bound when it happened,” Lord Ashcombe said.

“That’s what he told me,” I said. “He was knocked out and brought here—he didn’t know by whom—and left to die. The letter I found, in his quarters, at Whitehall… I was meant to find it. It was a fake. Everything was a fake.”

My despair was overwhelming. I just wanted to lie down somewhere and never wake up again.

“It was all so clever,” I said. “The letter pins the blame on Domhnall Ardrey and Niall Ramsay. They die here, with God knows how many others lost under the rubble. The letter also names a man in black—and of course that’s supposed to be you; who else could it be? You were to die, too, alongside His Majesty, in the ambush at Barnham Wood. All of you then blamed as traitors. All of you dead, unable to speak in your own defense.”

“And the real traitor goes free,” Lord Ashcombe said.

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For everything. “The man in black. The letter. I’m sorry I ever thought it was you.”

Lord Ashcombe waved my apology away. He stood and called two of the King’s Men.

“Take the body to Whitehall. This, too.” He dropped the frayed rope on Ardrey’s chest. “No one touches anything until I return.”