“Sorry,” I mumbled, and stepped toward the last mount.

Lord Ashcombe laid a finger on my chest. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“You said to get on—”

Slowly, he shook his head.

Horror dawned as I realized what he meant. “But… we must be five, six miles from London!”

“You think so?” He stared off down the road, considering it. “I would have said seven.”

“My lord… I… It was an accident.”

Lord Ashcombe climbed into his saddle. “I understand. So if you’d rather not walk”—he jerked a thumb at the flaming heap behind me—“feel free to take the carriage.”

CHAPTER 2

WELL, THERE’S ANOTHER THING TO regret.

On decent roads, it would have only taken a couple of hours to reach the city. But under the warming sun, the heavy snows of a violent winter had melted, leaving the roads nothing but long strips of muck. So it took nearly twice that time—and my poor, cramped, aching legs—to slog northward and catch sight of London Bridge.

I sighed. Originally, we’d planned to dismount on the south bank of the Thames and have a boat ferry us west to the Palace of Whitehall, where King Charles II waited for our return. But as I approached the bridge, I realized I’d forgotten something important.

I couldn’t pay the boatman. When Tom, Sally, and I had left London in November, on a mission to spy for the king, Lord Ashcombe had given me a full coin purse to use as needed. It had come in awfully handy, first in Paris, and then while stranded on the coast of Devonshire. But since Lord Ashcombe had come to our rescue with the King’s Men in December, he’d paid for everything we needed. I’d given the money back, leaving me broke.

Great. Now I’d have to walk all the way through the city, too. Still, tired as I was, there was one thing I welcomed.

Though I’d only been away four months, it felt like I’d been gone forever. All my life, I’d never left London: first, as a boy in the Cripplegate orphanage, and then, living with Master Benedict at the Blackthorn apothecary. My recent travels had been incredible—and terrifying—but as I crossed London Bridge, tired and muddy, I still felt an overwhelming relief.

Life had returned.

Last year, London had been under the grip of a terrible plague. When I’d left, the roads had been empty; nothing but fear and cries for the dead. Now the city was back.

Streets weren’t packed like before the sickness, true. But there were people again: travelers, farmers leading sheep to market, carriage drivers screaming curses to get out of the road. It was jostling, deafening—and, in its way, beautiful.

Yet some darkness remained. Several of the stores I passed were damaged—windows smashed, doors cracked. In the wake of those who’d fled London came the desperate—or just plain criminal. Some houses had been looted.

My stomach churned to see it. I’d been away for so long. What about my shop? Had it been looted, too?