Master Benedict spoke in my head. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everything takes practice. And fighting is not your way.

But I remembered the soldier’s lesson. The assassin didn’t care what my way was. And I won’t have time to practice, if failing means I’m dead.

And yet, Master Benedict said, you learned something. So next time, you will act.

At that moment, it was difficult to believe him.

The crowd milled about us: me, Tom, and the priest on the floor, catching his breath. There were a lot of are-you-all-rights, and yes-I’m-fines, and what-madness-is-this-right-here-in-the-churchs, before everyone more or less left us alone to gossip among themselves. This would be the talk of the town for days.

I picked up the dagger the assassin had left behind. Then Tom and I checked on the priest, who’d got the worst of it. When all three of us said “Are you all right?” at the same time, we laughed, and the shock of the would-be murder finally faded.

The priest rubbed his head where the man had hit him. “Is it always like this?” he said, somewhat sadly. I caught a hint of a French accent. He explained he was on a pilgrimage—to Saint Erkenwald, no less—on behalf of one of his elderly parishioners back home in Rouen.

“It’s not,” Tom insisted, English pride already wounded. “We’re sorry this happened to you.”

“Not your fault, mes amis. God be with you.”

He left, sporting a growing bruise behind his ear, and though we didn’t say anything, Tom and I knew the priest was wrong. It was our fault.

“I just can’t believe it,” Tom said. In his own way, he was as shaken as I was. “In Saint Paul’s, in broad daylight! How has it come to this?”

It was a good question. I’d begun feeling more and more as if we were trapped. Pinned between two warring factions: the Covenanters on one side, and the Templars on the other. Why were they fighting each other?

And why were they both focused on me?

The Templars were sending me letters. The Covenanters were trying to kill me. If Simon was right, they’d even gone after him just because he was on his way to Blackthorn.

So what made me so important?

I remembered the spymaster’s warning. The human mind is exceptional at recognizing patterns. So good, in fact, that when there are no patterns, we invent them to fill the gaps.

I shook my head. That’s exactly what I was doing. I didn’t have enough information to answer any of my questions. I didn’t even know for sure that it was the Templars and the Covenanters fighting each other.

I did, however, have something new to look at. I pulled the note we’d found on Saint Erkenwald’s tomb from my doublet. It had crumpled in the scuffle, but I had no problem reading the initials on the outside.

C. R.

Tom leaned over my shoulder as I opened it to read the message.