He didn’t answer. He stepped toward me, arms forward, an odd look on his face. I stuffed the mysterious letter I was holding into my coat, thinking he was coming to give me a hug.

Instead, he collapsed in my arms.

His sudden weight made me stagger. I bumped into the counter, heard the antimony cup fall over and roll off, dinging dully across the floorboards.

I tried to hold him. “Simon? What…?”

My hands, my arms wrapped around him, felt warm and wet. As he slipped downward, I saw why. My hands were covered in blood.

And there was a dagger in Simon’s back.

CHAPTER 3

MY VOICE CAME OUT A croak.

“Help,” I said.

Then louder. “Help! Help!”

Simon slid to the floor, conscious but confused. “Christopher?”

He tried to roll over. I stopped him. The dagger, stuck between his ribs, was twisted at an odd angle. If he put his weight on it, it would drive the blade deep into his lungs.

I laid him on his stomach, pressed him to the floor. “Stay there,” I said. “Don’t move. Someone help!”

Simon looked to be in shock. He reached behind him, groping for whatever was causing him pain. I kept his hand away.

“Don’t move,” I said, and I shoved his arms under his body. It was an ugly thing, that blade, sticking through his coat, but I left it where it was. My master had taught me that.

If something pierces the body, he’d said, show great care before removing it. The object may be the only thing preventing catastrophic bleeding.

What do I do? I asked him.

Find a surgeon. Immediately.

I didn’t know about a surgeon. One had lived a couple of streets away, but he’d left last summer with the plague. I had no idea if he’d returned, or if he was even alive.

But—Dorothy. She’d mentioned a physician.

I didn’t like leaving Simon, but I didn’t have a choice. I pressed his arms in again, tucking them under his stomach. “Stay that way, all right? I’ll be back.”

Simon still sounded confused, but he nodded. “What happened?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I ran across the road, shouting, “Help!”

Dorothy met me at the door to the Missing Finger. “Christopher? What’s wrong?”

“My friend—he’s been injured. Is that physician here? I need him.”

“Yes, he’s in… Your friend? Is it Tom?”

“What? No, not Tom. Where’s the physician?”

He was in the dining room. The man was stocky, not overly tall, with a broad mustache. He sat across from a curly-haired boy dressed in the blue apron of an apprentice. The man looked up, as did the few other patrons, who stopped drinking to watch the commotion.

“What’s the trouble?” he said, in a heavy northern accent.

I didn’t want a gaggle of onlookers. A stabbing was sure to bring them. So I just said, “Simon… my friend… he’s had an accident.”

The doctor had already begun to rise. He’d seen my bloody hands. “Get my bag,” he commanded his apprentice.