Simon stared at them, not moving.

“Something wrong?” I said.

He reached out, touched one of the volumes. His fingers traced over the spine. When he opened the book, he turned to the title page. Homer’s Odyssey, in Latin and Greek.

“Master Benedict gave this to me,” he said quietly.

“He did?”

Simon saw my confusion. “Not this copy. A different set, back in Paris, so many years ago.” He cleared his throat. “I told you how I used to hang about his workshop, in Uncle Marin’s cellar, when I was eight. I was always pestering him with questions. Well, one day I begged him to tell me a story. He gave me this. No doubt he thought it would keep me out from underfoot for a while.”

He stayed quiet for a moment. Then he whispered, “Dream of Odysseus, child. Dream of coming home.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Nothing,” Simon said. He sounded sad and a little bit angry. “Just something Master Benedict said to me, once. Thank you for bringing this. It’s a nice memory.”

I was slightly confused by his reaction, until I remembered that his uncle, Marin, whom Simon had lived with as a child, was dead—murdered by the Raven. Simon had never got his revenge.

Which reminded me: I had another job to do here. In the spare rooms, I gathered what I could find of Master Benedict’s old journals and piled them in the workshop downstairs, setting water to boil for Simon’s poppy.

While rooting around, I found the old chessboard Master Benedict had taught me to play on, tucked away among his other old things. All the pieces were there, so I left it out in the workshop next to the journals. If Walsingham really meant to play me, I should probably refresh my memory of the rules. Maybe Simon would like a game, too, when all this was over.

But that would have to wait. Finished, I collected Bridget and roused Tom. It was time to go back to Whitehall; gathering the journals had taken longer than I’d planned. We said our goodbyes to Simon, who’d already begun to read the Odyssey. His good cheer returned; he drank the poppy I’d made gratefully. Then we hopped on our horses and rode back to the palace.

And so, as the spymaster had commanded, we waited. Tom flopped on his bed while I lay on mine, playing with Bridget, worried about everything. The morning passed, and then the afternoon, until Sally arrived.

She reported both Simon and Isaac were in good spirits, if not exactly well. She’d taken a carriage from Berkshire House, and the driver had helped her transfer the journals. Isaac had already started on them and would work through the collection in time.

“Did you send me flowers?” she said suddenly.

I flushed. Tom found something very interesting to study outside the window.

“There was a girl,” I said. “She was poor… she needed… I hired her.”