He put his lantern on the ground. The others did the same. Then they turned and walked off into the darkness.

Only I remained, blazing in the light.

CHAPTER 42

I RAN AS FAST AS I could.

Dodging through carriages, I sprinted across Cheapside, all the way back to Saint Paul’s. I didn’t go into the church. Instead, I skirted the cathedral, running through the yard to the end of Ludgate Street.

Tom wasn’t there.

Where had he gone? I looked around but couldn’t see him.

Had someone made off with him?

No, I thought. He was a giant with a massive sword and an old warhorse. Who’d be so stupid as to attack Tom? He’d probably gone looking for me. I’d been away a lot longer than expected.

That meant he’d be in the church. I ran toward the entrance, and sure enough, there was Blossom, with Lightning, both held by a boy near a hitching post, charging a farthing a horse. I ran to him.

“Where’d the boy who gave you these horses go?” I said, but he didn’t need to answer.

“Christopher!” Tom bounded down the steps of the church, face red—relieved, and a little angry. “Where on earth have you been? I looked for you all over—”

“I met them,” I said.

“Met who? What are you…?”

His eyes widened. The Templars? he mouthed.

I nodded. “They gave me a new message.”

I held up the letter. The boy with the horses looked from Tom to me, confused, wondering what we were on about.

“What does it say?” Tom said.

“That we have to get back to the palace.”

We rode hard into the stables at Scotland Yard. Tom slid from his saddle and began to lead Lightning automatically toward his stall. Normally, I’d have done the same with Blossom, to brush our horses down and give them water. But we didn’t have time for that.

“Let the groom handle them,” I said. “We have to get to—”

“Christopher!”

“Ho! What are you doing there!”

The two voices came at me at once. The first was Sally. Waiting across the courtyard, she’d spotted our arrival and was now running to join us. The second was the groom.

He jogged up to me, angry. “I said, what are you doing?” He grabbed the reins from my hand and shoved me away.

I stumbled, nearly tripping in the mud before righting myself. Blossom snorted, ears twitching. I stared back at the man, confused. “What’s the matter?”

Tom looked just as startled as the groom grabbed Lightning’s reins, too. Though he didn’t try to push Tom.

“Who gave you permission to take these horses?” the man said.

I didn’t recognize him; he hadn’t been here the previous times we’d visited the stables. But none of the grooms had challenged us before. Was it because he hadn’t seen us come from the palace? Or had something else gone wrong at Whitehall?

“Lord Ashcombe said we could use them,” I explained.