My guts twisted.

Tom was confused. “What is all this?”

Your plan worked, the letter said.

“The oath breaker,” I said, voice quavering, “is the king. The threat inside the palace… the murders… the poison… The whole point of them was to force His Majesty to leave Whitehall.

“And the Covenanters… they’re waiting. There’s going to be an ambush.”

Your plan worked.

For every scene was scripted.

The Covenanters had planned this all along. Their enemy—the Knights Templar—and their agent… that was me. We’d been used.

I’d been used.

And now the king was riding to his death.

What had I done?

CHAPTER 45

I BOLTED FROM THE ROOM.

Tom and Sally shouted after me. “Christopher! Wait!”

I couldn’t wait. This was my fault. My fault.

I rushed from the west wing, sprinted across the tiltyard. Into the street—

“LOOK OUT!”

The hackney driver pulled hard on the reins. His horses squealed, carriage wheels juddering in the dirt. I heard the axle crack, and the carriage lurched sideways, nearly throwing the driver from his seat.

“You stupid—!” A string of curses followed, enough to strip paint from walls. I didn’t stop.

My fault.

Down the street, into Scotland Yard. The stables.

“Blossom!” I called. “Blossom!”

She neighed in response. Her head poked from her stall, ears pricked forward, alert. I reached for the latch—

And then a man tackled me from behind.

My head jerked, slamming into the man’s shoulder. I fell, the weight of him on top of me, landing facedown in the dirt. I’d been reaching out when I was tackled, and a good thing, too, because if he’d pinned my arms to my chest, I wouldn’t have had my hands to break the fall.

As it was, the ground was soft, muddied by a light rain earlier in the day. I got a bit of wind knocked out, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken.

I tried to wriggle out from underneath. A forearm smashed my face back into the mud. I tasted earth and grit.

Above me, Blossom snorted in fear. The stall rattled as a hoof smashed into it.

“Got you now,” a voice growled in my ear.

My mind, shaken from the fall, shaken even more by the Scotsman’s letter, was confused. For a moment, I thought Tom had tackled me to stop me running away. But of course Tom wouldn’t hurt me—

The groom. He lay on top of me, pressing down with cruel delight. He leaned in and whispered gleefully in my ear. “Little thief. I can kill you now. It’s my right.”

He never got the chance. One second, I was pinned in the mud, the next, I was rising, dragged up by his arms. Then, suddenly, he let go, and I was facedown in the dirt again.

The groom yelled in alarm. I rolled over just in time to see what happened.

Tom had arrived. He’d pulled the man off me—literally picked him up. He lifted the groom overhead. Then he slammed him to the ground like a bale of hay.