My Lady Jane(112)

Jane pressed her furry belly to the ground and considered her journey across the bridge. It was a narrow bridge, at least for a human. As a ferret, she had much more room. She just had to get past the men, squeeze through the closed portcullis, and find the correct tower.

Piece of cake. Right.

Behind her, toward the church where she’d left Gifford and Pet, a dog howled—and suddenly went silent. “I got one!” called a guard.

A fresh wave of adrenaline rolled over Jane.

(Okay, so we told you that anybody could die at any time, and you seem like you’re getting worried, but Pet’s fine. Jane had foreseen that the guards would spot the flash of her E?ian change, so she’d recruited Pet to draw away the guards. Which would, in turn, give Gifford time to hide elsewhere while he waited for her to open the gate. Pet was meant to lead the guards into an ambush with some Pack members on the other side of the field, but whether she would accomplish that—or the guards would give up the chase—remains to be seen. But trust us: we’re not the type of narrators who would kill a dog.)

The dog howling was Jane’s signal to go.

Jane scampered onto the wooden bridge and darted down it as fast as her tiny legs could carry her.

“Watch out!” Boots came thumping toward her. “A rat!”

I am not a rat, Jane thought, and dashed straight for the nearest guard. She jumped onto his leg, climbed up to the top of his high boots, and bit hard into the soft flesh behind his knee. Her claws dug into the leather of his boot. Can a rat do this? she thought smugly.

The guard howled and swatted her off, knocking Jane’s tiny body toward the edge of the bridge.

“Get that rat!”

Her anger fueled her. Jane jumped to all four feet, ignoring the shocks of pain from her tumble, and kept running, darting to and fro. The guards were after her, but she was quick enough that they could never quite catch her. Finally she swerved so that when they bent to scoop her up, they crashed into each other—and Jane was across the bridge, through a hole in the portcullis, and running into the Tower of London at full tilt.

The stone walls rose above her, huge and imposing. Even more so as a ferret.

But, of course, Jane had spent the day memorizing maps of the Tower of London and figuring out how long it would take her to get from place to place in her E?ian form. So it was with reasonable certainty that she hastened across the green, squeezed beneath a door, scurried through a few halls, and finally faced an endless set of stairs that would take her to the top of the Constable Tower—the building in the Tower of London that they’d decided would make the best place for their little invasion.

The steps were each as tall as she was.

Speed was important.

But so was stealth.

But so was speed.

Edward was waiting.

She listened hard for anyone moving nearby, but there were no sounds here. Not yet. But the guards she’d evaded on the bridge would soon be after her.

Which meant she needed speed more than stealth right now.

Jane turned into a girl.

She was a naked girl, but there weren’t any options for clothing. As quickly as she could, she hurried up the stone stairs, her bare feet growing more and more chilled with every turn around the narrow stairwell. It was the right decision, because she reached the top more quickly as a human than she would have as a ferret.

The room with the biggest windows was at the top. Hurriedly, Jane grabbed a fire poker from next to the hearth and crossed to the south-facing window. The windows of the Tower were made of cloudy, ancient glass, and they didn’t open. She felt guilty, but she had no choice. She hit the glass with the poker using all her strength, over and over until it cracked and then shattered, leaving a large gaping hole that opened into the night sky.

That should do it.

Jane dropped the poker and scanned for anything useful. The room was crammed with wardrobes and cabinets and crates, which was part of the reason they’d chosen this particular part of the Tower of London.

First, they needed clothes. Most of the clothes in the wardrobes were military uniforms, which were all too big for Jane. (Not to mention the indignity of pants.) But since nudity was out of the question, she pulled on the smallest set she could find and laid out another uniform next to the broken window.

“Come on, birdbrain.” She glanced out, but all she saw was dark. From this angle, she couldn’t see much of anything—not the battle where Bess and Archer led their attack on the city wall, not even the place nearby where Gifford was hopefully unharmed and waiting for her. But she could hear the guards calling to each other in the courtyard below. They probably hadn’t seen where she’d gone (although surely they’d heard the window bashing, so they might have a general idea), but they knew someone had infiltrated the tower. At some point they’d get organized and search it structure by structure. If she stayed here much longer, she’d be caught.

But Edward wasn’t here yet.

What would she do if he didn’t come?

Jane tried to ignore the wild thudding of her heart and moved on to search the cabinets, looking for weapons, but they were all filled with stockings, boots, and hats. Further inspection only turned up a few vaguely weapon-like items. A frying pan. A rolling pin. Oh, and the fire poker.

Jane snatched it up from where she’d dropped it on the floor and smiled at the pointed tip. That could work.

But where was Edward?