Rook(49)

“Do you remember last year, when the three of us were in the undermarket at Kent, and we went to the blacksmith’s?”

Spear finished his bootlace. “The one who had clocks under the floorboards of his mother-in-law’s potting shed?”

“That’s the one. Do you remember seeing this?” She pulled a paper from the back pocket of her breeches as she came across the room. On it was a drawing of a clock, an odd sort of arm apparatus attached to the top.

“Yes. I do remember,” he said, taking the paper. “He called it a ‘firelighter,’ right? Because the flint on the top would strike a flame at a certain time, depending on how you set the clock?”

“Exactly so. I want to buy it.”

“That was a lot of money, Sophie. Hard to imagine somebody paying so much not to light their own fire.”

“I know. That’s why I hope he still has it, and that he will bargain. Do you think you could talk him down on the price?”

Spear studied the picture. “I could make this, I think. If I had the clock.”

“Could you really?” Sophia sat next to him, looking at the drawing. Spear was good at that sort of thing, but it had never occurred to her that he was that good. “Are you sure? How long would it take? Can you do it in ten days?”


“I think so. It’s just flint and steel, and the parts for the top. And it would be much cheaper to buy the clock alone. What do you want it for?”

“Oh.” Sophia smiled. “I was just thinking it would be safer not to have someone standing right there, lighting the Bellamy fire. This could be set to light a greased fuse ahead of time. No one near it at all.”

“I thought you were using the explosions for a distraction, like before?”

She nodded, her brown eyes open and earnest. His narrowed.

“Well, that’s a lot of trouble for a distraction. What are you not telling me, Sophia Bellamy?”

What she wasn’t telling him was that she was going to put that firelighter in barrels of Bellamy fire and blow a great ruddy hole in LeBlanc’s prison. And that she was going to usher out hundreds of sick and dying prisoners first. And that it was very likely she wouldn’t be coming back out again.

“Really, Spear,” Sophia said. “When did you get so suspicious? What would I not be telling you?”

She looked down at the floor, so he wouldn’t see her face, and noticed a piece of paper, much folded, peeking out from the space beneath the bed. An anomaly in such an orderly room. She leaned over and picked it up.

“Here,” she said. Spear took it from her, tucking the paper into his shirt pocket without meeting her eyes. “So will you make the firelighter for me?” she asked. “If you can?”

“Yes,” Spear replied, “I can do that.”

A completely unreasonable part of her wished he had slapped that drawing right back into her hand and for once in his life denied her a request. “Thank you. And … maybe we should keep this between ourselves, if you don’t mind.”

That brought a tiny smile to his face. He nodded, and she stood up to go, wincing a bit.

“Sophie,” Spear said, “what are you doing for money right now? Are you able to pay Nancy and Cartier?” Without waiting for an answer, Spear opened a drawer in the table beside his bed and took out a small cloth bag. It clinked. He held it out to her.

Sophia shook her head. “I can’t …”

“Yes, you can.”

“But where did you …”

“I came into a little money. You can pay me back when we get all this sorted.”

She smiled ruefully as she took it. “That really is good of you, Spear. I …”

“Or,” he went on, “we could just consider the money ours. No need to pay it back. We could say it’s for a common cause, couldn’t we? For you and me.”

Sophia stood still, the bag heavy in her hand.

“I know you said you don’t fancy marrying anyone right now. And I know that’s because the timing is bad. But it’s always been us, hasn’t it? And when this is over, no matter what happens, I’ll make sure that doesn’t have to change. I can promise that.”

Silence settled over the room, and Sophia still had not moved. Her eyes were stinging, and she was willing herself not to blink, not to spill any tears. How did you tell someone that you loved them, truly loved them, but not in the way they wanted you to? How could she tell him that one way or the other, whether she came back or not, the future he’d planned was never going to happen? You didn’t, and she couldn’t. Not now.

She turned to walk away, but Spear caught her hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it once. She left, the bag jangling, tears finally spilling as she climbed the farmhouse stairs. She heard another person coming down.

“Bonjour,” said René.

“Bonjour,” Sophia whispered. She could feel the blue of his eyes on her back as she hurried around the turn of the landing.



Spear sat on the edge of his bed, thinking about Sophia’s silence. The most important words came hardest to her. She’d always been like that. She needed someone to take care of her. Spear stood and left his room, the folded paper with the seal of the Sunken City back in the pocket against his chest.

“Bonjour,” said René as they crossed paths in the sitting room. René’s left jaw was a faint purple. Spear nodded, picking up speed as he moved down the passage to the kitchen. He pushed open the back door and walked fast through the farmyard, scattering a few slow-moving ducks, taking long strides through the uncut stubble of the cornfield until the plow land gave way to brushy trees and an overgrown path. He disappeared into the woods of the hillside.