Read Chapter 22: The Gunpowder Plot

The forge reeked of coal and scorched iron, and the heat of the fire outside had crept in through the cracks of the shutters, making the small room feel like the inside of a bellows. Tom sat on an overturned barrel, the iron clasp resting in his palm. It was cool to the touch. It had been cool since he’d pried it from the box, even in the middle of the burning street. That unnatural cold had burrowed into his memory like a splinter.

The swordsmith, a man named Crouch with soot-stained fingers and a squint that spoke of a lifetime of staring into flames, set down his hammer and wiped his brow. “Vittorio the Younger,” he repeated, nodding slowly. “The Pope’s own reliquary man. Worked in gold and silver, mostly. But this—” He gestured at the clasp. “This is iron. The man hated iron.”

“Then why use it?” Miles asked from the corner, where he sat wrapped in a borrowed horse blanket, looking smaller than Tom had ever seen him.

“Because iron is common,” Crouch said. “Unremarkable. You commission a gold reliquary and every thief in Christendom knows it’s worth a fortune. But you take a plain iron box, put a hidden trigger, line it with cold—no, that’s for hiding what you don’t want found.”

Tom turned the clasp over in his fingers. The phoenix was engraved on the underside, so small you’d miss it unless you were looking for it. “You said it was part of a commission,” Tom said. “Something linked to the Gunpowder Plot.”

Crouch’s squint deepened. He glanced at the door, then at the shuttered windows. “I said that, and I’ll say it again, but if you repeat it in the street, I’ll deny it and call you a liar.”

“I don’t plan on repeating it in the street,” Tom said. “I plan on using it.”

“Using it how?”

Tom set the clasp down on the anvil between them. The metal clicked against the iron surface, a sharp sound that seemed to hang in the close air. “You said Vittorio made this for a commission. Who commissioned it?”

Crouch hesitated. He picked up the clasp and turned it over, the phoenix catching the dim light. “The story goes that in the years before the Plot, there was a network of Catholic nobles who knew what was coming. Some of them wanted to warn the King. Others wanted to stay silent and keep their heads. The leader of the whole scheme—” He lowered his voice. “—was a man named Robert Catesby. But there were others. Percy was one of them.”

“Lord Percy?” Tom’s gut tightened.

“Thomas Percy,” Crouch said. “The same family line. Grand-nephew or some such to the current Lord Percy. He was the one who rented the cellar under the Parliament building. He was one of the first to die when the plot failed—killed by the King’s men. But before he died, some say he had a confession written. A list of names. The ones who knew, and the ones who didn’t do enough to stop it.”

“Why would he write a confession?” Miles asked. “If he was planning to blow up Parliament, why put his own neck on paper?”

Crouch shrugged. “Maybe he thought it would save his soul. Or maybe he wanted a lever. A list of names—some of them Catholic nobles, some of them Protestant sympathizers—that could be traded for mercy if things went wrong. Or sold to the highest bidder. When you’re working with explosives under the seat of the government, you think about your exits.”

Tom stared at the clasp. The cold was still there, radiating faintly into his hand. He thought about the box’s hidden trigger, the way his father’s hands had always been steady around fire. He thought about the priest, the way he’d thrown back his cloak to reveal that phoenix ring, the way he’d demanded the box like a man collecting what was rightfully his.

“It’s not the confession itself,” Tom said slowly. “It’s what’s inside. Names. The names of people who are still alive. Powerful people.”

“People like Lord Percy,” Crouch said.

“People whose families would burn to keep those names hidden.” Tom stood up, the movement sudden enough to make Miles flinch. “That’s why he wants the box. It’s not about what’s in the past. It’s about what that list would do to the present. A living confession, sealed in iron. If it got out, it would bring down half the noble houses in England.”

Crouch nodded. “More than half.”

“And the priest?” Tom asked. “The one who made it?”

“Vittorio’s work was blessed by a particular order,” Crouch said. “The Phoenix Brethren. They were guardians. Keepers of confessionals. They believed that a confession once made was sacred, even if it was never spoken aloud. Their whole purpose was to see that the truth came out eventually. Even if it took a hundred years.”

Tom’s heart beat hard against his ribs. His father had carried that box. His mother had hidden a tattoo like the one on the sailor’s arm. The priest had said the box was his. But if the Phoenix Brethren were guardians, then his father might not have stolen it at all. He might have been keeping it safe. Moving it. Preserving it until the moment it could be exposed.

“I’m not going to hide it,” Tom said.

Miles looked up sharply. “What?”

“The confession. I’m not going to sell it. I’m not going to hand it back to the Brethren.” Tom’s fingers tightened around the clasp. “I’m going to let it out.”

“Tom—” Miles started.

“No, listen.” Tom turned to face him. There was a fierceness in his voice that surprised even himself. “Lord Percy wants it buried. The priest wants it guarded. Either way, everyone who might be hurt by those names stays safe and the truth stays in the dark. But my father died carrying that box. My mother died in a fire that might not have been an accident. And somewhere out there, a woman with a phoenix scar is running from the same people who took my sister.” He took a breath. “If those names are what everyone is so desperate to keep hidden, then they’re also what sets the rest of us free.”

“Free?” Miles’s voice cracked. “Tom, setting that loose means putting yourself in the center of a fight between the Crown and every noble family that helped plot to blow it up. You’ll be a target for the rest of your life.”

“I’m already a target,” Tom said. “I stole the box from a burning aristocrat’s house under the nose of the most dangerous man in London. Everyone who wants it already knows my name. But they don’t know what I know now.” He looked down at the phoenix engraving. The cold metal felt like a promise. “They don’t know that I know it’s a confession. And they don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”

Crouch leaned forward, his squint gone, replaced by something sharp and appraising. “And what are you going to do with it?”

Tom looked at him, then at Miles, then out through the crack in the shutters where the orange glow of the fire still painted the sky. The city was burning around them. Half the people he’d ever known were dead or scattered. And he was a thief with an iron clasp in his pocket and a name he couldn’t shake.

“I’m going to take it back,” Tom said. “And then I’m going to make sure everyone in London hears what’s inside it. Every name. Every secret. Every coward who watched and did nothing.”

“That’s not a plan,” Miles said quietly. “That’s a death wish.”

Tom almost smiled. “Maybe. But if I’m going to die in this fire, I’m going to die holding a torch, not hiding in the dark.” He slid the clasp into his pocket. “Do you know who Vittorio made that box for?”

Crouch shook his head. “Only that it was made in the year before the Plot. The man who commissioned it was said to be old, a servant to the faith. He died before the box was finished.”

“What was his name?”

Crouch thought for a moment. “I heard it once, years ago. A woman’s name, oddly. The old man took it as a vow.” He rubbed his chin. “Anne. The commission was made in the name of Anne.”

The word hit Tom like a slap of cold water. Anne. His mother’s name. The name on the charred paper. The name Nell’s friend Maria had been given.

“Miles,” Tom said slowly. “The sword.”

Miles looked at him, puzzled, and then understanding flickered in his eyes. “The swordsmith who sold your father the blade before the fire. The one who knew your mother.”

“My father bought a sword from a man who knew a woman named Anne,” Tom said. “And a reliquary worker made a box for a man who took vows in the name of Anne. And a girl who shared that name was taken from the city by a red-cloaked man.” He looked at Crouch. “Does the name Anne mean anything else to you? Anything at all?”

Crouch’s face went still. He picked up the clasp again and turned it in his fingers. “The Phoenix Brethren believed that every guardian took a new name when they accepted their duty. The name was chosen to honor their vow. And their first guardian, the one who forged the order from the ashes of the old one—” He paused, setting the clasp down with a heavy clink. “Her name was Anne. Anne of the Phoenix.”