Read Chapter 28: The City Gates

The eastern gates loomed ahead, a black mouth in the wall of smoke that had become the sky. Tom’s lungs burned with every step, the box swinging heavy against his hip, its iron cold even in the summer heat. Behind him, the city roared—a beast of flame and falling timber—but it was not the fire that dogged his heels. It was the softer sound of boots on cobbles, a rhythm that matched his own, patient and unhurried.

He risked a glance back. Three figures moved through the smoke, cloaked against the ash, and at their head, the unmistakable slash of red. The man in the red cloak had found him sooner than Tom had hoped.

Tom pushed harder, threading through a knot of refugees dragging carts piled with bedding and screaming children. A woman clutched a goose to her chest. A man carried a portrait of a face Tom would never know. No one looked at him twice. That was the mercy of chaos—everyone was running from something.

The gatehouse rose ahead, a squat stone arch flanked by guards who had abandoned their posts for shade and ale. One remained, a wiry fellow with a face like a dried apple and a spear he leaned on more than held. He watched the flood of humanity with the weary patience of a man who had seen too much and been paid too little.

Tom slowed, forcing his breath to steady. He shoved a hand into his pocket and felt the few coins rattling there—not enough. Not nearly enough.

“Halt,” the gatekeeper said, though he didn’t raise his spear. “Papers.”

“Lost them in the fire,” Tom said, spreading his arms. “Everything’s lost. You’ve seen what’s happening.”

The gatekeeper squinted at him, then at the iron box under Tom’s arm. “What’s in the box?”

Tom’s mind raced. He could not show the confession. He could not open the box at all. But the box itself—the promise of it—might be enough.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Gold,” he said. “A lord’s ransom. I was a servant in a house on Fish Street. The master died in the flames, but before he did, he told me to take this box to his brother in the country. Said there’s enough in it to buy a man’s freedom ten times over.”

The gatekeeper’s eyes flicked to the box, then to Tom’s dirt-caked face. “Then why don’t you open it and pay me proper?”

“I don’t have the key,” Tom said, which was true in a way he couldn’t explain. “The master had it. He’s ash now.”

The gatekeeper laughed, a dry sound like sticks breaking. “You expect me to let you through on a promise?”

Behind Tom, the boots grew closer. He could feel the red-cloaked man’s gaze like a brand between his shoulder blades.

“Not a promise,” Tom said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the few coins he had—a shilling, a few pence, a scrap of silver that had been his mother’s. He pressed them into the gatekeeper’s palm. “This is all I have. But when I deliver that box, I’ll be a rich man. And I’ll remember the man who let me through the gate when the city was burning.”

The gatekeeper weighed the coins in his hand. He looked at the smoke, at the river of desperate people streaming past, at the distant columns of flame that had already consumed half of London. Then he looked at Tom.

“The eastern road,” he said. “North for two miles, then take the lane West. There’s a village called Blackfen. It’s a good place to disappear.”

He stepped aside.

Tom didn’t wait to be thanked. He slipped through the arch, out into the open air beyond the wall, and the moment he crossed the threshold, the world changed. The roar of the fire softened to a distant grumble. The smoke thinned. The stench of burning tallow and human sweat gave way to the smell of hay and earth and green things.

He ran.

The road was hard-packed dirt, rutted with cart wheels, and the box banged against his hip with every stride. He clutched it tight, his fingers aching from the strain. Behind him, he heard the gatekeeper’s voice rise in protest, then the cold, clipped tone of the red-cloaked man demanding passage.

Tom didn’t look back. He just ran.

The fields stretched out on either side, patchwork squares of green and gold, dotted with sheep that raised their heads to watch him pass. The sun was low, painting the sky in shades of amber and blood. He had never been so far from the river. He had never been so exposed.

The box grew heavier with every step. His arms burned. His lungs screamed. He had been running for what felt like hours, but when he glanced back, he could still see them—three figures on the road behind him, moving at a steady, unhurried pace. They were not running. They did not need to. They knew he could not keep this up forever.

Tom veered off the road, crashing through a hedge and into a field of tall grass. He dropped to his knees, gasping, and pressed his ear to the ground. The vibration of boots on packed earth reached him through the soil. They were still coming.

He looked around wildly. Ahead, at the edge of the field, stood a barn—a sagging timber structure with a roof of rotting thatch, half-swallowed by brambles. It was the only shelter in sight.

Tom stumbled toward it, the box nearly dragging him down. He shoved the door open and slipped inside, pulling it shut behind him. The darkness was instant and absolute. He stood there, chest heaving, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat and the soft rustle of mice in the straw.

He waited.

Minutes passed. The sounds of pursuit grew closer, then stopped. Tom heard voices—low, muttered words he could not make out. He pressed himself against the wall, the box clutched to his chest, and waited for the door to burst open.

It didn’t.

After what felt like an eternity, the voices moved on. The footsteps faded. Tom let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and slid down the wall, sitting in the straw with the box in his lap.

His hands were shaking. He looked at the box—at the iron surface, the phoenix mark stamped into the lid, the thin seam where the lid met the body. He had opened it once, just a crack, just enough to see the confession inside. But it had not fully opened. It had not yielded to him completely.

His blood had made it glow. His blood had made it stir. But it had not opened.

He thought of his mother’s letter, hidden beneath the floorboards of a ruined shop. He thought of her words: *The blood of a pureblood royal is the key.* And he thought of the phoenix mark on his own flesh, the mark that meant he was not who he had always believed himself to be.

The red-cloaked man knew. Lord Percy knew. And now, somewhere out there, his sister bore the same mark—if she still lived.

Tom pressed his forehead against the cold iron of the box and closed his eyes. He was free of the city, but he was not free. Percy’s men were on the road. The fire was still burning. And the truth in this box was a weight that would follow him to the ends of the earth.

He set the box aside and began to dig a hollow in the straw.

For now, he would hide. He would rest. He would plan.

But he knew, with a certainty that settled into his bones like cold water, that the barn would not hold him for long. The red-cloaked man had not come all this way to give up at a hedgerow. He was out there, waiting. And he would not stop until he had the box—or Tom’s blood.