Read Chapter 12: The Trap at the Tower

The fog off the Thames clung to the Tower’s grey stones like a second skin. Thomas pressed his back against the outer wall of the Byward Tower, the forged apprentice pass—one of Master Dolittle’s old favors—sweating in his palm. The guard at the gate had barely glanced at it. A boy with ink-stained fingers and a satchel of ledgers was the least suspicious thing in London.

Inside, the air smelled of salt, rust, and old blood.

The riddle beat in his skull: *The key is in the heart of the White Tower.* His father had taught him that the White Tower was more than a fortress—it was the guts of the kingdom. And at its heart, beneath the royal apartments, lay the Mint. Coins struck there bore the king’s face, but the real currency was trust. If his father had hidden something, it would be where numbers ruled.

He moved with the hunched, hurried gait of a clerk on an errand. Past the Bloody Tower, where shadows seemed to breathe. Past the Wakefield, where a sentry’s torch guttered in the damp. His heart hammered as he crossed the open yard toward the White Tower’s massive Norman bulk.

The door to the Mint’s outer office was unlocked.

Inside, candlelight flickered over scales, dies, and stacked ingots. A ledger lay open on a desk, columns of figures neat as a army in formation. Thomas’s fingers traced the entries—new coinage, old plate, melted down. But the numbers didn’t match. The weights of silver recorded at intake were heavier than the output. A consistent skimming, week after week. He flipped back through the pages. The discrepancies began four months ago. The same month his father vanished.

He reached for the deeper shelf behind the desk, where a worn iron lockbox sat. No seal. No crest. But the lock was a simple ward. He pulled his father’s pendant from beneath his shirt—not the ruby, but the steel pin hidden in the chain. It fit the keyhole like it was made for it.

The box opened.

Inside lay a single sheet of vellum, folded tight. He opened it. His father’s hand—sharp, elegant, unmistakable. *If you are reading this, Thomas, I am broken or dead. The Order is not what it seems. The lies are struck in the heart of the tower. Follow the coin, not the crown.*

The door slammed open.

Thomas spun. Three men in the Lieutenant’s livery filled the frame, halberds lowered. Behind them, a tall figure stepped into the torchlight—Sir Geoffrey Cecil, his doublet immaculate despite the hour, his smile thin as a blade.

“The printer’s boy,” Geoffrey said, voice like silk over steel. “I knew you’d come. The riddle was always too easy for Simon’s son.”

Thomas’s hand closed around the pendant. The ruby felt cold against his palm.

“You killed my father.”

“Your father refused to see the beauty of the arrangement.” Geoffrey stepped closer, boots echoing on the stone. “He left the Order, and the Order does not abide deserters. But you—” He tilted his head, studying Thomas like a curious bird. “You are a gift I nearly missed. Breaking into the King’s Mint. Stealing royal documents.” He gestured at the vellum in Thomas’s hand. “That is treason, boy. The rope, the drawing, the quartering. All of it, for you.”

“Cecil knows,” Thomas said, forcing his voice steady. “Your cousin knows what you are.”

Geoffrey laughed. “Robert Cecil is a clever man, but he trusts numbers. And the numbers will show a theft. A conspiracy. A printer’s apprentice caught red-handed with forged records.” He stepped aside. The guards moved forward.

Thomas didn’t think. He threw the candle from the desk into the open ledger—the oil caught, flames licking up in a sudden curtain of fire—and bolted past the guards before they could react. He hit the door low, shoulder-first, and was through it as shouts erupted behind him.

The yard was a maze of torchlight and stone. He ran blind, feet pounding cobbles, past the White Tower and into the narrow throat of a passage. Behind him, the Lieutenant’s horn sounded—three long blasts. The alarm.

The Tower gates were closing.

Thomas skidded to a halt, chest heaving. Iron portcullises were dropping at the outer walls, guards fanning out across the yard with dogs. He was inside. Trapped inside the Tower of London, with Sir Geoffrey’s men sealing every exit.

A fugitive, with nowhere left to run.