Read Chapter 2: The Rubies

The alehouse stank of sour wine and worse men, and Thomas pressed himself into the darkest corner of it, breath still ragged from the run. His hands shook around a cup of thin beer he hadn't paid for. The guards had given chase through three streets before he'd lost them in the warren of alleys near the river, ducking through a fishmonger's back door and out again through a window slick with scales.

The ledger was gone. Dropped somewhere in the confusion, or taken. He couldn't remember. All he had left was the weight of his mother's necklace against his chest, warm from his skin.

He'd worn it every day since she died. Three years now. The rubies were small, imperfect things—dull red beads set in tarnished silver—but she'd told him they were the only piece of value the Finch family had ever owned. *Your father gave it to me before you were born,* she'd said, on the night she'd finally told him the truth about the disappearance. *Before he became a fool.*

Thomas touched it through his shirt, feeling the lump of the stones. He needed a place to sleep. He needed to think.

The tavern keeper was a broad woman with forearms like rolled dough, and she was already eyeing him. A boy in printer's rags with blood on his knuckles and no coin on the table drew attention he couldn't afford.

He slid from the bench and made for the door, but a sailor caught his arm at the threshold. Big man, red-faced, with a rent in his doublet that had been mended badly. He smelled of tar and salt.

"You're the one they were chasing," the sailor said. Not a question.

Thomas's heart seized. "I don't know what you—"

"Easy, lad." The sailor's grip loosened but didn't release. "I'm not one for the Queen's men. But you'll not last the night on the streets with that look about you. Rich boy fallen low."

Thomas almost laughed. Rich. He owned two shirts and a dead father's reputation.

"I'll pay," Thomas said, and felt the lie burn in his throat.

The sailor's eyes dropped to his chest. To the slight bulge beneath his shirt.

Thomas knew he was being watched. Knew that pulling out the necklace in this place was a fool's move. But the night was cold and the guards were still hunting, and if he froze on a doorstep he'd be caught before dawn.

He slipped the chain over his head, felt the metal shift against his shirt, and held it out. The rubies caught the candlelight.

The sailor's eyes widened. Then narrowed.

"That'll do," the man said, and took it.

The room was a garret above a chandler's shop, reached by a ladder the sailor called a staircase. It had a straw pallet and a window that didn't close properly, and Thomas didn't care. He locked the door with a bolt that felt older than the building and collapsed onto the bed, staring at the warped beams above him.

Tomorrow, he'd find Sir Cecil. The man had commissioned the ledger; he'd know why the guards wanted it. He'd know what connection the cipher had to Thomas's father.

The thought gave him little comfort. He closed his eyes, listened to the rats scratch in the walls, and tried to summon sleep.

He woke to a hand on his throat.

Thomas's eyes flew open. The sailor was above him, one knee on the bed, and there was a knife in his free hand"—small and wicked, glinting in the grey dawn light.

"Where's the rest?" the sailor growled.

Thomas bucked, but the man was heavy. The blade pressed against his jaw.

"Rest of what?" Thomas managed.

"Don't play the fool. A necklace like that? Rubies? A boy like you doesn't carry one ruby, let alone a string. You've got silver hidden. Or a patron who'll pay ransom."

"I've nothing—"

The knife bit. Thomas felt the sting, the warm trickle of blood down his neck.

"Last chance, lad."

Thomas's hand closed on the chamber pot beside the pallet. He swung it with all his strength, catching the sailor across the temple. The man grunted, reeled back, and Thomas rolled off the bed, scrambling for the door.

The sailor lunged. Thomas twisted, caught the man's wrist, and they crashed together, the knife skittering across the floor. Thomas stamped on it, kicked it under the pallet, and drove his elbow into his attacker's face. The man roared, bleeding from the nose, and grabbed for Thomas's ankle.

Thomas wrenched free, yanked open the door, and tumbled down the ladder. He hit the ground hard, pain lancing up his leg, and was on his feet again before the sailor had made the top rung.

He burst out onto the street, the morning air cold and sharp.

The sailor bellowed behind him. Thomas ran.

He took the lanes at random, doubling back, cutting through a stable and over a wall whose stones battered his palms. The sailor was quicker than his bulk suggested, but Thomas was younger, lighter, and desperate.

Three streets later, Thomas ducked into a tinker's stall and crouched behind a stack of pots, lungs burning, heart pounding against his ribs.

The sailor's boots pounded past.

Thomas waited. Counted to fifty. Then slipped out, taking the long way back toward the chandler's.

The garret was empty, but the pallet was overturned, and in the grey light through the broken window, something glinted on the floorboards.

The necklace.

Thomas crossed the room, snatched it up. The chain was intact. All the rubies there.

And beneath it—

A scrap of paper, caught in the floorboard seam. He pulled it free. The paper was thick, expensive, the kind used for official correspondence. On it, pressed in red wax, was an emblem.

A tower.

Thomas stared at it. The same mark he'd seen on the ledger's margin—the one beside his father's name.

The sailor hadn't dropped it. He'd had it in his pocket, maybe. Lost it in the struggle.

Or someone had put it there.

Thomas turned the scrap over. There was an inscription on the reverse, in a neat, even hand:

*The rubies are not what they appear. Seek the printer's mark. The debt must be paid in full, or the tower falls.*

He read it twice, the words swimming in the dim light.

His hand went to the necklace. The rubies—they weren't what they appeared.

He pinched one between his fingers, twisted it. The stone turned, revealing a tiny hinge. A hollow beneath.

Inside, folded to the size of a thumbnail, was a sliver of paper.

Thomas unfolded it with trembling fingers.

It was a name. His father's name. And a date.

And a debt—five hundred pounds, owed to the Crown, marked against a man who had vanished eleven years ago.

Thomas stood in the ruined room, the necklace in one hand, the scrap in the other, and felt the world tilt beneath him.

His father hadn't just disappeared.

He'd owed the Crown a fortune.

And someone had sent the rubies to collect it.

He pocketed the paper and the necklace, squared his shoulders, and descended the ladder. Sir Cecil would know the truth. He'd make it right.

Thomas buttoned his coat against the wind and joined the morning crowd, heading toward the Strand—and toward the answers that awaited him there.