The Raven's Revenge by Kevin Sands

Author:Kevin Sands
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 36

“SALLY!”

I sprinted into the alley.

“Christopher! Wait!” Tom was still stuck behind the horses. It was too narrow here for all three of them, and Beatrice balked at entering the shadowed passage. It took all of Tom’s strength to hold her. “Wait for me!”

I couldn’t. Sally had disappeared.

On some level, I knew this was a perfect trap. The masked man causes a distraction for the Raven to grab Sally. Then I come running trying to find her. And the Raven takes me, too.

That’s against his own rules, I tried to tell myself. But I wasn’t sure I believed that anymore. “Sally!”

Suddenly, I came to a crossroads. Going straight would lead me through Whitefriars, toward the Thames. Right and left the alley ran behind the shops. There were plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in.

Which way?

“Sally!”

If the Raven wanted to carry her away, he’d choose the street or the Thames. But if he just wanted to hurt her… then a darkened alley would be the perfect place to dispose of a body.

Which way?

I looked around desperately for some sign that she’d been here. Something she’d dropped, maybe, in the dirt—

The dirt.

Most of Walsingham’s instruction to me had been about finding secret messages. In the few weeks we’d had together, we hadn’t covered other aspects of spying, like how to track someone. But the earth might still tell me the way.

It was covered in footprints; plenty of people had walked through here. Yet Sally’s print would be much smaller than most. I scanned for the tread of her shoes: low, flat heel—

There.

It was faint, but I could see her footprints pressed into the other tracks in the alley. She’d gone left.

I followed them, faster now. “Sally!”

Why wasn’t she answering?

If her footprints are there, Master Benedict said, then she must be moving of her own accord.

That heartened me a little. I hadn’t seen any evidence of her being dragged, at least. Though she could have been gagged. A blade to her throat.

I ran, looking anyplace a person might be hidden. “Sally!” I called one more time.

Then I saw her.

She was sitting on the doorstep behind a house, slumped over, head between her knees. I ran to her, crouching, pistol grips slick with sweat. No one else was around.

“Sally? What’s wrong?”

She lifted her head, blinking. “Christopher?”

Guns still in hand, I hugged her to me. She wrapped her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulder, breathing slowly.

“Are you hurt?” I said. “Why didn’t you call out?”

“I… I don’t feel well,” she said.

Had she been shot? With rising dread, I looked her over, front, back, everywhere. I saw no blood. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

We were a fair distance from Fleet Street. “How did you get here?”

“I… you told me to hide,” she said.

I supposed I had. Though I’d meant for her to find cover against flying bullets, not hide from us. “Did you hit your head?”

“I… don’t know. I’m dizzy. I… can I go back to Isaac’s?”

I ran my hands carefully through her hair, pressing against her skull.

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