Henry ran on. He kept running until he saw no trace of them, then ducked into another street and slowed to a limping walk. He followed his feet, taking turns at random, until he found himself outside the Taylor’s Guild. The doors were open, and he could hear singing and laughter. Familiar voices. He walked in, head down, and immediately slipped into the servants corridors, creeping down to the laundry for a wash and change of clothes before finding his bed.

Dawn found Henry still bruised and tender. He limped up to breakfast, trying to look like everything was normal whenever anyone was looking. In the dining hall, he sank onto one of the benches with a barely disguised groan.

Two poached eggs, several slices of roast ham and a small mountain of fried vegetable patties later, Henry started to feel moderately human again, if not any less injured. He was just about to wave at one of the servers to get a second portion when Robert and Sybille came and sat opposite him. Henry tensed up as Robert slapped his trencher down on the table. Unlike Sybille, with whom Henry had forged an unlikely friendship, Robert had hardly spoken to him or Maggie since he joined, and Henry didn’t know what to expect. He looked at Sybille, his eyebrows raised.

Sybille skipped any kind of greeting. She placed her platter on the table and started talking. “We heard about a brawl in the alleys last night. Some are even calling it a riot.”

“Oh, really?” Henry tried to keep his tone neutral.

“Yeah. Robert, tell him about the murder!”

“A man got killed in the alley behind Soaper Street. Brutal. Story is he was hit with a sledgehammer.”

“Dead?” Henry rubbed his face, trying to ignore the yawning chasm that just opened in his stomach. “Oh.”

“Huh,” murmured Sybille, as she leaned forward. “What happened to your hand?”

“What hand?”

Sybille scoffed. “What do you mean what hand? Idiot. Looks bad.” She scooted forward, and snatched at Henry’s wrist. He winced. “Ah ha! Wow, that’s pretty bad alright. Looks broken.”

“Shh!” Henry twitched his sleeve out of Sybille’s grip and cinched it closed again. “Do you want everyone to hear you?”

“You must be pretty weak for that not to have healed up. Must have used a lot of power.” Sybille looked at Robert, mock-innocence writ large on every feature. “What do you think our friend has been up to?”

Robert remained deadpan. “arm-wrestling?”

“Maybe if he was wrestling with a bear.” She put a finger to her lips, as if thinking about it. “Do you think he’s been wrestling with a bear, Robert?”

“Nah,” Robert got a twinkle in his eye, though he didn’t move a muscle otherwise. “ Reckon he’d sooner court one. Look who he hangs out with.”

“Hmm,” Sybille turned and punched Henry on the arm. He winced. “So, what were you thinking? Spill.”

Henry lowered his voice further. “Can you please keep it down? They tried to rob me, okay?”

“Oh aye,” Robert rolled his eyes. “So you killed a man over a purse?”

Henry forced himself to keep his composure, even as the guilt gnawed at him. “I… They were going to kill me. Two of them snuck up from behind.”

Robert grunted, his expression shifting from sarcastic amusement to something else. He reached into his purse, pulled out a silver coin and slid it across to Sybille. She palmed it. “Huh, well done for surviving then, I guess. When the Masters hear about it though, they’ll punish you. Especially when they hear there was survivors.”

Henry raises his eyebrows. “You think they’ll find out it was me?”

Sybille shrugged. “It’s what they do. If they don’t already know then they’ll find out sooner or later, you can be sure of that.”

Henry looked down at his plate, and then pushed it away, feeling sick. “Shit.”

Henry walked to his lessons with guilt gnawing a hole in his gut. Robert and Sybille alternated between consoling and teasing, and the change in their relationship cheered him up more than he would admit, but as they entered the secret library under the Bookbinder’s Guild, the two witches shushed each other and adopted mock-somber expressions. Henry sighed. The other two didn’t ultimately understand Henry’s feelings, they weren’t murderers.

At least not yet. It was becoming increasingly clear to Henry that this was what they were all destined to become; that Robert and Sybille would soon feel what he feels now. They rounded a corner in the stacks, and he saw the other apprentices. Maggie looked up and waved, and Henry smiled weakly, worry turning the expression into a grimace. He found a place to lean against the bookshelves, avoiding her quizzical looks and mouthed questions.

The spycraft master, Mr Sledd, appeared among them just as the apprentices started to get bored. It was as if he had been there all along, except Henry knew that the chair he sat in had been empty moments before… hadn’t it?

Sledd ghosted a smile, and tipped his head in casual greeting. He had become no less mysterious over time. The man was perpetually mild, almost servile, and glacially patient. Despite his appearances however, something about him always made the hair on Henry’s arms stand on end. Something in the blood. Thomas had stopped coming to his classes altogether, and Henry envied the older boy’s audacity. These ‘lessons’ never failed to frustrate him.

Sledd started talking, and Henry consciously forced himself to tune in to the man’s voice. Sledd was explaining the use of sigils and secret marks as a means of passing information. Henry had to focus so hard on listening, he lost his wider awareness. A heavy hand on his shoulder snapped him out of it, and he looked up into Charnock’s wide face. The older man did not look happy.

Henry followed Charnock through the winding passages up from the classrooms and then through the busy streets to the Taylor’s guild before diving back underground. Through the whole journey, Charnock refused to say a word. In the tunnels under the Taylor’s Guild they took an unfamiliar turn, through a heavy door and into a braced earthen tunnel. The tunnel went on for some distance, and then another door led into a cellar stocked with barrels of wine. The door from the tunnel was disguised as a wine-rack, and when it clicked shut Henry felt his heart begin to race. They were far from the Taylors guild, and that could only be a bad thing. Charnock led him up and into the abandoned common room of an expensive looking public house, then shoved him through the door without following himself. There, Byford stood behind a kneeling woman with a broken nose and two swollen black eyes, holding her by the hair to keep her from looking around. She was heavy-built, with muscular arms and shoulders. Henry’s breath caught in his throat and a weight settled in his belly as Byford looked up at him, his mouth a thin line of disappointment.

“Boy.” His tone was heavy, and he sighed, pulling a hessian sack from where he had it tucked into his sword belt. “You should have come to us at once.”

Henry ducked his head. “I… I am sorry, master.”

“Sadly, in this case, apologies will not change the facts. This woman knows what you are, and she knows your face.” He let go of her hair, and swiftly hooded her with the sack. She sucked in air, barely holding onto a sob of panic and fear.

Henry nodded, and then tried and failed to swallow the lump in his throat.

“This must be tidied up. You know what I am asking you to do?”

The woman keened, a sad short sound. She lifted her head, casting around as if trying to see through the sacking. “Please sirs, I don’t know nothin’. I’m a mother, got two girls of my own. Without me they’ll starve.”

Henry grit his teeth and shook his head. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to steady his breathing; slow the hammering in his ears.

Byford just looked down at the woman and sighed again. “Would you have shown mercy in our shoes? I think not. You knew the risks when you set out to rob and murder.” Byford then turned to Henry. “Boy, look at me. This woman is already dead. She was doomed before you ever met her. Her robbery and murders have been the talk of Cheapside for years, and now she has been seen at the head of a riot. If we let her go, she will end up at Tyburn within the week, in a hangman’s noose. They will hang her slow, and make her children watch. But first, they will torture her. And she will give us up, no matter what she promises here.”

Henry shuddered, and rubbed his face with his left hand. “I cannot.”

Byford shook his head slowly. “You can, and you will. If you can’t do it for me, then do it for her.” He looked down at the kneeling woman. “Die at Tyburn, and your children will starve in the gutter. Die here, now, and we will see to it that they are housed and fed until they are of age.” He stepped away from the woman, and then turned his back on them both. “We will leave you both to decide.”

And with that, the two men left. Henry was alone with the woman who tried to kill him for his purse, whom he would have to kill for what she’d seen him do to protect himself. He hesitated, biting his lip, and then drew his dagger. His hand shook.

The woman stared at the floor for a ten-count, panting and shaking. She flexed her shoulders, perhaps trying to break her bonds, but it was no good. She sagged, then raised her head again, and spoke. “Just do it.” She sounded bitter, resigned. “Yer master’s right, witch. I’m known now, it’s only a matter of time. I’m a dead’un walkin’, with nothin’ but hellfire waitin’ for me.”

Henry shook his head, then realised that she couldn't see him and cleared his throat. “I can’t.”

“You can. You have before, I can tell. Only gets easier, believe me.” She laughed, but it was dark and humourless. “Yer soul’s already damned, just like mine. Not much point in holdin’ back.”

“I don’t believe that.” But Henry walked toward her, his dagger held loose by his side.

“Don’t give a shit what you believe, witch. Whatever ye do, I’m dead. I’d rather get it out of the way, and spare me girls the sight of me… like that.”

Henry closed his eyes, and took a deep, ragged breath. He stepped closer, and extended a shaking hand, opening his eyes and fixing them on the point of the blade and willing it steady. Another step, pulling up next to the woman who had gone very still. She lifted her head, and he could see the damp patches where her tears and snot had soaked through the sacking.

“Go on.” she croaked. “Make it quick.”

*

Nobody spoke to Henry when he returned through the tunnel. Byford and Charnock were waiting for him, but they walked quietly alongside him back to the dormitory. There the other apprentices looked up, and saw his face, and silence fell, persisting even after the masters left. Even Thomas, who was playing solitaire, stopped what he was doing.

Sybille and Maggie rose from their bunks, putting away books and putting on their slippers, they bustled him back out of the room, and down the hall.

Sybille was the first to speak. “Henry you look like death. What happened?”

Henry just hung his head, the immense feeling of guilt and sadness welling up inside him, threatening to erupt. For a moment he thought he might cry, but then the emotion drained away, replaced by a sensation like a cold stone in the middle of his chest.

Maggie grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him into a hug. Sybille took one of his hands, and they stood like that for a time without speaking. Eventually, Henry pulled away.

“I’m okay. I- I’m alright.”

The two girls looked up at him, their lips pursed in almost identical expressions of worry. It made him smile for a moment, despite everything. He nodded, patted Maggie on the arm, and then eased past them, and back into the dormitory. He went straight to bed, then lay awake with the curtain drawn across his bunk.