Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
It was a treasure map, an honest-to-goodness treasure map.
The frayed scroll of parchment that had been concealed in the wall of the chamber sketched out a path leading from Arthur’s Stone back east toward London, but slightly more south.
The landmarks of the map were unfamiliar, but the landscape matched up well with the modern maps Edith had studied.
She brought the parchment up to her face and breathed in the scent of it, ancient and earthy.
A knight of Camelot had penned this map, held it in their very own hands.
She couldn’t quite get her head around it, the enormity of that history.
Edith traced a finger along the path, following it across the countryside until it came to an end at—
“X marks the spot. I told you so,” Thomasin said, having snuck up behind her to peer down at the map.
“That’s not really an X.” It was more of a many-spoked star with a circular flower at the center.
Each line of the star alternated between green and white.
She rolled up the parchment, securing it with an extra hair ribbon, and then tucked it into the pocket of her skirt.
She didn’t want to risk not having it directly on her person.
“How’s your shoulder?” Thomasin sat next to Edith, the log she was occupying hardly big enough for both of them. Before Edith could even respond, Thomasin was reaching for the collar of her shirt to pull it aside and take a look.
Shrugging away from the touch, Edith said, “It feels a lot better. I can’t thank you enough for making sure I didn’t bleed to death.
” A full night’s sleep truly had brought Edith back to life.
She no longer felt woozy or painfully weak.
The sharp pain in her shoulder had dulled to a strange, tugging ache.
It was a tolerable pain, though, one she could think around easily.
“Ah, it was a shoulder wound. You would’ve been fine.” Thomasin brushed away her thanks with a flick of her hand.
“Well either way, thank you.” She caught Thomasin’s eye as she said it, hoping the other woman could see how grateful she was.
Not just for mending her shoulder, but for standing by her.
Edith knew it must not have been easy to get Worthing to agree to keep following the quest, and yet Thomasin had done whatever had been necessary to get him to stay in line.
Edith couldn’t quite believe how lucky she was.
It wasn’t just that Thomasin supported her, but also that Thomasin seemed to believe in the quest herself now.
Why else would she be okay with tracking down so many clues?
Edith also had the map. The little piece of parchment that drew an invisible string from Edith to the legends of Camelot.
Her grandmother would have been absolutely giddy over it.
Edith pictured it over and over again, how her grandmother would react if she were here to hold the map herself.
She had to settle for holding the scroll in one hand and her grandmother’s urn in the other.
She pressed the objects together, but that oddly felt like she was forcing them to kiss, so she abandoned that thought and just let them take each other in from a distance.
That didn’t go on for very long, though, because Edith’s eyes welled with tears, and she knew she had to stop.
Instead, she resolved to focus on the sheer joy and excitement of the fact that there actually was a second clue, just as they had always speculated.
“That’s a long journey,” Thomasin said, nodding her head to the pocket where Edith had stashed the map. “We better get going.”
A smile curved Edith’s lips, but she didn’t let her excitement consume her just yet. “You know it’ll probably just be another clue, right?”
“I know what I agreed to.” Thomasin stood and held out a hand.
Edith took it with her good arm, letting Thomasin haul her to her feet.
This time, she let her smile stretch wide.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing Thomasin’s hand before releasing it.
To think she was going to spend yet another week, possibly longer, depending on travel conditions, adventuring through the countryside with Thomasin.
It was almost too wonderful to bear. And that was before taking into account that another clue awaited them.
Edith bounced on her heels. The excitement of it all was too much to contain in her body.
“Don’t thank me yet. I still have to get you there alive.”
“I have faith in you,” Edith said, still beaming.
Thomasin opened her mouth, closed it again. She didn’t end up saying anything, just smiled strangely at Edith, and then strode off toward Worthing and Jay.
Their little party convened by the horses. As the saddlebags were being packed, Thomasin asked Edith, “Does your arm feel okay to ride?”
She moved her arm in an experimental circle.
Her skin pulled painfully, and the muscles screamed at the movement, but she managed to school her face and hide any winces.
“Good as new,” Edith said. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to delay the quest. She wanted to be tough, like Thomasin was.
She didn’t think that the crime boss would respect her if she couldn’t push through a simple shoulder wound.
Edith managed to mount the horse, and although daggers of pain shot up her arm when she gripped the pommel, she held on well enough to keep from falling off. Whatever lingering discomfort her injury caused her, she could handle it on her own.
It wasn’t until the third day of travel that this strategy began to prove problematic.
Edith was sweating buckets even though it was a brisk afternoon with not even a single ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds.
The sharp pain of her wound had become a radiating hurt that throbbed underneath her skin, trailing all the way down her arm to her fingertips.
She refused to look at the wound during the day, not wanting to panic.
Instead, she unwound the bandage and surveyed the damage once a night.
The previous night, she had nearly gasped at the sight of it.
The skin beneath the stitches was so swollen, it looked like it was eating the thread.
Greenish goo lurked within the wound, seeping up through the bright red skin around the puncture.
Her whole shoulder was hot to the touch, and Edith knew that all of this was a terrible sign.
But it was so grotesque, and Thomasin had already done so much for her.
Edith didn’t want to give anyone more reason to think that she wasn’t cut out for this life.
She gritted her teeth, dribbled water over the wound, hissing as pain lanced through her body, and re-bandaged it.
Now, as afternoon shifted into evening, and Edith could barely sit up straight, she was beginning to question the validity of her “out of sight, out of mind” approach to healing an infected wound.
Especially when Thomasin held out an arm and whistled, signaling the horses to make an abrupt stop.
Edith nearly pitched over the front of the horse, and the whole world spun dangerously as she righted herself.
She felt as if she were watching everything through a hazy screen. Thomasin’s hand signal toward Worthing. His sharp nod before he yanked on the reins of his horse and galloped into the shadows of the trees that flanked the narrow dirt path they traveled.
Another hand signal from Thomasin, and they continued down the road, confusingly without Worthing.
They rounded a bend, and she saw three figures standing in the road.
Behind them, blocking the way forward, was a fallen tree.
They must be Good Samaritans attempting to clear the road.
Edith lifted her hand to wave at them, but her arm was wobbly, and she didn’t think the gesture came off properly, because the closer they got to the men, the angrier they looked.
The man in the center stepped forward. He had a long beard and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. “Tax for safe passage,” he said in a voice as scraggly as his beard.
Highwaymen. The word floated through Edith’s mind, not quite registering the right amount of fear. They weren’t as common anymore, but deep in the country, where the Metropolitan Police hadn’t mananged to gain as much of a foothold, they still lurked.
“Let us by, and I promise to give you safe passage,” Thomasin said.
He barked a laugh. “Lady, you’re outnumbered. Just pay up.”
Thomasin made a show of counting, pointing at Jay, Edith, then herself. She screwed her face up in mock concentration. “There’s three of us. Now math isn’t my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure that makes us even.”
“Do you even know how to fire that gun you’re holding, sweet—”
The bullet went through his forehead before he could finish his sentence. Thomasin peered closely at her smoking pistol. “Did I do it right?”
The other two men drew their guns, but Worthing appeared behind them, slitting the throat of one of them and firing a shot straight through the chest of the other.
Thomasin holstered her gun with an eye roll. “So fucking stupid,” she said as she handed the reins to Edith, dismounted, and moved over to the bodies. “I was actually going to let them live.”
Edith watched as Thomasin and Worthing dug through the dead highwaymen’s pockets.
“Are you okay, Edith?” Jay’s smooth voice drifted toward her, but it sounded funny, as if it were traveling to her from a long distance away.
“Yes, of course,” she heard herself say.
“Boss,” Jay’s voice was louder now. “You better get over here.”
The reins fell from Edith’s hands, and her eyes fluttered closed of their own volition. She heard footsteps racing toward her.