Read Online The Crimson Shard by Teresa Flavin - Free Book Online Page B

have reported them missing, after having waited for hours on Tottenham Court Road.
    “What is it like where you are from?” Jacob asked as Blaise pulled off his nightshirt and dragged the breeches, shirt, and horrible stockings back on.
    “Oh.” Blaise half smiled. “Where would I start? There’s too much to tell.”
    “Mr. Throgmorton found you there?”
    Blaise tied his hair back into a short ponytail with a bit of string. “Yes, unfortunately.”
    The boy looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “I wonder what he does with our copies after he takes them through the door.”
    “I have no idea. He didn’t have any with him when we met him.”
    Jacob sighed. “We work so hard to make the copies well, and as soon as they are finished, they are taken away.”
    “I know. I would hate that.” Blaise sensed an opportunity. He lowered his voice. “You were the one who said Throgmorton makes the painted door come alive. You’ve seen him do it, haven’t you, Jacob?”
    After a moment’s hesitation, the boy nodded. “Once only.”
    Blaise’s heart jumped. “How did he open the door?”
    “H-he drew on it,” Jacob whispered. “With red.”
    “What did he draw?” Blaise tried to keep his voice calm.
    Jacob drew an arc in the air. “I know not. Just a shape — like this.”
    Blaise remembered the curved scratches in the painted door’s surface. “What did he use to draw? A paintbrush?”
    “A stone knife, I think,” said Jacob, “It was reddish and there was something crimson he dipped it in.”
    Cold spread through Blaise, as if he had been dipped in an icy sea. “Did he say anything while he was drawing?”
    “No.”
    “Where did the red liquid come from? The workshop?”
    “From a vial under his shirt.”
    Blaise’s heart sank. How would they ever get this red substance, whatever it was, from Throgmorton? “Do any of the other boys know more than you do?”
    “No, only what I told you.” Jacob took a backward step toward the door, his face creasing with worry.
    “It’s all right.” Blaise held the boy’s elbow and said earnestly, “I will
not
tell anyone, especially Toby.”
    Jacob relaxed at this, and they hurried into the workshop together. The boys were lighting lanterns and sitting down to their work.
    “Strewth!” came a familiar curse from a far corner of the room. “Toby, is it midnight already?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Jeremiah lay fully clothed in a corner, half covered by dusty bedding and sprawled across a pile of lumpy-looking sacks.
    “Egad,” he muttered, and sat up. The candlelight seemed to bother him, and he shielded his eyes. “’Tis as if I left Throgmorton’s dinner table only a moment ago.”
    “That’s where he sleeps?” Blaise whispered to Jacob, incredulous.
    Jacob gave a quick nod.
    “But this is his house, isn’t it? Why doesn’t he sleep downstairs in a bedroom?”
    “Do not speak of me behind my back.” Jeremiah got to his feet, looking unsteady. “Yes, this is my house!”
    Blaise backed away from Jacob, so as not to bring Jeremiah’s anger onto him.
    “My father built it thirty-five years ago. It is the only home I have ever known, and the only home I shall ever know. Nothing — no one — shall force me from it.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Blaise. “I didn’t know —”
    “Mr. Throgmorton and his daughter are my, er, lodgers and stay downstairs,” said Jeremiah. “That is all you need know. My living arrangements are no business of yours.”
    “I — I’m sorry. . . .”
    “You remember what I told you. Keep to your work.”
    Blaise sat down at his table and stared at his pile of ink drawings. He sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was pick up that quill pen again.
    “What’s going on?” Sunni appeared in the workshop, late and bleary-eyed, from her own bed in the cellar.
    “Don’t talk right now,” Blaise said through clenched teeth. “Someone’s in a bad mood and taking it out on us.”
    Sunni dipped her