The School for Thieves, page 16
Tom’s thoughts were a blur.
How was this possible? How was Maxine here? At Thieves School? When had she gotten here? It must have been well before him because she was just back from a night exercise—whatever that was. But the Corsair had said he was the only new recruit that wasn’t from a legacy family….
“I think we should have a word,” came the Corsair’s voice behind him. Tom turned. “Maxine, will you come with us, please? We’ll talk in my study.”
The Corsair locked a hand on Tom’s shoulder and gently but firmly guided him across the entrance hall and through a distant doorway. They walked down a long, wood-paneled corridor before turning a corner and climbing a flight of stairs to the first floor. Another door was pushed open to a large, mahogany-paneled office with windows that overlooked the slope of a mountain. One wall of the office was taken up by a towering bookcase, with a ladder attached to a rail to allow the Corsair access to the higher shelves; a fire crackled merrily in a hearth opposite, and there was a wide desk by the windows.
The Corsair eased himself into a chair behind the desk and motioned to some armchairs, inviting Tom and Maxine to sit. Maxine perched herself uneasily on the edge of one, but Tom remained standing, his heart thumping. He could see Maxine nervously knotting her fingers together.
The Corsair cleared his throat. The light that spilled from the windows framed him with a bright glow, making it hard to clearly distinguish his expression.
“I have some explaining to do,” he said.
Tom just stared at the Corsair.
“Maxine is a Fledgling,” continued the Corsair. “She has been at Beaufort’s for three years. She is part of a distinguished family within the Shadow League.”
Tom, hardly able to breathe, couldn’t understand what the Corsair was saying.
The Corsair was silent for a moment, as if realizing he had perhaps started at the wrong point in his explanation.
“I owed Morris a great debt,” he said.
“What has that to do with Maxine?” asked Tom, forcing out the words.
“And when he died,” continued the Corsair as if he hadn’t heard, “I lost the opportunity to ever repay him directly. But there was still an opportunity for me to repay him indirectly. I could help you—”
“What has this to do with Maxine?” repeated Tom. He didn’t want to hear the Corsair saying Morris’s name.
“I wanted to help you, Tom, and I felt that, perhaps, a place at Beaufort’s was a way for me to do that,” said the Corsair. “But I also needed to know if you would be able to handle life here. More than that, I needed to know if you might excel in this environment. There was no point bringing you in if you weren’t going to be able to cope with it. The failure rate among outside recruits has always been high. It’s what the League simply considers collateral damage—they only want the best and they don’t care who falls by the wayside as long as the cream rises to the top. Again, it’s a reason they tend to prefer legacy pupils. But I didn’t want to bring you here if you were going to fall by the wayside and end up—” His fingers danced for a moment near the side of his head. “So I sent Maxine on a special project to observe you. Her reports, allied to my own observations, confirmed that you were a suitable candidate for recruitment. We felt that you could do well here. Potentially spectacularly well.”
“Special project, was it?” said Tom coldly, turning to Maxine. “Get some good house points?”
Maxine’s eyes were fixed on the floor. “We didn’t trick you into coming here—”
“I think that’s exactly what you did.” Tom raised a finger and jabbed it toward the Corsair. “You manipulated me. You lied to me.” He broke off. He was so angry that he had no way to get close to articulating how he felt. He turned and kicked the empty chair, which tipped over backward.
Maxine stared up at him, her face pale, her eyes wide.
“I understand why you feel angry,” said the Corsair. “But we were always going to tell you the truth about Maxine. How could we do anything else when you live in the same house?”
This was how Enzo and Jericho knew his friends in London had ended up in a workhouse. The Corsair hadn’t sent word as they had said—Maxine had told them when she returned to the school. While Tom was scared and alone and watching for his friends in the Guttknot, she was here at Beaufort’s, laughing about how she had duped them all. Collateral damage. That’s what his friends were. And the League didn’t care about collateral damage. Tom felt sick.
“So now I know,” he said flatly. “And now I’m stuck here—unless I want to end up in an institution that will scramble my brains.”
“It’s not a bad place,” Maxine whispered. “It’s not a prison or punishment—”
“Well, it feels like one to me.” Tom’s jaw was clenched so hard his teeth ached. “But I have no choice but to get on with it. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Herr von Stuppe. I will do my very best to help cleanse your guilt.”
The Corsair bowed his head and cleared his throat with a dry little cough.
“Very well,” he said, looking up at Maxine. “Miss Berjon, please escort Mr. Morgan to his next class, then go and get some rest. You must be tired after Master Ritter’s assignment, no?”
“Yes, Master von Stuppe,” said Maxine, standing up.
“Oh, Tom,” said the Corsair, remembering something. “This is for you.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a fat envelope. “Your house colors. And your timetable.”
Tom stared at the envelope for a few moments before reaching out and taking it. Then, without another word, he turned and walked from the room, Maxine following in the wake of his silent rage.
They walked down the stairs, along the corridor, across the entrance hall, and out of Guile House.
“So, where’s your next class?” asked Maxine tentatively.
Tom pulled out the timetable from the envelope. “Blackmail,” he muttered. “Show me the way, but don’t talk to me again.”
Maxine guided him down Sidewinder Alley and across town to the extortion department on Hermes Avenue. The class had already started, and Tom could see the other Tenderfoots through the window sitting at their desks and taking notes as a woman dressed in a tweed trouser suit wrote on a blackboard. This, he would shortly learn, was Sylvia Lucotti, one of the five personalities of the method-acting Sabrina Krazinski, the Master of Janus House.
He walked in through the open oak doors to the building and took the first left to the classroom without once looking back at Maxine.
Chapter Fourteen AMBUSH
Tom sat silently through the rest of that afternoon’s classes, then headed straight back to his room, ignoring the calls from the other Tenderfoots to join them for a wander around town before study time.
In the envelope the Corsair had given him he found a tie, a belt, a sash, an armband, and a neckerchief—which was what the other students used as their headbands—all in Guile House blue. He threw the envelope against the wall and slumped on his bed, staring up at the exposed beams that crossed his ceiling. Locke had recently been in to straighten up the room and rekindle his fire, and the flames crackled loudly through two fresh logs. The comforts of this room were light-years away from the cold, cruel cell he’d grown up in in the Rawlock—but it still felt like a cell.
Outside the window the treetops on the mountainside shifted in the wind, the deep green pines rippling like the surface of the river down by the warehouse. Tom puffed out his cheeks. He needed some fresh air.
He strode out onto Half Moon Street and down one of the alleys he’d yet to explore, which wound downhill, curving around to the back of Guile House and beyond the reaches of the garden walls.
If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with Maxine’s betrayal, his thoughts so far away with his friends back in London, he might have noticed the sound of footsteps treading lightly behind him or seen the shadows moving on the rooftops above. But his pursuers had spent several years learning how to move with stealth and speed—agile and silent all at once. And so it was that Tom was taken completely unawares. All he sensed was a momentary shift in the air behind him and a sharp pain in the back of his head. After that, it was all darkness.
* * *
When Tom came to, he had no idea how long he’d been out. Black spots inked his vision as he prized his eyelids back, every fraction a hammer blow to the back of his head. There was the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.
He took several slow, ragged breaths and tried to focus his eyes. There was grass just a few inches away. He was on his knees, his forehead on the ground. He could hear sounds.
Talking.
Movement.
Slowly, slowly, the dark spots began to subside and clear.
There were, Tom concluded, four figures standing around him. Four… boys. Two of them were holding him by his wrists, pinning his arms painfully behind his back, keeping him on his knees, his face bent toward the ground. The accents were indistinguishable, but they all shared a similar superiority in their tone. He could hear them laughing. No, not laughing—braying.
One voice seemed to command deference from the others. The voice was shrill, but the breathing that accompanied it was heavy.
Tom guessed he was about to finally meet Matthias Hoffmann.
Strong hands held his right arm; spindlier hands held his left. Tom could see in his mind’s eye the two boys who had sat directly beside Hoffmann at lunch: one large and thickset, the other spidery. The third individual, with whom Hoffmann was now talking, was, Tom guessed, the vanilla-haired boy who had sat opposite them.
Tom knew nothing about any of them, had no idea of their strengths and weaknesses. He would have to improvise to get out of this situation. And react fast.
His vision began to steady, and he raised his head a fraction to take in his surroundings: tumbledown buildings, a disused iron wheel sticking half out of the earth, and partly collapsed walls covered in moss and weeds. There were rusted tracks just visible among tufts of long grass and fallen leaves. This, realized some distant recess of Tom’s fogged mind, must be part of the old underground railway. The terminus, perhaps?
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice and hot breath near his ear. “Wakey-wakey, little rat.”
Tom lifted his aching head a few inches higher as the speaker came around to face him with a thud of crutches, a single footfall heavy on the soft earth. He had guessed correctly. It was Hoffmann.
To his shame, Tom could feel tears pricking his eyes. The other boys laughed, Hoffmann’s round face flushing with delight. It was the pain in Tom’s head and shoulders that had brought on the tears, but the boys had mistakenly assumed it was fear. That was good. He could use that—every possible piece of misdirection was of use. His shame evaporated as quickly as it had blossomed. They should have seen the tears for what they were; their training should have taught them better.
“What’s happening?” he croaked. His voice trembled slightly. It was adrenaline that was causing it, but it sounded like he was scared. Useful, useful.
“We just wanted to welcome you to Thieves School, little rat,” said Hoffmann, and he patted Tom on the cheek with the end of a crutch, smearing mud across his skin, making the others laugh again.
Tom licked his lips. His mouth was dry and the movement hurt his jaw. He guessed that they’d knocked him out with a blow to the back of the head, and he’d then smashed his face on the cobbles when he fell. Amazingly, all his teeth felt intact. He moved his jaw from side to side. It was painful but not excruciating. It seemed that he may have escaped breaking anything.
He took a breath, cleared his mind.
The third boy came and stood beside Hoffmann. Again, Tom had guessed correctly. Vanilla hair, light blue eyes, a thin, pointed noise in the middle of a thin, pale face. “Sniveling little baby,” he sneered. “This is the future of Thieves School? My word, this place is going to the dogs.”
“For now,” muttered Hoffmann.
The vanilla-haired boy crouched down, bringing his face close to Tom’s. “Count yourself lucky that you made it in, little rat. You’re the last of your kind.”
“And how are you enjoying it?” broke in Hoffmann, striking the side of Tom’s head with his crutch.
Tom whimpered and cowered.
“Thought you’d boarded the gravy train? Off the street and into our world, just like that—” Hoffmann snapped his fingers. “Well, we’re here to tell you it’s not going to be so easy. We don’t need you here. Not at Guile House, not at the school, certainly not in the League.”
“Not with what’s coming,” sniggered Vanilla Hair.
“Shut up, Dorling,” snapped Hoffmann.
“Yeah, shut up, Dorling,” said the thickset boy behind Tom, and the spidery boy immediately echoed the sentiment.
Hoffmann raised one of his crutches and brought it down hard on the back of Tom’s head. There was an explosion of pain, and Tom’s body sagged. He wondered if he might be about to throw up.
If he didn’t act now, Tom realized, he might soon be too hurt to get out of this. He could sense that Hoffmann was only just warming up.
Tom made a howling, blubbering noise. He shook his head, as if pleading for them to stop, but he used the movement to take in his surroundings, searching for a weapon.
He saw one.
Hoffmann raised the crutch again. Tom leaned his weight forward, feeling the hands on his arms strain to take his weight. Then, like a spring suddenly released, he threw his weight back toward the two boys behind him. They cried out in surprise. Tom instantly hurled his weight forward again and broke free from their grasp. He swept a foot at Hoffmann and connected with the crutch, knocking the boy off-balance and sending him tumbling to the ground.
Tom grabbed hold of the half brick he had spotted in the grass and rose up in a fluid movement, swinging his weapon. Dorling leaned out of the way just in time, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets in horror. With his free hand, Tom punched the boy in the throat. Dorling stumbled backward, gagging, and tripped in the long grass.
Tom turned to the two boys who had been holding him. His shoulders felt like they were on fire, but this only served to fuel his rage as he bore down on them, eyes bright with fury, brick raised above his head. The two boys cried out in terror and scrambled backward, shouting, “It was just a joke! A joke!”
Now that he had gained the ascendancy, Tom didn’t know what to do next. He swung the brick at them—and they squawked and ran up a small incline behind them toward the opening of an alley.
Tom turned back to Hoffmann and Dorling. Hoffmann was rolling around like a tortoise, trying to get to his feet but struggling because of the cast. Dorling, meanwhile, was writhing in the grass, clutching his throat, staring up in terror at the demon that had seemingly possessed the skinny rat. Tom stalked around, keeping both boys in his line of sight. A wave of nausea suddenly swept over him and his vision spotted, but he forced the feeling away and locked eyes with Hoffmann.
“Now, you listen to me,” said Tom quietly. “I didn’t come here to take anything away from you. I’m not here to insult you or your family. And I don’t want a war. But if anything like this happens again, ever, that’s what you’ll get. And it’ll be a street war. And from the look of you, you have no idea what that means. You’ve not seen what I’ve seen, done what I’ve done. You don’t have a clue.”
A memory came to Tom then: how the Pitbull would threaten inmates at the Rawlock. Tom would never have believed at the time that he would one day take inspiration from that living nightmare, but he did now.
He dug his thumb under Hoffmann’s right eyeball, not too deeply, but enough to make the boy shriek in panic. “I’ll scoop your bloody eyes out,” he whispered, just as the Pitbull used to do. “And I’ll feed them to the dogs. Understood?”
He no more had the ability to gouge out the boy’s eyes than he had to kill him, but Hoffmann wasn’t to know that. Hoffmann stared up unblinking, his eyes watering furiously. Then he gave a small, barely perceptible nod. It was enough.
Tom straightened, tossed the brick into the grass, and dragged his aching body up the hill to the alleyway, disappearing from sight.
Chapter Fifteen THE MINISTER FOR WORKHOUSES
Tom sat at his desk, his head bowed over his essay on Victor Lustig. While he probably should have had someone look at the wound on his head, he had ignored the pain and cleaned it himself. He had a splitting headache but knew that it would eventually wear off. It made it hard to concentrate on the essay, but he was persevering anyway.
The fire burned low beside him. He heard the clang of the dinner gong being struck downstairs and the shuffle of feet beyond his door as the boys on his floor left their rooms.
There was a knock on his door, and Enzo poked his head in. “Coming for dinner?”
“I didn’t say you could come in,” said Tom without looking up.
“Listen,” began Enzo edgily. “This whole thing with Maxine—”
“You knew and you didn’t tell me,” said Tom. “You knew the whole story and you didn’t let on. You gave me no warning. Nothing. I don’t want to speak to any of you.”
“Come on, mate, don’t be like that,” said Jericho, leaning his head in over Enzo’s shoulder. “The Corsair said he was going to tell you when the time was right. What were we supposed to do?”
Tom didn’t want to listen. “Shut the door behind you.”
“Are you feeling all right?” asked Enzo, registering Tom’s pallor. “You’re looking gray.”
“I said shut the door behind you.”
Enzo and Jericho glanced at each other and then withdrew to the corridor, pulling the door quietly behind them. His pen hovering above the paper, Tom stared blankly at the wall ahead of him.
How could he forgive any of them? None of the kids at the warehouse would have lied to each other like this. Thinking of his friends in London hit like a hammer blow. He wouldn’t give up on them. He’d find a way.
