“When you look at me, you do not think I feel anything, do you? Yet when Letticia Thorn died, I was glad. When her husband was murdered, I felt a cruel joy.”

“But . . . you’re not scryer-cracked,” Petra said uncertainly. “Children broken by scryers stay mad forever.”

“I was mad for many years of my life. I was not aware then that I had any magical talent, but I also wasn’t aware of the difference between night and day. Legally, I became an adult, yet how could I use my inheritance to buy my freedom when I didn’t even know my own name? The Thorns locked me up, and it was easy to hide me from the world, for I had never had any friends.

“Then, when I was twenty, pieces of my memory began to return. Every day I found a part of myself. I realized where I was, and eventually I could see who stood in the room with me. A young man had approached Gabriel Thorn and asked if he could try to cure his scryer-mad daughter. Thorn initially refused, saying he had no idea what he was talking about. But this man, John Dee, was a spy. He knew the truth about me, and about other things besides, so Thorn agreed.

“John healed me, as best as he was able. Even if you can fix something broken, you can rarely make it whole again.

“Some people say I married him out of gratitude. Others say that he fell in love with his success—with the cure, and not with me. Sometimes I am not sure if they are right or wrong. But I never think that this matters, because I know the fact of our love, whatever its source may be.”

Petra didn’t know what to say.

“You resent my husband. Maybe you have cause. But he is a good man, and wants to do well by you.” Agatha paused. “Do you have any more questions for me, Petra?”

“No,” she whispered, and fled.

FEBRUARY TURNED INTO MARCH, and March lengthened. Petra continued her lessons, and although she couldn’t like Dee any better, Agatha’s story made her wonder if she should respect him. She didn’t—not yet—but waited to see if she would.

“WE’VE GOT NEWS for you, Petra,” Madinia crowed. Petra was sitting with the twins in the parlor, which was decorated with potted plants.

Oh, no, said Astrophil. If I have to listen to her describe the spring dress patterns one more time, I might scream. Loud enough for everyone to hear. I mean it, Petra. I will open my tin mouth and tell her that—

“Robert Cotton is dead!” said Madinia.

“What?” said Petra.

“It’s true,” said Margaret. “He was found in his library.”

“With his head bashed in,” her sister added. “And you know what else? He had been dead for months.”

“For several weeks, anyway,” Margaret corrected.

“His corpse must have been a nasty, pulpy, bloated, purple stink.”

My, said Astrophil, how unpleasant. I am glad I will not decompose when I die.

“Astrophil!”

“What did you say?” said Margaret.

“Nothing,” said Petra. Then she shouted at the spider, Don’t talk like that! You won’t die!

The sisters were still staring at her.

“What?” Petra snapped.

“You said, ‘Astro-something,’ ” said Madinia. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I . . . used a Czech word. Sorry. I forgot my English.”

“The news about Robert Cotton is startling.” Margaret nodded.

“But we thought you’d like to know,” said Madinia. “You were asking questions about him, and I’m always ready to share good gossip.”

“Cotton was murdered,” Margaret reproved. “That’s not exactly good gossip.”

“Well, it’s his own fault if I don’t care a jot that he’s dead. He never left his library, unless it was to buy books. It’s a miracle anyone ever found out he had died, and that he didn’t have any pets, because I would bet you my new ivory-handled fan that if he had, there wouldn’t have been anything left of his corpse.”

“Madinia, you’re disgusting! Could we please stop talking about dead bodies and animals that eat them?”

“Why? You’re the one who brought it up!”

Margaret grabbed a book and flung herself into a chair in the corner of the room. Madinia decided she was going to ignore her sister, too, so she snatched a watering can from a nearby end table and huffily began watering the plants.

Petra’s mind was racing. Robert Cotton was murdered, too? This must be linked to the death of the West . . . but how?

She wanted to figure this out, but was soon distracted by a fresh burst of conversation between the sisters.

“Madinia”—Margaret turned a page of her book—“those cuckooflowers are fake.”

“Fake?” Madinia was pouring a thin arc of water onto pink petals.

“The flowers are made of silk.”

“Since when? I’ve been watering that plant for two years!” The water flowed over the pot and dripped onto the floor. “Oh, fig!”

“You shouldn’t swear. And that plant has always been fake. You can’t possibly think Dad would allow real cuckooflowers in the house.”

“Why not?” Petra had never heard of the plant before.

“Cuckooflowers can’t keep their mouths shut,” said Madinia.

“Flowers don’t have mouths,” said Margaret.

“You know what I mean!”

“You know how flowers have pollen?” Margaret asked Petra, who nodded. “And how humans shed pieces of themselves?”

“Um, no. Do people have detachable toes in England?”

Madinia giggled, but since one of Petra’s closest friends had fingers with invisible tips that could extend very far, she wasn’t taking anything for granted. As far as Petra knew, the English did have detachable toes.

“You do it all the time: you lose eyelashes, a hair falls from your head, you scratch away a patch of dry skin,” Margaret explained. “If you do that around a cuckooflower, it will absorb this into its pollen. And the flower will remember you. If this plant was a real cuckooflower, and I ripped off a petal, it might yell ‘Margaret!’ or ‘Madinia!’ or ‘Petra!’ ”

“So,” said Petra, “a cuckooflower isn’t so great to have in a house with a spy who wants to keep his meetings secret.”

“Not so much,” Madinia said. “I mean, if someone found out that Dad had met with the West on the morning of his death—”

“Madinia!” Margaret’s eyes widened in shock.

“Oops.” Madinia bit her lip.

“What she means to say”—Margaret turned to Petra—“is that if, hypothetically, Dad had met with the West, it would raise some questions. But since he was listening to us play the lute that morning, there’s no problem.”

No problem? Astrophil murmured. Did that sound like a lie to you, Petra? Because it certainly did to me.

Petra agreed. She didn’t understand how the deaths of Robert Cotton and Gabriel Thorn were related, but this conversation with Madinia and Margaret made other things fall into place. Petra remembered how Walsingham and Cecil had expected some kind of reaction from Dee on the day they met at Whitehall to inspect Thorn’s body. She knew that Thorn had almost destroyed Agatha’s mind. Petra recalled Dee’s anger when Walsingham referred to his “brain-addled charity cases.” Madinia and Margaret must know Agatha’s story, or they wouldn’t be worried about protecting their father—and maybe they should be worried, if Dee had met with Thorn so soon before his death. Dee could have easily slipped quicksilver into Thorn’s wine.

Petra settled back into her chair, and into the comfort of an old habit: believing the worst of John Dee.

20

A Letter for the Prince

ASTROPHIL WAS NOT CONVINCED. “It is not logical,” he said once they had returned to Petra’s room. “Why would Dee poison the West?”

“Do we have to go over this again?” Petra said, exasperated. “Thorn scryed Agatha until she lost her mind. Dee wanted revenge. Makes sense to me.”

“Only because you have always hated John Dee.”

“And see how right I was? He’s a murderer.”

“Thorn scryed Agatha almost two decades ago,” Astrophil pointed out. “Why would Dee poison him now when, despite however Dee might have felt, he and Thorn were able to work together for years on the queen’s council?”

Petra shrugged. “Dee’s patient. Like a snake under a rock. He was probably just waiting for the best moment to strike.”

“Then why is it that when Walsingham was convinced that Thorn died of heart failure, Dee revealed that quicksilver had killed him? If Dee had murdered Thorn, he would want everyone to believe the death was natural, just as Francis Walsingham claimed it was.”

Petra was silent.

“And then there’s Dee’s wager with you,” Astrophil continued. “Why would he encourage you to discover Thorn’s killer if he himself did it?”

Petra had already thought about this. “Dee’s arrogant, and has a twisted sense of humor. He’s betting I won’t be able to figure it out, and he can watch and laugh while I try.”

“I hope you are not right, Petra, because if you go to him and say you have won the wager, and that he killed Gabriel Thorn, Dee will not send you on your merry way to Bohemia. Whoever killed one man is not likely to think twice about hurting you to protect his secret. If Dee poisoned Thorn, it would be better for you not to know. And you certainly should not reveal that you suspect him.”

Petra promised, “I’ll be careful.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Sarcasm is beneath you, Astro.”

The spider sighed and shook his head.

Petra said, “Maybe my idea doesn’t make perfect sense. Maybe it’s not totally logical that Dee killed Thorn. But Dee says and does weird things. The only thing you can know for sure about Dee is that you can never know anything for sure.”

“Well,” said Astrophil, “that much is true.”

THE SERVANT PLUCKED up his courage. It was not an easy thing to interrupt Prince Rodolfo’s dinner, especially if he had chosen to eat alone. “Please, Your Highness.” He offered the tray, which bore a letter. “This just arrived. It was delivered with the utmost urgency. It is from your contact in England.”

“Ah.” The prince accepted the letter and then waved it at the servant, as if fanning away a bad smell.

The servant scuttled out the door. Then the prince took a knife from the dining set and eagerly broke the wax seal.

Your Royal Highness,

I bear exciting news: the Mercator Globes do exist, and I am certain that one of them, the Celestial Globe, is here in London. I regret to say that I have not yet discovered its exact location, but I believe I am close.

Two men stood in my way: Gabriel Thorn and Robert Cotton. They are now gone. Cotton was in possession of the globe. I have a record saying that he purchased it from a North African merchant. Unfortunately, Cotton hid it. Forgive me, Your Highness, but he died before I finished questioning him. I am confident, however, that Cotton must have left some clue to the globe’s whereabouts. Cotton loved his books and antiquities, and publicly declared on many occasions that he wished all of his possessions to go to the queen of England after his death. A wish, however, is not quite a legal will, and I do have some time before the state seizes Cotton’s house and all the items within it, for the authorities must wait several months in case an heir presents himself. In the meantime, I search for some note Cotton might have made, or some casual word he might have dropped, about where he hid the globe. You know my great ability to uncover secret information.

I have heard that you seek a Bohemian girl, Petra Kronos. It may interest you to know that she is in this very city.

The prince folded the letter.

“I am going to England,” he whispered to himself.

21

The Left Hand

PETRA PLAYED WITH the end of her braid, tightly drawn back from her face and neck. Was it possible for one’s ears to feel na**d? She looked at Kit and longed for the familiar touch of Astrophil’s tin legs.

Petra had graduated to using a dagger in her left hand in addition to the sword in her right. During their last several meetings, Kit had grown irritated—he always seemed on the verge of anger lately—that she used her left hand so infrequently. Petra knew she could expect Kit to attack her left side. That would mean bruises for her and frustration for them both.

So she wasn’t wholly surprised when Kit began by saying, “Once upon a time there were a limited number of moves in swordplay. The parry-and-riposte. The bind. The coupe. The cruise. The feint. I seem, however, to have developed a new technique, which is the art of giving a warning rap with the flat of the blade when a cut would be in order. I’m not sure what to call this move, but I could name it after you, Petra, since your sloppiness gives me so many opportunities to practice it.”

Today there was a mean edge in Kit’s voice.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” he continued. “I think I’ve mastered it by now, though I confess I find it boring.”

If Astrophil were here, he’d warn Petra that Kit expected her to make a move that was aggressive and backed by wounded pride. So she gave Kit what he was waiting for—in order to deliver something else. She lunged into a continuous attack, which he countered with evident disappointment. But then, having exaggerated her attack, Petra suddenly fell back, twisted her sword under his, and slapped his ribs with her blade.

Kit winced and smiled at the same time.