Chapter 24: The Name

The crypt is under the east tower, a long cold room of stone shelves.

I went down the steps alone with Hester's key and a lamp.

At the far end, on the lowest shelf beside the old King, the small white box sat where it had always sat.

The brass plate on its lid was blank.

I put the lamp on the shelf and knelt on the stone.

I had said his name aloud every night for a month, to nobody, in the dark.

I had never said it where anyone could hear.

Someone moved at the top of the steps.

I knew the footsteps.

Magnus stopped three stairs from the bottom, in his plain coat, with his hat in both hands.

"I won't come down," he said. "I only wanted to know the key worked."

"It worked."

"I'll go."

He did not go.

He stood there with his head down, and I saw how thin he had got.

"Please," he said. "Not for me. Only let me be in the room."

It was the only thing he had asked in three weeks that did not want me back.

I looked at him for a long time.

"You can stand there," I said. "You can't come closer."

"Thank you."

"And you don't get to hear it."

"No."

I took the pen from the registry stand.

The great book lay open on its slope with its pages of births and heirs, and the line for the Queen's firstborn was empty in the Crown's own hand.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Sacrificed Our Child, Now He Begs for Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.