Chapter Thirteen: The Road to the Kiln
Curtis abandoned the horse and climbed over the stable wall.
Isaiah shouted a warning as the overseer dropped into the lane.
Price reached the gate and saw Curtis running toward the orchard.
“Which way leads to the kiln?” he asked.
Isaiah pointed toward the ridge.
“The direct path is shorter, but he knows every turn.”
Price looked at the merchants.
“Will you come?”
One man nodded.
The other hesitated and returned to his carriage.
Isaiah did not wait for either.
He ran toward the ditch behind the cattle pens.
Gideon caught up with him carrying a lantern.
“You should not be here,” Isaiah said.
“Neither should Mrs. Fenwick.”
They crossed the ditch and climbed through the thorn bushes.
The kiln chimney appeared above the trees.
A thin line of smoke rose from it.
Isaiah stopped.
“Abel would not light a fire this early.”
Gideon raised the lantern.
“Then Curtis sent someone ahead.”
They hurried toward the building.
The back door stood open.
Inside, Ada Fenwick was struggling to free her wrist from the chair.
Abel lay on the floor beside a pile of broken boards.
He was conscious but dazed.
Isaiah rushed to him.
“What happened?”
“Curtis’s cousin came before dawn,” Abel said.
“He told me to leave, and I refused.”
Gideon moved toward Ada.
“Where is the key?”
“On the table,” she said.
He unlocked the cuff around her wrist.
Isaiah helped Abel sit up.
The smoke was coming from a small fire beneath the workbench.
It had not yet spread to the walls.
Ada stood unsteadily.
“We need to move the drawings.”
Isaiah looked at her.
“We need to move you.”
“If those pieces burn, Curtis will claim I destroyed the invention.”
Gideon grabbed a bucket of water and threw it onto the flames.
Steam rose from the bench.
Isaiah pulled Ada toward the door.
She resisted long enough to take a small wooden case from beneath the chair.
“Thomas made this,” she said.
The case contained a series of thin templates and a folded sheet of measurements.
Isaiah recognized the careful marks of a craftsman.
Outside, hoofbeats sounded on the path.
Curtis had found another horse.
He rode into the clearing and saw the open door.
His face twisted.
“Get away from her.”
Price appeared behind him with one of the merchants.
“Mr. Vale, stop where you are.”
Curtis turned his horse toward the narrow path.
Isaiah stepped aside rather than block him.
The horse passed within a yard of the kiln wall.
Curtis disappeared into the trees.
Price watched him go.
“He will reach the county road.”
Ada leaned against the doorway.
“Let him run.”
Price turned toward her.
“Mrs. Fenwick?”
She nodded.
“Your husband wrote to me.”
Ada closed her eyes.
“Then he may still be alive.”
Isaiah felt the weight of her words.
He had been thinking only of freeing her.
Now he realized that Thomas might be somewhere close enough to find.
