“Knowing a recipe isn’t illegal,” I said. He scanned the jars around him, as if among the hundreds of potions, herbs, and powders that ringed the shop was a remedy that would somehow get him out of this. “But I have a recipe this time.” I grabbed the parchment I’d leaned against the coin scales on the countertop and waved it at him. “I like my humors the way they are,” he said.

He did look a little dark under the eyes today. “I spent all night throwing up that ‘strength potion’ you invented,” he said. “What schemes? I don’t have any schemes.” “Maybe that’s because you’re never the one on the pointy end of your schemes.” “I don’t understand why you’re not more excited about this.” You think God sends cannons down from heaven for Lent?” “But that’s where cannons come from,” I said.

“Because people can’t just build cannons, Christopher.” He said it like he was explaining why you shouldn’t eat fire to a small, dull child. I could almost see the clockwork cranking between his ears. “I’ll give you no quarter this day.” Suddenly, he stopped, rolling pin held outward in midlunge. You had to be, sometimes, with Tom, whose mind worked as it pleased. I sat on the counter at the back, legs dangling, and clicked leather heels against the carved cedar. Or several minutes of tedious polishing, at least. The frozen beast roared back silently, inch-long teeth promising death. Then he hoisted his flour-dusted club in salute. Tom shoved the curio cabinet aside, making the brass balances jingle. The floorboards creaked as he stepped within range of its wickedly curved claws. And in the safety of my master’s shop, away from the horrors of battle like death, pain, or even a mild scolding, Tom’s courage held no equal. Though only two months older than me, he was already a foot taller, and built like a blacksmith, albeit a slightly pudgy one, due to a steady pilfering of his father’s pies. Tom Bailey, son of William the Baker, was the finest fake soldier I’d ever seen. In his right hand, the rolling pin wobbled threateningly.

From the oak shelf nearest to him, he snatched the glazed lid of an apothecary jar-Blackthorn’s Wart-Be-Gone, according to the scrawl on the label-and held it on guard, a miniature ceramic shield. Tom stripped off his linen shirt and flung it heroically across the antimony cups gleaming on the display table near the fire. He was deep in concentration, tongue pinched between his teeth, as he steeled himself for combat with the stuffed black bear that ruled the front corner of my master’s shop.

Kevin sands the blackthorn key series