Free The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson Page A

away too quickly. Henrietta’s body slumped on the stairs, where she would burn. His grandmother stood blind and helpless beside her.
    “No!” Henry yelled again, and he pounded at the man’s back. He tore at the man’s hair, ripping his black knot loose, trying to reach back for his eyes. They were in the flaming doorway. He was almost outside. Henry rolled and hooked his left arm on the top of the door. Beside his elbow, sticking out from the wall with a blackened blade and smoking handle, there was a simple carving knife, the knife Henry had thrown at his christening. In a single motion, Henry ripped it free and plunged it into the big man’sback. The man didn’t flinch. His grip tightened, and he jerked Henry down and forward, but not quite loose. “The strings!” Grandmother shouted. “Take his finger!” Scrambling to free his legs, to brace his arms, Henry saw it. Nested in the oiled black hair where the knot had been, a single, pale finger twitched, as if in pain. There was no time to wonder, no time for confusion or revulsion. Henry unhooked his arm and grabbed the finger. Henry raised the blade, and flesh seared as he jerked the hot edge down through scalp, through the fusion of finger and skull. Together, he and the man burst into air and wind and sunlight and tumbled to the ground.
    But the man was limp. Henry stood, and in the split second before he turned and lunged back into the smoke, he looked down into blinking, confused eyes set above scarred cheeks, and he saw the life leave, carried away with the ash of his father’s house.
    Inside, Grandmother had climbed over Henrietta and was straining at her arms. She was staring up and smiling.
    Henry clambered over his cousin and pushed his grandmother up the flight. “The roof!” he shouted. Then, grabbing his cousin and trying to hold his breath, he dragged her quickly up to the second-story landing and around to the next flight of stairs. Passing his bedroom, the door rattled, and a bellow like a whole flock of angry geese echoed behind it.
    Twisting the knob and shoving it open, Henry movedon as quickly as he could. The raggant plowed into the hall with red, angry eyes. His nose and face were scratched and cut from breaking through a closet door, but his voice was louder than ever.
    “Sorry,” Henry said, backing into the next stairwell. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want you getting in the way.” Henry grunted his way up and up onto the top floor, licking sweat and ash off his lips as he pulled. The raggant followed Henrietta’s feet with its wings flared, bleating and groaning in irritation.
    “Last flight,” Henry said. The door to the roof was open at the top, and he could already see the blackened sky. Willing his legs enough strength for another reverse climb, he pulled himself and his cousin up onto the rooftop. His grandmother stood waiting for him, wobbling on her feet with her face toward the clouds, ignoring the exertion, the smoke and flames, the roar of the crowd in the street.
    Henry lowered Henrietta to her back. She groaned and then coughed, the sweetest sound Henry could remember hearing in a long time, but he couldn’t wait and hope she’d come to. He looked at the stairs to the upper roof and knew that his legs were done. He couldn’t get Henrietta up there.
    Smoke surrounded the walls. The one patch of blue sky was gone. Raindrops, not nearly enough raindrops, were falling. Henry staggered up the narrow stairs to the shed. He kicked the boards free around the little cupboard, picked it up, and hurried back down.
    “Another puppet comes,” his grandmother said.
    Henry’s heart sank. He ran to the doorway, saw nothing but smoke, and slammed it shut. He had to be quick.
    He shoved the cupboard into a corner beside Henrietta and knelt in front of it. The roof was hot beneath his knees. Vibrations shivered up into his bones as beams and timbers weakened in the floors below. How was he supposed to concentrate? He wasn’t good