“Gedeon needs me right now,” he said. Ilsa scoffed but he pressed on. “If we’ve found him, the Fortunatae have as well. I swear to you, Ilsa, I want to bring him back safe. What you do with me then… I don’t care.”
Through the fog in her mind, Ilsa tried to clock his tells, but there were none. Still, she took his lapels in her fists and slammed him against the wall with as much force as she could muster. His head cracked sharply against the plaster, but he gritted his teeth and swallowed the pain.
“If I even think you’re ’bout to do something stupid,” she said into his ear, “I’ll kill you myself. I’ll string you up by your innards and leave you like carrion for the birds. No trial, no damned explanation.”
“And if I don’t do anything stupid? If we make it through this, will you listen to the truth?” He brought his hand to her face. When Ilsa flinched away, she saw his heart break right there in his gaze. “I don’t want to lie to you any more.”
She let him go with another sharp shove for good measure. “If we make it through this, you can tell it to Gedeon,” she said, her voice cold and hard as steel. Her heart felt the same. She turned away and wrenched open the door. “I don’t give a damn what you got to say.”
* * *
Chaos reigned in the forecourt, and Hester was at the centre of it.
“Lieutenants, retrieve Gedeon and the wolves,” she bellowed. “And retrieve the amulet. Arm yourselves. We can expect Pyval Crespo is following Gedeon, and if there are more Whisperers it might be too risky to shift. Don’t take wolves, they could just be turned against you. You all know where the armoury is. Fyfe—”
“Science weapons, I know.” He flashed his sister a grin and revealed the belt of dampeners slung around his hips.
Hester nodded, already turning away. “Wolves, double the guard at the Zoo and at the abbey. Let’s not take any chances.”
As the wolves began to organise, Ilsa spotted Fowler at the edge of the forecourt and weaved her way towards him, Eliot following. “What happened?”
“Your brother and his wolves have been hiding out on a cargo boat on the river,” said Fowler. “They’ve been docking for two days, then moving on. I finally caught up with them less than an hour ago, when they docked by the Trade House. I followed them to the abbey. By the time I got there, they had stormed the portal and passed through.” He nodded then at a group of wolves talking to Hester and Oren. Some were bloodied, and every one was dripping with sweat. The man at their front was the first person she had seen in the Witherward; the captain of the guard at Westminster Abbey. He seemed shell-shocked. “They say the prince’s party numbered thirteen Changelings and an Oracle.”
“So his new conclave aren’t with him,” said Eliot.
“That don’t mean they won’t follow through another portal,” said Ilsa.
“And the guard claim there wasn’t a breath to warn him,” added Fowler. “They were ready to fight their way through. They knew the wolves would try to stop them.”
Ilsa cornered Oren the second he was alone. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was listening. Hester was across the forecourt, still shooting instructions.
“There’s a book what says the amulet could be replicated. It says you could make enough for a whole army.” Ilsa felt sick. Would each amulet need a different victim? Or five, to give the wearer every magic? Eliot had said Gedeon would be a fool not to use a tool like that to protect the Changelings. Did he still feel that way now they knew what the amulet really did? Her sickness compounded as she realised he might always have known. He had helped the rebels try to steal it. No doubt the amulet would have been passed to Alitz. “D’you think… d’you think Hester would try to do that?”
Oren shook his head. “I don’t know, Ilsa. I would like to hope she wouldn’t, but…”
He trailed off, and as their eyes met, an understanding passed between them. Hester’s orders didn’t matter. They couldn’t claim such evil magic for Camden.
Ilsa lowered her voice even further. “You said you tried to destroy it already and it din’t work. What d’you plan to do?”
“Arm yourself,” he said, already stepping away from her. “And don’t be concerned. You can leave the amulet to me.”
* * *
Nobody thought about the weather.
When they passed through the portal and stepped into the ice-cold downpour of an early March night, the only one remotely prepared was Captain Fowler. The rest were likely to succumb to pneumonia, if they did not succumb to the Fortunatae much sooner.
Four of them spread wings; one took off at a run and quickly became shadow; and the last vanished in place as if she had never been there. All made their way as fast as they could to a place Ilsa had hoped never to see again.
Kennington Road was dark – the gas lamps failing to cut far through the downpour – and quiet but for the groan of the wind and rain against the buildings. Ilsa had directed them to gather in a residential garden, which was walled and hidden, and fifty paces from the orphanage, on the other side of the street. If the owners of the garden were to peer out their window, they might make out six figures huddled in the rain, but some indignant Otherworlders were the least of their worries.
Fowler was the last to reach the rendezvous. “The adjacent streets are all peculiarly busy for this time of night,” he said over the rain. “A lot of lurkers.”
“You’re saying the place is surrounded,” said Cassia.
