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‘All those people,’ Nick whispered.
Joan saw them then: figures running in the dark—some toward London city; some toward the river. Her understanding reframed. She’d misunderstood the scale. The flames around the dock weren’t torchlight. All the buildings along the river were on fire. The people outside were running for their lives.
And that boat … Joan’s breath caught. ‘That’s a Viking ship,’ she said, recognising it at last. ‘That’s a Viking invasion.’
Nick put a hand on the window, knuckles whitening.
‘What about the other rumours?’ the woman said. ‘About the fugitive. They’re saying it’s a girl with a forbidden power.’
Joan turned back to them, heart thundering. The air was stifling; cigar smoke permeated, cloyingly sweet. She tried to take a breath and nearly choked on it.
‘We’re hearing that too.’ The man dropped another coin onto the pile. ‘I’ll raise you five hundred,’ he added.
Five hundred what? Joan thought suddenly. She stared at the pile of coins. Why would coins have been for sale at the market? What were they if they weren’t currency themselves?
What did monsters value? The man added another coin to the pile. It caught in the lamplight. And then Joan knew the truth. She knew exactly what they were gambling with. She just knew.
Those coins were full of human life. The man had just gambled five hundred years of human life. Cold horror seeped into Joan’s bones.
Behind her, through the window, people were running for their lives among the flames, their deaths presented as entertainment for people who weren’t even watching. And here in this room, people were playing with coins imbued with human life. At the end of the game, someone would scoop up all the coins, and then use that life to travel—for what? Tourism? To go to parties? To gamble more?
Joan reached behind her, needing the grounding of cold glass. She looked from table to table—at the piles of coins. How much human life was in this room right now—stolen away by monsters? How many humans had died earlier than they should have, their time ripped from them and embedded into these coins? In truth, this room was full of corpses.
‘I know,’ Nick said, very softly. ‘This is sickening.’ And for a moment, Joan thought he knew. Then she realised he was still talking about the view. The Viking attack below.
It struck Joan that if any of these monsters knew Nick was human, they’d kill him right here—with just a touch to the back of his neck. They wouldn’t feel any remorse. And his life wouldn’t even be enough to fill up one coin. She turned to Nick to tell him they had to get out of here. But the words stuck in her throat.
A shard of light had caught her eye.
In the dark window, there was a small bright mark. Within the mark, Joan could see daylight and the twenty-first-century Queenhithe Dock, all silted up.
Joan’s chest compressed painfully. She had a vivid sense memory of cold against her thumb. A moment ago, she’d pressed back against the window and brushed the glass right there. Now she placed her thumb to the glass again. It fit exactly. She’d made that mark.
With terrible certainty, she knew what had happened. She’d manifested the power she’d last used on Nick. A power outside of the twelve families. A power she’d thought was gone.
Something forbidden. Something wrong.
In the other timeline, she’d reverted metal to ore, and now, it seemed, she’d reverted a portion of a Portelli window back to ordinary glass.
‘Excuse me,’ a strange voice said now, making Joan jump. She turned fast, hiding the mark with her body. She registered pink silk. One of the staff members was standing in front of her: a kind-looking man with grey-speckled hair. Had he seen the glimmer of light behind her? Did he know what she’d just done?
The man tilted his head, as if Joan’s expression was strange. ‘Your party has arrived.’ When Joan just stared at him, he added, clarifying: ‘Dorothy Hunt has arrived. You sent a runner for her. You can meet her in the River Room three doors up.’
‘Thank you,’ Joan managed. The man nodded in acknowledgement and strode away.
Gran was here. Joan felt weak with relief. Gran would get them out of this place. And Gran would know what to do about the window.
Joan went to move, and then realised she couldn’t. Everyone in the room would see the shard of light. And people were already gossiping about a girl with a forbidden power. Someone would wonder, would make the connection.
Joan opened her mouth to call to the staff member—to ask if he could bring Gran to her, but he was already halfway across the room. If Joan called out to him, all the gamblers would look this way.
‘Just stay right there,’ Nick murmured to her.
‘What?’ Joan blinked at him, confused, as he headed to a humidor.
A few of the gamblers turned toward the movement, but Nick only examined the cigars, a hand in his pocket. He moved a lamp aside, as if it was in his way. The gamblers went back to their games.
Nick had put the lamp in Joan’s easy reach. She pulled it carefully toward herself and placed it in front of the window. It wasn’t perfect—anyone standing at a sharp angle would see a shard of light—but to most of the room, the daylight would blend with the lamp’s glow.
