Mullen and Dix, playing a pathetic stream of water—which turned instantly to steam—on it, were backed almost up against the warehouse across the street, even though it was on fire, too—as if they were afraid the flames in front of them would make a sudden lunge—and their helmeted heads were ducked against the blaze.

And the heat. The air was hideously hot and full of burning cinders. One landed on Mike’s ear, sizzling, and he swiped wildly at it as if it was a wasp.

The hose snagged on something, jerking him back so hard he nearly stumbled. He hobbled back to see what it had caught on. A piece of stone coping. It must have fallen from the top of one of the buildings. He kicked it aside and began hauling the hose again toward Mullen and Dix, who had backed up even farther against the warehouse so that it seemed to loom over them.

It was looming over them. “That wall’s going!” Mike shouted, but even he couldn’t hear his voice over the roar of the flames and the wind. “Get out of there!”

He dropped the hose and waved his arms wildly, but they didn’t see him either. Their heads were down, and the top of the wall arched out above them like a breaking wave.

“Look out!” he shouted, and dived forward, half tackling, half shoving them into the middle of the street and out of the way.

The wall crashed down, spraying bricks and sparks. Mullen and Dix scrambled to their feet, slapping at their uniforms. The hose they’d been holding flailed and writhed like a huge snake, spraying icy water all over the three of them.

Mike made a lunge for it, but it was too strong for one person to hold. “You have to help me!” he shouted to Mullen and Dix, but they were just standing there next to the heap of bricks that had been the warehouse wall.

They shouted something at him. It sounded like “You saved our lives!”

Oh, no, Mike thought, wrestling with the writhing hose. Just like Hardy.

But it doesn’t matter he told himself. We won the war. Polly was there.

But that wasn’t what they were shouting after all—it was something about the bookstore.

“What?” he said, and turned around to see it, signboard and all, come crashing down on him.

“Yes, you may go to the ball, Cinderella,” her fairy godmother said, “but take care that you do not stay past midnight, or your coach will turn back into a pumpkin, and your gown once again into rags.”

—CINDERELLA

Blackfriars Tube Station—29 December 1940

EILEEN TRIED TO PUSH PAST ALF AND BINNIE, BUT THEY’D planted themselves immovably between her and the turnstile, and John Bartholomew was already going through it.

“We been lookin’ all over the station for you,” Binnie said.

They were both filthy, and Binnie was wearing the same too-small dress she’d worn the day Eileen went to borrow the map. “Ain’t you glad to see us?”