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Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. One: Into the Storm
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Two: London Calling
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Three: The Malignant Seven
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Four: Squirrels and Cats
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Five: Revelation
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. About the Author

Krakowski, still laughing, put a hand to his throat as if to clench the laugh off, but it would not cease. His pockmarked, battle-rough face had reddened. He laughed on, the sound of it getting louder and higher in pitch, and he looked back and forth at the others as if believing the wild laughter came from some other body than his own. He started to stand but suddenly he was laughing so hard he was unable to leave his chair, and on and on it went, until—

—very suddenly he burst into tears.

“Ah,” said Lash. His eyes glinted with delight. “The next phase.”

Krakowski not only was now crying forlornly but blubbering like a little boy who had just lost his last sugar candy. Then he began to wail like a child who had seen his mother beheaded before him, and in his seat Matthew cringed because it was a horrifying moment, to witness a man reduced to such a state of helpless pain.

Lash snapped his fingers. One of the servants came forward with a glass of white wine on a silver tray. Lash took it and said to the table at large, “Someone should hold him while I get this down his throat.”

Matthew almost stood up, but Julian sensed it and grasped his arm to prevent a move that would betray Matthew’s innocence of English.

Lioness rose from her seat, came around the table and clamped her arms around both Krakowski and his chair. With one hand Lash pushed Krakowski’s head back, said, “Drink this, Sandor. Come on, like a good boy.” He got the glass against the sobbing man’s lips and started pouring, and somehow in his chemical grief Krakowski realized the antidote was at his mouth and his tongue emerged to allow as much as could be swallowed. After the glass was empty the man continued to cry for another moment while Lioness restrained him and Lash rubbed his bald head as an attempt at further ease. At last Krakowski shuddered, gave a last hideous sob and a croaking noise and laid his sweating face down upon the table.

“There,” Lash said. “He’ll be shipshape in a few minutes.”

Seventeen

Seventeen

Matthew stood before the fire in Samson Lash’s parlor. Everyone had returned from the dining room after the unsettling—at least, to him—demonstration, and first to be escorted by the Owl to Lash’s office with his satchel in hand was Bertrand Montague.