Thomas missed the weight of the bolas in his hand, but even his tutor in Madrid—Maestro Romero of Buenos Aires—would have agreed it wasn’t the best choice for stalking a killer on the streets of London. Such a weapon wasn’t easy to hide, and he had to be stealthy.

He knew that if anyone found out what he was doing, there would be trouble. He had never seen his parents as stern as they had been when they explained the new rules the Enclave had decided on. And he agreed with them: the curfew absolutely made sense, as did the rule against anyone patrolling alone.

Except him.

Earlier in the evening, Thomas had been in South Kensington and could not resist paying a visit to the Carstairs. He had half hoped Cordelia would be there—he liked her, and truly felt for her. But it had been Alastair who had answered the door. Alastair, looking strained and tense, as if grief had tightened his skin over his bones. His lower lip was red, as if he’d bitten it, his fingers—fingers that had run so gently over the inside of Thomas’s forearm, where a compass rose now unfurled its inked lines—twitching nervously at his side.

Thomas had nearly run away on the spot. The last few times he had seen Alastair, rage had successfully blinded him to any other feeling. But it had deserted him now. It had been only a few months since Barbara had died, and there were times when the pain of losing her was just as great as it had been during the first hours after she was gone.

He could see that same pain on Alastair’s face. Alastair, who he had told himself had no feelings. Alastair, who he had been trying so hard to despise.

He had managed only a few clumsy words of condolence before turning and walking away. Since then he had simply kept going, covering miles and miles of London, keeping to the smaller streets and alleys where the killer would be likely to hide himself. Now he found himself in the area around Fleet Street, its newspaper offices and restaurants and shops shuttered, the only light coming from the windows of the buildings that housed the presses hard at work printing copies of tomorrow morning’s paper.

Pounceby had been killed only blocks from where Thomas now walked. He decided to turn down Fleet Street, to see the scene of his death. If Thomas retraced Pounceby’s steps, maybe he could discover something the others had missed. Or, if the killer was a creature of habit, Thomas might even draw him out. The thought did not make him afraid; on the contrary, it made him determined and hungry for a fight.