My flat was in Knightsbridge, a comfortable first-floor apartment in a really nice area, where no one knew who I really was. I made enough money to live in style as well as comfort, and no one ever bothered me. That was my life, just a few months ago. Until one day, with no warning, my family declared me rogue for no reason, and I had to go on the run to save my life. Searching for answers, I discovered the terrible truth about my family and the world, and nothing has been the same since.

Now here I was back in London again, with the wild witch of the woods Molly Metcalf sitting at my side as I drove my new car through the mostly empty streets. It was the early hours of the morning, the sun only just up, the birds were singing their little hearts out, and the air had that expectant, anything-can-happen feel that all big cities have at the beginning of the day. Molly Metcalf, anarchist and terrorist and a whole bunch of other ists that involved making trouble for the powers that be, stretched happily and beat out a rhythm on the dashboard with both hands to accompany the Breed 77 album playing on the car’s sound system. A short and delicate china doll of a woman, with bobbed black hair, huge dark eyes, and big bosoms. She was wearing a black leather catsuit, with a witch knife hanging around her neck on a long silver chain. Molly used to be one of the bad guys; probably still was, depending on how you looked at it. We had a lot of history between us, even tried to kill each other several times, when we ended up on opposite sides of a mission. Now we were an item, and I’d be hard pressed to tell which of us was more surprised.

Me, I’m just another face in the crowd, trained to blend in without being noticed. And I’ve never ordered a vodka martini shaken not stirred in my life.