“Pretty much.” I stop at the edge of the park, pacing the sidewalk, searching for a taxi, but it’s oh-dark-thirty out here and there’s no one except a cluster of homeless people huddled around a trash barrel. Fire licks up the side of it, throwing sparks and orange light over their faces. A deep rattling cough comes from under a blanket on the ground.

Kai’s eyes leap to mine as tiny flickers of light, like lost sparks from the fire, swirl into the air with the girl’s next bout of coughing. As we come closer, the girl presses the end of a threadbare quilt over her mouth, trapping the bits of magic before anyone else notices. Her skin is a sickly sweat-slicked gray, her eyes glassy and distant in the firelight.

I kneel beside her. “Summer or Spring?” I ask in a low voice.

Her eyes flutter, heavy-lidded and confused. Her lips crack around her whispered reply. “Summer. How did you . . . ?” Her dark eyes narrow on my face. They slide to Kai and relief washes over her. The thin wheeze she expels sets off another fit of coughing. Kai drops down beside her, rubbing slow circles on the Summer’s back until the fit calms.

“You know her?” I ask quietly.

Kai shakes her head. “Not well. I was a Summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I think she’s north.” Kai draws the Summer’s tangled hair back from her ear. A transmitter light blinks, a steady red pulse, and Kai covers it up again. “Can you get home?”

The girl shakes her head. “I haven’t heard from my Handler in six days. Last time we talked, she said there was some kind of coup. That the Guards were locking everyone in their rooms. She sounded scared. And then she just stopped answering. I didn’t know what to do, so I caught a flight here, but I can’t get through to her, and I was too afraid to turn myself in at the portal.”

Kai and I exchange a worried glance. Auggie said he couldn’t get through to the Summer wing. That the power was probably down. This girl has hours, a day at most, before this weather devours her. At this time of year, we’re not likely to find a stray Autumn or Winter wandering the streets of London to help her.

Kai tucks the quilt around the girl’s shoulders and smooths her hair. She draws me aside so the girl won’t hear. “There’s nothing either of us can do for her, except get down there fast and try to restore power to the Summer wing.”

We both look up as headlights approach. A taxi. “Come on. The sooner we get to a portal, the better.” I jump off the curb, flagging it down. Kai gives the dying Summer one last look, and we sprint through the freezing rain to the cab.

21

Smothered in Their Lairs

FLEUR