Maxie had insisted. There was no way she was going to leave them here to be eaten. Arran, with the others, would be given a hero’s send-off. The dead grown-ups they left where they had fallen. Freak sprayed a message on to a nearby wall. this is where arran harper fell. we don’t know the day or the date, but we’ll never forget it. he was the bravest of us all.

Whitney and Josh gave him the names of the other kids who had died, and Freak added them to the mural, then finished it with a Freaky-Deaky tag.

When they were ready, Maxie lit a match and approached the car.

Freak called her back.

“Before you do that,” he said, “can I say something?”

“Okay,” said Blue, “but make it quick. We need to get going.”

“I’ll be quick,” said Freak. He took a breath and looked at the faces of the kids.

“Arran talked to me this morning,” he said. “Helped me to keep going. Now it’s my turn. We all lost someone we loved today. But the thing is, we won. We beat them. I was going to write something different over there. I was going to write ‘Arran Lives.’ Cuz it’s important we don’t forget what he wanted. To get to the palace and have a better life. And we mustn’t forget one other thing. Us kids are all in this together. We’re all on the same side. The grown-ups are the enemy. It was an accident, what happened to Arran. And I don’t want no one to blame Sophie. We work together, we survive together.”

“Yeah, nice speech,” said Achilleus with a touch of sarcasm. “Now light the fire.”

Maxie stepped forward, and soon the great pile was sending flames several feet into the air. Maxie saw something lying on the ground and stooped to pick it up. It was Arran’s club. It felt heavy in her hands. It was all that was left of him.

From now on it was hers.

Once the kids were sure that the fire wasn’t going to go out, they set off. They didn’t want to stay and watch the bodies burn to ash. They said their farewells and marched away in battle formation, the fire at their backs.

The plan was to keep going and try to get to the palace that night, even though it was late and the sky had grown dark. The problem was not only that there was nowhere in Camden for such a large party of kids to shelter safely, there was also the danger of a blaze that was spreading down from Kentish Town, consuming every building in its path and sending up thick smoke that further darkened the sky.