People slowed as they exited, and Grace saw why when she emerged from the station. The sky was alight with fire, clouded by great billows of black smoke. Homes were cracked and sagging, some gone entirely, knocked from the rows of townhouses like a missing tooth in a jagged grin.

Grace’s pulse raced at an unnatural pace. Sweat prickled at her palms.

“Oh, Grace,” Mrs. Weatherford gasped. “It’s awful.”

Grace quickened her pace toward the townhouse. She was nearly out of breath when she rounded the corner, anxious over what she might find.

Mrs. Weatherford huffed behind her. “I can’t run with Tabby.”

But Grace wasn’t listening as she studied the tidy line of townhouses on their street. Their home was intact, just the same as it’d ever been, save for the tomatoes sprouting from the window boxes rather than the former purple and white petunias.

The sense of dread inside her yawned wider.

Ice chilled the blood in her veins.

The bookshop.

“Go on without me,” Grace said to Mrs. Weatherford.

Before the older woman could ask what she meant, Grace was sprinting toward Hosier Lane with her bed bundle clutched to her chest. The acrid, smoke-filled air burned her throat and stung her eyes, but she didn’t slow as she darted around people returning home from a night hunkered in the tube station.

She had to reassure herself that it was safe, that it had survived the brutal onslaught. After all, Mr. Evans had entrusted her with the shop.

But with each step closer, the band of unease tightened.

When she rounded Hosier Lane, she stopped short, discovering why.

The street smoldered with extinguished fires. The building to the right of the bookshop had been struck in a blast, demolished to piles of broken brick. Primrose Hill Books still stood. But was not intact.

Glass had been blown out of every window, and shredded pages limped in an unseen breeze among the detritus on the pavement. The door was missing, and the contents inside were a scattered mess. Overhead, part of the roof had detached and the stucco near it scorched with flames that luckily had not consumed the structure.

Grace’s heart seemed to shrink inside her chest, sucked into a realm of pure dread. She stood, numb, unable to shake herself from the sight. A gust of wind rustled her skirt and carried with it a flurry of ashes and heat from a nearby fire.

The shop was inoperable.

The source of her strength had been torn inside out.

Grace dragged herself into action, stepping toward the damaged building as the bedroll slipped from her hands. The world around her crackled from nearby fires, and the crunching of glass underfoot mingled with the ragged draw of her breath.