“No!” I try to summon my guardians, to call upon Hekate to lend me her strength, but there is powerful magic here, far more powerful than anything Louis’s father could manage alone. A cold sweat dampens my neck as I become aware of a familiar, loathsome presence. Willoughby! The Sentinel has his pet spirit here, in the chamber, acting as a conduit for his own magic. No wonder my friendly spirits are blocked and my own magic diminished. My suspicions are confirmed when I see a ragged shadow emerge from beneath the altar. Iago leaps to stand in front of me, hissing fiercely at the shape that moves closer and closer. The poor cat is too terrified to run, and too loyal to leave me. In a second he has been hurled across the floor of the chamber.

“Leave him alone!” I cry, just as Lord Harcourt’s men lay their hands upon me. “You are making a terrible mistake. You must not help Stricklend. You must not!” I am hauled backward. The earl follows me, still clutching the casket.

“Louis will never forgive you for this,” I tell him. “Never.”

“Louis need never know what has taken place. Stricklend will send you to join your beloved father, you might even thank him for that. And when you are gone, as you have no natural successor, I shall make sure that I become the next Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven, and one day Louis will take my place.” For the briefest of moments I see some remorse in his expression. He seeks to rid himself of it by another attempt to justify his actions. “Remember, Lilith. I do not choose between a modest life for my son or a distinguished one; I choose this life for him or none at all.”

It is as his men drag me through the doorway and out of the chamber that I hear the bomb fall. The bomb that will hit us. The others hear it, too. For several terrible seconds we stand rendered incapable of movement, listening to doom speeding its way down through the night sky, ripping the blackness apart as it plummets toward us. And then everything happens as if in one fluid, almost balletic movement. One of the men lets go of my arms and turns to run. The other almost instinctively, I think, grips me tighter. But he only does so for a fraction of a second, for it is then that the roof explodes above us. There are screams. There is no time to run. I could try to find protection beneath the altar, but I know that only something much stronger will save me now. I close my eyes and call upon Hekate one final time, while bricks and stone and timbers and choking dust rain down upon us, as the largest bomb ever dropped on London finds its mark on Number One Fitzroy Square.

Chapter 23: 1919

23.

1919