On the last day of October, I was permitted to join Eliza while she collected the rent from local voyants, including Chat. It was a modest promotion, but to me, it was another sign of my acceptance into the gang. I was stepping into the skin of the Pale Dreamer, and I planned to stay in it for a very long time.

Eliza took me into hidden shops where seers sold the knowledge in their crystal balls; where card-readers offered to map out my whole life with their images. We stopped for coffee. We avoided Vigiles. We were so preoccupied with our underworld existence that we almost forgot about the anti-unnaturalness messages on the transmission screens, and the voyants being executed, and the omnipresent government that loomed above us all, waiting to catch us. I had never thought I would be able to forget about Scion while I lived in it.

Nick told me that this was how we rebelled against their tyranny. Quietly, in the shadows – but by existing, by thriving, by daring to profit from our gifts, we defied Scion. I knew from experience that defying them through other means would only end in all our deaths. This was the way things were, and we were content with this, with our secret mutiny.

We collected the last of the rent before sunset. Back at the den, we sat and talked with Nick and told each other stories about our lives from before we had joined the Seven Seals. Eliza, who had been in the syndicate since she had been abandoned in Soho as a baby, was full of them. When we finally turned in for the night, my cheeks were aching from laughing so hard.

The first thing I noticed was that another moth had landed on my window. The second was the curl of paper on my pillow. Familiar, elegant writing fanned across it.

Meet me now at the sundial pillar.

The old fear stirred again. I steeled myself and pulled on my jacket.

As soon as I stepped out of the den, I saw him. He was standing before the illuminated pillar that formed the centre of the district, holding one of his antique canes. He didn’t move as I approached.

‘Good evening, Paige.’

I stopped beside him and pushed my hands into my pockets. ‘Hello.’

My spine was taut, my stomach roiling. Even after three weeks, a small part of me asked if he had just been biding his time, and now he would get rid of me. Perhaps Eliza and Nick had been wrong.

‘I trust you enjoyed your day.’

‘Yes,’ I said.