“This at least is familiar,” panted Riley, gazing at the square, purposefully ignoring the sounds and sights beyond. “I was terribly afraid that modern wonders would be too much for my poor nut.”

Wait until you see Piccadilly Circus , thought Chevie. Riley drew in a huge shuddering breath. “Garrick is always telling me to breathe. It calms a body, if a body needs calming.” Riley stopped talking as his nose took stock of the air that had just gone into it.

“How curious,” he said, then threw up all over the pavement.

“That’s great,” said Chevie. “We’ll never get a black cab to pick us up now.”

But she did manage to flag down a cab outside a boutique hotel on Bayley Street, and soon they were lost in traffic, heading toward Leicester Square.

Riley kept his head between his knees, drawing sticky breaths until he could make himself stop shaking. “The smell, miss. It’s like the inside of an apothecary’s pocket. I can’t smell the city.”

Chevie patted him on the back. “I guess it’s a bit cleaner these days. No one empties chamber pots out the window anymore.”

“I can’t smell the people. Are there less people now?”

Chevie looked out at the teeming metropolis rolling past the window. “Not really.”

Riley clasped his knees tightly and raised his eyes.

“I don’t smell any horses,” he croaked.

“Nope, no horses. Except outside Buckingham Palace on occasion.”

Riley straightened and pressed his face to the window. “Generally, we have horses. But I’ve seen automobiles, so this ain’t so terrifying.” Then a double-decker bus loomed alongside.

Riley flinched. Perhaps he could handle a carriage-sized automobile, but this craft was bigger than a cargo barge.

His eyes took in one modern wonder after another. Neon signs. Computer shops. Skyscrapers. Eventually he saw something familiar.

“There’s an honest-to-god Blighty pub,” Riley gasped. “Can we go in, Agent? A quick dram of brandy for my nerves?”

Chevie snorted. “You are not drinking, Riley.”

“Why not? Is it outlawed entirely?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Totally illegal. You touch one dram and I’ll have to shoot you.”

Riley sighed a spot of condensation on the window, then lifted his gaze skyward, and his breath came in sudden shallow bursts, clouding the glass.

“A-a-agent Savano?”

Chevie was halfway through dialing a number. “In a second, kid.”

Riley touched her arm with one finger, and Chevie could feel it tap-tapping with fear.

“It ain’t the Martians, miss, is it? Like in Mr. Wells’s new story, War of the Worlds?”

Chevie followed the boy’s troubled gaze and saw the silhouette of a passenger plane overhead.

“Don’t worry, kid. It’s just Ryanair, not aliens, though it’s a reasonable assumption. I think I’d better get you off the street before your head explodes.”