If she had been less excited, if she had been more alert, she would have noticed. That it had been following her, moving along with her. That it sidled up to her now only as she stepped into an all-but-deserted stretch of shuttered antique shops and abandoned stores.

As it was, she was brought out of her mediation when the beams of the taxi’s headlamps entered her peripheral vision. Turning to discover the cab, she smiled at her luck and raised her hand to hail it.

The cab moved to the curb alongside her and stopped. The front window came down. Harper leaned into it. The driver, on the other side of the car, tilted back so that his face was obscured by the night.

“World’s End,” Harper said.

“Absolutely right, darling,” said the driver.

She climbed into the back, settled into the seat. Set the tip of her stick against the floor between her feet, rested both her hands atop the carved dragon’s head, rested her chin upon her knuckles. And she sank deep into thought again as the cab pulled away.

Her thought was so deep, in fact, that it was many minutes before she realized what was happening. By that time the taxi had strayed from any possible route into her neighborhood. Instead, through a series of sharp jolts and turns, it had veered off into the backstreets of Kensington. And Harper, furiously discussing with herself the long and complex history of Anglo-German cultural exchanges—from the Celtic migrations to the dropping of bombs on the British Museum—glanced up in complete astonishment to find herself passing eastward under the Royal Albert Hall.

She straightened. Her eyes went quickly to the plaque fastened on the seat in front of her: The number of this cab is 331. Suddenly more frightened than she had been since she could well remember, she lifted her gaze directly to the rearview mirror.

And she saw the burning malice of the driver’s reflected stare. Saw his scarred mouth twisted into a grin of jeering bitterness and cruelty.

Harper could only gape another long moment at that face—the face of the man who had attacked her outside The Sign of the Crane.

The taxi’s doors and windows—as she discovered a moment later—were all securely locked.

6