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A world where monsters ruled.

Joan swallowed hard. This world existed because of her, because Nick had chosen her.

And this new Nick was hard to read, but Joan could guess what he was thinking. He had to be regretting his choice to save her. He had to wish he’d chosen to kill her instead. Now that he’d seen all this …

Nick’s gaze dropped to the ground, and he frowned. He bent to pick something up—a knife etched with roses. The knife he’d used to kill the King.

The blade shone, clean and new—as if it had never been used to stab anyone. It struck Joan then that the King’s body wasn’t here. Owen wasn’t here. And … someone else was missing. Her heart thumped.

‘Where’s Tom?’ she blurted. When she’d woken, she’d assumed that Tom had been around the corner from the alley, but now she was standing right at the mouth of it, and she couldn’t see him anywhere. Frankie and Jamie were alone.

‘He isn’t here,’ Jamie said hollowly.

‘What?’ Joan saw then what she hadn’t seen when she’d first woken. Jamie was barely holding it together, leaning heavily against the alley wall, his legs shaking.

‘Tom isn’t here,’ Jamie said again. ‘He was outside that protective dome you made.’

Joan opened her mouth, but no words came out. Oh God. She replayed the last moments before she’d blacked out. She’d thrown a shield up in desperation, trying to protect them all from Eleanor’s changes. Now, though, in her mind’s eye, she saw Tom brute-forcing his way to Eleanor. Moving beyond the scope of the shield. ‘No,’ Joan whispered.

Jamie pushed away from the wall. ‘We have to find him.’ He usually projected a gentle calmness, but right now his face was granite. ‘He’s somewhere in this world. I know he is.’

Joan managed a nod. ‘We’ll find him.’ It was a promise.

‘Owen’s missing too,’ Ruth said, looking around. ‘Was he outside the protection as well?’

‘No,’ Aaron said. ‘I saw him when I woke up. He ran off.’ He grimaced. ‘All the Argents are cowards. I just—’ He froze.

They all heard it at the same time—an engine on the Thames.

A hearse-black boat was making its way down the river with the menacing pace of a slow patrol. A golden sigil shone on the black of the boat: a winged lion. Not the familiar Court sigil Joan knew, but the version she’d seen through the café window: the lion roaring in attack.

Joan and the others drew back into the shadows of the alley instinctively. And they weren’t the only ones afraid. On the other side of the river, people watched the boat pass, wary and tense.

Nick’s hand tightened on the hilt of the knife. Was he thinking, as Joan was, of the last time they’d seen that sigil on a vehicle? Was he thinking of the tangled bodies in the van? Of the human murdered in broad daylight by a monster guard?

Joan looked across at the looming skyline again. This world was wrong. She could feel it like the thrum of her own heartbeat. And people she loved were out there. Dad, her family, her friends … They might even be—No. Joan shied from the thought. They couldn’t be dead in this world. They had to be somewhere. Like Tom was.

Like Eleanor was.

‘She’ll know we escaped,’ Aaron said softly. ‘She’ll be looking for us.’

Nick’s knuckles whitened around the knife’s handle. ‘I’ll be looking for her too,’ he murmured.

Joan watched the patrol boat disappear behind the bridge—the heart of this new, corrupted London. ‘We need to get out of here,’ she said. They needed to regroup.

And when they did … Her jaw tightened. They were going to fix this world. They were going to make it right.