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“Evangeline?” he says, his worry obvious, but my mouth is dry, and I’m not sure what to say.

“We were just noticing the flowers,” says Kit after a beat. “They’re beautiful—and rather distinct, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, yes,” says the curator. “We were so pleased to receive them, Your Majesty. It was a lovely gesture from the Palace.”

“We’re very glad,” says Alexander, so smoothly that for a moment, I think he doesn’t understand. But he steps toward the welcome desk, the curator at his elbow, and I notice the slight tremble in his hand as he touches the card tucked in the middle bouquet. Finally, finally, he might actually believe—

Boom.

A noise unlike anything I’ve ever heard before seems to shatter the very air around us, rocking the marble beneath my feet. And before I can process what’s happening, before I can wrap my head around the way the entire lobby is disintegrating before my eyes, Kit’s hand is ripped from mine as something collides with me with the force of a concrete wall, and the world goes black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

An explosion has been reported at the Modern Music Museum in Central London, during an official visit from His Majesty the King, Evangeline Bright, and Lord Clarence. The area surrounding the museum has been evacuated, and there is no word yet on casualties.

—Breaking news alert from the BBC, 11:17 a.m., 12 January 2024

ALL I HEAR IS SILENCE.

I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what time it is, or what day it is, or why I can’t see. Vaguely I’m aware that I hurt—that my body is aching in ways it shouldn’t, that something has happened, something I should remember. But all I can feel is a strange tingling that seems to be holding the real pain at bay.

There’s something warm beside me—warm and wet, I think, but I can’t be sure. My senses aren’t working properly, and I’m floating in the dark, yet at the same time held down by something foreboding and impenetrable. None of it makes sense, and I want to slip back into nothingness when a high-pitched sound pierces my eardrums, and the world around me seems to shift.

Suddenly it’s daylight, bright and overpowering and filled with dust as it chases away the darkness. I squeeze my eyes shut, but not before I see the white arched ceiling of the museum high above me, partially collapsed where two of the shimmering columns should be.

“I’ve got Evangeline here!” The deep voice mingles with the whine in my ears, and I’m vaguely aware of someone touching the pulse point on my neck. That brush is enough to ignite the rest of my dormant nerves, and suddenly the pain hits me like a tidal wave, leaving me gasping for breath.

I open my eyes again, and there’s a man in a firefighter uniform peering down at me as others clear the debris around us. It’s mostly plaster, I think, but there are some heavier chunks of marble, too, and only then do I slowly start to understand what happened.

“What—” I manage, but it comes out as a gurgle. Another emergency worker lifts a piece of stone that landed inches from my head, and he inhales sharply.

“Found a body,” he calls, and I notice the dark red stain on the bottom of the marble. Some small part of my mind is screaming at me, but I don’t understand why—until I turn my head and see the mess of blood and bone beside me, so close that I can feel what’s left of its heat.

“Keep still,” orders one of the men working to excavate the rest of me. “I need a collar over here!”

I’m still staring at the body, mostly buried under marble that missed me by inches. That voice in my mind grows louder, clawing away at the fog until I finally hear what it’s saying.

Kit. Kit. Kit.

Kit was next to me. Kit was exactly where this body is now,and—

The world goes dark once more, and when I come to again, I’m lying on a stretcher, surrounded by medics. There’s an oxygen mask over my mouth, and a woman is doing something to one of my legs. When I glance up, I see the gray sky again, but this time there’s no hole to look through. We’re outside.

“Kit?” I whisper, but if anyone hears me, they don’t react. Someone shouts nearby, and another team of medics rolls a second stretcher past mine, though I can’t see who’s on it. When it’s gone, however, my blurred vision focuses on the top of the steps, where several long black bags are lined up side by side, one after another.

Body bags.

“Evangeline?” A woman with black hair and a nose stud shines a light in my eyes, and I blink, not sure if I’m crying or not. “Can you hear me, Evangeline?”

I nod—or at least I try to, but something is holding my neck in place. “Kit?” I repeat, louder this time.

“We’re taking you to hospital now,” she says like I haven’t said anything at all. “We’ll get you sorted there, all right?”

Time slips away from me again, even though I think I’m still awake. I hear the sirens, can feel every bump in the road as the ambulance rushes through traffic, and when we arrive at what must be the emergency room—A&E in England, says a dry voice in my mind that sounds an awful lot like Tibby—I’m surrounded yet again by a medical team.

“Kit?” I say desperately as a doctor removes my oxygen mask. “Is he okay?”

“Can you tell me where it hurts?” she replies, and if I wasn’t crying before, I am now. I try to sit up, but hands hold me down as I babble Kit’s name again and again, and all I can see is that crushed body in the rubble.