to Green Park had taken less than four
min-utes; her heart still raced. She cast a quick look around but saw no familiar faces —neither friend nor
foe. Then she slipped through the turnstile and hurried down a tiled corri-dor toward the platform.
From the tunnels came the rumble of an approaching train and the squeal as it began to brake. Jazz
held the bag against her, still feeling the weight of that strange blade, and picked up her pace. The train
arrived as she joined the crowd on the platform. Out of habit and the instinct Harry had worked to instill in
her, she plunged into the thickest part of the crowd as though heading for a door in the center, then cut
across toward the next car. She stepped onto the train and immediately began walking. Jazz unzipped the
bag, stuffed the pink hat into it, then zipped it closed again, moving as unobtrusively as possible.
People jostled one another, a few taking the open seats but most standing, holding on wherever they
could. Jazz stood beside the doors between cars and put her back to the wall. She kept her head forward so
her hair veiled her face. The train pulled away and she exhaled, willing herself to calm down.
Like some amusement-park ride, the cars rattled over the tracks, twisted through the Underground,
and soon be-gan to slow for the next stop. Just before they pulled into the illuminated area of the station,
she glanced out the window and saw the flicker of motion, the luminescent outline of one of the ghosts of
old London. Jazz blinked, startled to see a specter beyond the limits of the abandoned parts of the
Underground. But then she saw the top hat and the way the magician shot his cuffs just before a trick. She
bent to peer out the window, and just before she lost sight of him, he pro-duced a phantom dove from thin
air. It flapped white silk wings and flew up into the darkness of the tunnel.
The train hissed as it slowed, crawling into the station.
"Piccadilly Circus," a recorded voice said. "Next stop, Leicester Square."
The doors slid open.
"Mind the gap," said the voice.
People flooded off the train. Piccadilly was a major stop. Jazz took an empty seat in the corner and
kept her head down. Someone settled into the next seat, bumping her, and another crowd began to fill the
car.
The man beside her set down his shoulder bag.
"You're very good, you know," he said. "Stealthy and quick, with a deft touch. I'd no idea anyone else
was in the house."
Jazz froze. The doors closed and the train began to pull out of the station. Leicester Square seemed a
thousand miles away. The other people in the car loomed up around her. To them, she might as well have
been invisible. She'd done that much correctly. No one had noticed her —or the well-dressed man seated
beside her. But with the people packed in, she had nowhere to run.
"On the street, though, you could use some work," he went on. "You were watching for pursuit by
foot, never con-sidering an alternative. The taxi that nearly struck your little friend and me? I hired it. Once
you came out of the alley and crossed to that arcade, it was obvious you were headed for Green Park. Had
you hired a taxi of your own, it would have made things difficult. And I suppose if I'd been unfamiliar with
this part of the city, you might have lost me when you first entered the alley. That much was intuition on my
part, I confess. Where else could you have gone so quickly? A shop or restaurant wouldn't guarantee you a
rear exit unless you'd planned that in advance, and your friends' clumsiness made clear that you had not
considered your retreat care-fully enough. So, the alley.
"From there, it was easier than you'd imagine to avoid detection while following you down into the
Tube station. And so, here we are."
Jazz gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that she felt her fingernails cutting crescents into the flesh
of her palm.* She forced herself to lift her head and look at the man. Only inches separated his face from
hers. She inhaled slowly, steadying her nerves, and when she did she breathed in the warmth of his own
exhaled breath. The intimacy of the mo-ment startled her.
She closed her eyes and cleared her head. When she opened them, she thought she would find anger
on his face. She'd thought his words were mockery. But he stud-ied her with open fascination, his eyes an
intense icy blue that she could not turn away from. He carried