The masons were already sprinting inland, but Nat waited for me, pacing himself to my stride. Through the deserted, rain-soaked streets of Westminster we ran, past the abbey and its great Tudor chapel, and the ancient Gothic arches of the old palace. But we still hadn’t quite reached the embanked wall around the precincts of Whitehall when we heard a terrible groan and crash behind us.
Had the kraken succeeded?
I couldn’t help it. I glanced back through the sheets of rain, only to see the river streaming down the street behind us. And was that a gray tentacle?
Nat yanked me forward. “Run.”
Breath burning in my lungs, I raced up the street with him, my ankle jolting in pain. The dank smell of the sea was everywhere.
By the time we reached the embankment, the gates were shut tight. Shouting for help, Nat and I scrabbled at the rough wall, trying to find footholds before the waters closed in.
Spying us, the King’s guards threw down some ropes. When we grabbed them, the guards hauled us up and over to safety, just as the tidal river raced in behind us.
Standing with the guards and the masons who had reached Whitehall before us, we watched the Thames take Westminster. The first waves rippled out, swirling around corners, filling every path and inlet, until the abbey and the palace and all the ancient buildings were nothing more than islands in the midst of churning waters.
Here and there, in the stormy gloom, lights burned in windows. Did they mark people left behind? Or were they untended candles and lamps that might catch fire, compounding disaster on disaster?
I saw no sign of the kraken.
I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Nat answered, “It’ll be out in the deeper reaches of the river, I expect, looking for more walls to pull down. We’ll need to warn the riverbank patrols to watch out for it. Maybe they’ll land a blow where we failed.” He turned to have a word with one of the King’s guards, who went running back into the palace.
We failed. It was not a thought I wanted to dwell on. But the evidence was pooled out in front of me.
As I stared at the churning expanse of water, I heard the furious song again, faint and horrifying. Only this time, as I listened, the song swelled, stronger than ever, and I heard an eerie counterpoint beneath the angry music:
Come, Chantress. Come into the water . . .
Who was singing? Wise women? The Mothers that Melisande had claimed were coming? Whatever the source, it was menacing. I backed away.
Nat must have seen the distress in my face, though he didn’t understand its cause. “Remember, the tide will go out soon,” he said. “In just a few hours, we’ll be able to start rescuing people and putting up new defenses.”
I tried to nod, but the song was still there, calling to me, no matter how hard I tried to block it out.
“Never mind that now. You’re shivering.” Nat drew me toward a door. “Let’s get you indoors.”
Once I was inside the thick walls of Whitehall, the music dimmed until it thinned out altogether. I came back to myself, and the first thing I noticed was that Nat was still there, only inches from me. I raised my head, and when I met his warm hazel eyes, it was as if we were standing by the wall in Westminster again, lost to the world. . . .
“Lucy.” There was a tender edge to his voice that made my heart turn over. “I—”
“Chantress!” The cry came from the far end of the passageway.
I whirled around. A palace guard trotted toward me, iron pike in hand. “You’re needed at the Tower,” he called out. “Your prisoner has escaped.”
The world rushed back with a vengeance.
There was no time now to talk with Nat, no time to find out what he had been about to say to me. I said a distressed good-bye to him and rushed off to the Tower.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PERFECT CIRCLE
At the Tower, Knollys met me with a look of chagrin on his broad, ruddy face. “I’m sorry, Chantress,” he said as we touched iron—my bracelet to his hand, his ring to my palm. “We’ve been searching for Melisande for almost two hours now, and there’s no sign of her.” He added, with gruff hope, “Unless you can detect something?”
“No.” Ever since I’d heard the news, I’d been sniffing the air for magic and