the hole and the huge flame ball rose up the chamber.
Up, commanded Annabel, and the broomstick flew up.
It leapt high and fast into the air.
It stopped and hovered. It strained under the weight of the three girls and began to fall.
Up! cried Annabel again.
But the thing began to plummet backward.
There was no time to think. No time to yell. She thought of the Miss Vines, of the Finsbury Wizards, of her mother. A new fireball exploded from the hole in the wall. The dragon’s head was through.
Up, she commanded her broomstick. She meant it with every cell in her body. She meant it with her heart. She had never sounded surer. A great jolt of power coursed through her hands and into the broomstick. It stopped sliding backward. It bucked and surged forward, and with flames licking their toes, they shot upward toward the world.
“Upon arrival at her destination, a young lady says farewell to any acquaintances she has made. She does so warmly but without undue extravagance or familiarity. Addresses should not be exchanged unless mutually agreeable.”
—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)
They lay where they had landed, breathing hard. It was very dark—not the darkness of Under London’s caverns and troll holes but an airier, more open blackness. Annabel took a deep breath of London Above and smiled. As her eyes adjusted, she saw there was an expanse of marble floor and great stone steps and, above them, a magnificent ceiling. She thought it was perhaps a castle, but then, after she had stared a while longer, she realized it was really only the great hall at Euston Station. She’d been there once before with her mother to catch a train to Birmingham. There was a glimmer of light from a high window, and when she looked, she saw the brownish blurred face of the moon appearing.
“Look—the moon is quite high,” she said, and sat up quickly.
She looked down at her torn cloak and mud-coated dress. Her hair was filled with straw and dragon scales. In one hand was her broomstick; in the other, the Morever Wand. The map was gone from her arm and her face, but she still felt the weight of it inside her. Its fullness. All of Under London was inside her, and she would never get it out again.
“Now, my star,” said Hafwen, sitting up just as quickly, for she had remembered.
“Yes, dear Hafwen,” said Annabel. “Your star. But first we must take the wand to the Miss Vines.”
First they must stop Mr. Angel. First they must save all of London. Somehow.
Annabel wondered at the Morever Wand’s magic. She looked at the strange words written all over it. How did it work?
They sat at the edge of the hole they had flown from, which was already disappearing. The marble floor was growing over it, shimmering in the muddy moonlight.
“We could have come straight here and flown down and got the stupid thing without all the trouble,” Kitty said.
“I don’t think magic works like that,” said Annabel.
Kitty smiled, but it was a weak smile, and she coughed again as she sat. Her cheeks were very red. She closed her eyes, and half her dirty little face shone in the moonlight.
Hafwen smiled her large gray-toothed smile.
“Did you enjoy that adventure, Haffie?” asked Annabel. She had decided that was what she would call her troll friend.
“No,” replied Hafwen, putting away the smile, although little bits of it still twitched at the edges of her mouth.
Soon there was nothing to show for the hole to Under London, just a patch of marble floor a little glossier with rusty moonlight than the rest. Annabel tested it with her toe. Yes, solid marble.
“We must take the wand to the Miss Vines. They will know what to do,” said Annabel. She didn’t want to think of her vision on the Lake of Tears. It wasn’t good to think of that at all.
She stood and swayed with hunger and tiredness. She had the Morever Wand in her hand, and she had returned to London Above. It should feel like an ending, yet, standing there in the great hall of Euston Station, she felt tired and very brave but as though her journey had not finished. It was an unsettling feeling, like being asked by Mr. Ladgrove to recite a Latin passage and not having a clue what it meant.
Kitty coughed and nodded as though she understood. She refused the hand that Annabel offered her, scowled, and stood.
Hafwen held out her hand to