“Can I ask you a question?” she said, eyes sliding up his profile.
He inclined his head, granting permission, but she saw his hands bunch into fists at his side. “I suppose it’s only fair.”
“What are you going to do with the money you got from Ironwood?” she asked. “The money you got for bringing me and Sophia to New York?”
His shoulders slumped as he exhaled. “I would dearly love to hear your guess.”
“You’re going to buy a ship,” she said instantly.
“Yes—did Chase tell you that as well?” Nicholas’s gaze swung out to take in the sight of St. Paul’s Cathedral, its ornate dome looming between the shadowed buildings surrounding it.
“No,” she said. “It just seemed right. That’s where I see you.”
Standing under the blaze of the sun, the wind teasing and pulling at his shirt and jacket, the water rolling out beneath them—him, she corrected, rolling out beneath him—like a sparkling carpet.
Nicholas stopped, his arm brushing hers again as he stepped in front of her, looking down in what she thought might have been genuine amazement. “You could read me so easily?”
She smiled, flicking at his chest in a teasing way to keep from doing something else that would embarrass her and likely startle him. “You were so good at it, and you loved it. I could see it in your face—what is it?”
His gaze was so heavy, it felt like he had dropped his hands onto her shoulders, and was holding on for dear life.
“Etta…” he began, his voice a rasp. “You…”
There was a movement just behind him, brown and black and white and gray—three men booking it down the street. The men from before—the one in tweed was pulling something out of his pocket—Thorns—charging directly at them—small, silver—
Gun.
Etta shoved Nicholas, hard, into the brick wall beside them. He stared back, dazed, just as a bullet screamed by, slicing the air between them.
“Run!” Etta said, grabbing his wrist. “Run!”
He tried to wheel back around, to see, but she dragged him forward, feeling his pulse jump beneath her fingers.
“Turn here!” he said. “We’ve—”
The sound was like an inherited memory; she couldn’t remember ever having heard it before, but recognized it instantly for the way it seemed to slice through her, striking the marrow of her bones. The revving wail was spinning out of the silence, louder and louder, as the buildings picked up the sound of the sirens and volleyed it between them.
“What the devil is that?” Nicholas said, spinning around, trying to locate the source.
“Air raid sirens,” Etta said, shooting a look back over her shoulder. The men were slowing at the warning of the approaching attack, as if unsure whether or not to keep going. No—Etta’s breath left her in a rush—to aim.
The man out in front fired; the bullet went wide, striking the brick wall behind them. A splatter of dust and debris exploded into her hair, scratching the back of her neck.
“Stop, damn you!” one of them called. “Don’t make us shoot you!”
“Hell and damnation,” Nicholas forced out between gritted teeth. Etta was too furious with herself to speak. Why hadn’t she even thought about this? She should have pushed to leave Alice’s earlier; they should have taken a taxi; anything to get them to the Aldwych station and the passage hidden inside of it as soon as possible. This was the Blitz, for God’s sake. Alice had told her a hundred times growing up that there had been bombings nearly every night.
“What do we do?” he shouted.
A distant, loud drone choked the words right out of her, made her look up through the clouds for planes.
“We have to go underground!” she said. This Alice had said the Underground stations were being used as shelters—if they could get to Aldwych—if they could run ahead of the attack, they could reach the passage tonight—
But if the bombing began before then, in this area of the city, they’d be dead before they realized what hit them.
The Thorns seemed to be having a similar debate. She caught fragments of their conversation—“Go back!” “Follow—” “—not dying—”
They’d passed a shelter in Leicester Square and had seen the tube stop nearby, but Etta didn’t want them to go back, not when they could get out of London tonight. The Thorns seemed to be hoping they would bail, ditch the streets for cover, and Etta had the unsettling feeling of being caught in a deadly game of chicken. Ending up in the same shelter as them would only get her and Nicholas caught again in Ironwood’s web. She needed them to take the nearest shelter, and she needed to get her and Nicholas the hell out of London.
This was war, this was real, and they were going to die if she didn’t make a decision right now.
“Let’s double back,” Nicholas said. “That square had shelter—”
“No,” Etta said, “we can make it to the Aldwych station!”
“No—the other one is closer!” he shouted over the sirens. “We can cut a path around them if we have to!”
I am getting us out of here.
I am getting us out of here.
I am getting myself home.
She grabbed his hand tightly in hers and dragged him forward. Nicholas tried to pull her back around, but Etta wouldn’t turn. “We can make it! We can’t lead them to the passage—Ironwood can’t know which one we take! We have to lose them!”
We. They had to do it together, or not at all.
“Damn you—” he swore, but when she started running, he did too.
It sounded like thunder from a late summer storm—the kind that used to rattle her and her mom’s apartment windows, a boom that cracked over the city and echoed against the glass-and-steel structures. The whistling alone made her eardrums feel as if they were about to split; the high whines fell eerily silent before each tremendous, deafening crash. Her skin prickled, feeling as if it was about to peel away.
Etta would never complain about the sound of the passage now, not ever again. Not after hearing this.
Nicholas craned his neck up to watch the shapes ripping through the night sky. It looked as though a thousand black bugs were being released from each plane, all streaming down to the city around them. The eager curiosity she’d seen earlier on his face had vanished.
Etta turned—the street was empty behind them. “They’re gone!”
She pushed her legs harder until she felt her ankle turn on a piece of rubble. But Etta didn’t stop, and neither did Nicholas. He looped her arm around his neck and carried her forward as they turned onto Catherine Street.
“It’s at the end of the—road—” she gasped out.
“I see others, they’re going the same way—” he said, the words rumbling in his chest, echoing the planes’ thunder. “We’re almost there.”
Families, couples, policemen were all converging in front of a building with a redbrick façade. A white banner ran along the top, over the arch of windows: first, PICCADILLY RLY, then the smaller lettering below: ALDWYCH STATION.
She let out a sharp “Yes!” at the same moment that Nicholas shuddered and said, “Thank God.”
A man in a dark police uniform stood at the entrance, waving everyone in. They dodged the clothes, bedding, toys, and suitcases that had been dropped in the panicked flight down, and joined the flow of bodies. Just before they were swallowed into the horde, Nicholas shifted her arm, wrapping it around his waist instead. His other arm fixed across her shoulders, drawing her closer, squeezing them between the dozens of people around them who were all quietly trying to fight their way down an endless series of stairs.