The last two visits went much like the first: we found the guards, they stopped long enough to listen to me—my actions at the convocation had earned me that. But I couldn’t tell if what I said made an impact. I was able to add rumors to what I’d said before: that I’d been able to rally some of the other werewolves, that Roman’s base of support was crumbling, and they had better consider our offer of amnesty—a chance to escape—while they still could. So only two wolves had defected for sure, and they were a special case. This whole escapade was about propaganda, wasn’t it? If I was wrong and my plan failed entirely, I’d have other problems to worry about.

By then, some of the clouds had burned off, blue sky broke through, and the morning blazed, maybe as sunny as this country ever got. Wandering on a hunch, I led Ben and Cormac out of the neighborhood of our last encounter, down a couple of curving streets, and stumbled on the astonishing vista of Trafalgar Square.

“I think I need to rest a minute,” I told them and wandered across the plaza in front of the National Gallery to sit on the steps at the top of the square. I resisted an urge to cower before the huge bronze lions looking out, guarding the base of the immense column that bore aloft a nautical statue of Admiral Nelson—indistinct from this distance. There were also fountains, neoclassical architecture on every corner, block after block of impressive façades stretching all the way down Whitehall. If I wandered that way, I’d eventually get to Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey … Never mind the column and statue, this one square—this whole city was a monument.

I’d been in old places—old by American standards at least—and had been in beautiful places that made me sigh with pleasure. But I had never felt the weight of history settle over a place the way I felt it here, solid and daunting. I shouldn’t have—this was a modern city, with traffic jams and crowds of people on their ways to jobs or events or important rendezvous. It smelled like a city, exhaust, concrete, asphalt, combining in a haze. But the buildings were all so old by my admittedly narrow American view. The columns and domes and plinths and everything were done unironically. Then came the layers. Behind a neoclassical theater was the preserved basement of a medieval church, and around the corner from that a row of houses that had been destroyed in the Blitz and replaced by a park, and yet another corner once held a statue placed by a king eight hundred years ago as a monument to his dead wife. Norman castles, Renaissance palaces, Victorian parks—they all lived here together.

This city had been a city for two thousand years, and I could feel that with every step I took. Bits of all that time were still here, alive, even if it was just in the form of collective memory.

I wondered if being in London was a little like being a vampire.

Ben settled on the step next to me, resting his elbows on his knees. Cormac stayed standing, keeping watch.

“You’re thinking very deep thoughts, I can tell,” Ben said. The sunlight exposed the exhausted shadows under his eyes, and a pallor to his skin. I wondered how bad I looked.

“Yes,” I said, and left it at that.

“Do we have any more conspiracies to initiate right at the moment?”

I had to think about it a moment. “I don’t think so. Not right at the moment.”

“Then can I vote that we try to get some sleep?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept. No wonder my brain felt like cotton. “I think that’s an excellent idea. Cormac?”

He stood a little ways off, sunglasses on, looking over the scene, frowning.

“Some days I think that nothing ever changes,” he said. Or Amelia said. The thought could have come from either one of them.

We caught a cab back to Ned’s house in Mayfair.

Chapter 19

IF I managed a couple of hours of sleep, it was because I curled up with Ben. Lying with his warmth around me and his scent in my nose made me feel like I was home and safe. The feeling didn’t last, and I woke up with a start, remembering what we’d done during the dawn, and wondering how it would turn out.

First thing, I pulled out my phone and called Tyler. “Hey—are you okay?”

When he answered, his voice held laughter. “Even my mom isn’t this worried about me.”

“Yeah, well, your mom isn’t here dealing with vampire and werewolf politics. Some of these guys have their eye on you.”

“Yeah, I’ve spotted them lurking around. I get to feeling like I’m in a spy movie.”

“Tell me about it. But they haven’t approached you—haven’t tried to draw you in?”

“No—just the straight-up human government people have been doing that.”

“Good. Okay.”

“I’ll be careful, Kitty. I promise,” he said, and we signed off.

If anybody could take care of himself, it was Tyler.

I still had to deliver my keynote address at the conference tomorrow. I had a million things I could say—that was part of the problem. I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. On the other hand, part of me wanted to run straight to the conference, get on a PA system, and tell everyone to stay in their rooms and lock their doors. That might have been an overreaction. Then again … I felt like I had to warn people. We fought a battle last night, I spent the morning sowing chaos …

I returned to the conference at noon, after an argument with Ben and Cormac. I was too visible, they said. I shouldn’t go because the conference made me too much of a target. I argued back, that going would prove that we hadn’t been scared off. When that didn’t work, I said if I went to the conference—on my own, even—we could use me as bait to draw out our enemies. That suggestion didn’t go over so well.

Then one of the werewolves from last night—one of Solomon’s, not the one who spoke but the one who’d kept to the shadows—showed up at Ned’s gate asking for help. We called Caleb, Ben waited with him, and Cormac and I went back to the conference because I wondered how many werewolves—who didn’t know where we were staying, for example—might show up there hoping to find me. Not because they wanted to hurt me, but because they needed help.

We let Andy drive us this time, for speed. The protestors were still out front, loud as ever, their voices like the crashing of waves. Andy dropped us off at the side entrance to avoid them. I didn’t even want to look at them.