Page 88 of Only a Monster

‘Joan, are you with me?’ Ruth’s dark hair was frizzing out of her fancy bun. Ruth’s hair was always like that—it never wanted to stay in one place. ‘Are you with me right now?’

‘Yeah?’ Joan said. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ Ruth said. ‘Because we can’t get back through the gate. There are guards swarming all over it. Dozens of them. We’re stuck here.’

EIGHTEEN

Inside the halls, none of the guests seemed to know about the break-in. The music was still playing; people were still dancing and laughing. Ruth took Joan’s arm, and together they strolled through the hall, past the guards at the doors.

The guards knew. They were alert and watchful, eyeing every person who walked past them.

Joan and Ruth stepped outside. The party had extended now to the courtyard. People stood talking softly by the light of the moon and the floating lamps. Servers moved between them with food and drinks on silver trays.

Ruth led Joan away from the crowd, into the shadows by the hall’s stone wall. Her grip was tight on Joan’s arm. On the other side of the courtyard, there were half a dozen guards by the gate. Not enough, apparently, to alarm the other guests, but enough to prevent escape.

Joan’s attention was drawn to a man standing in their midst.

‘Conrad,’ Ruth whispered. Joan hadn’t heard that much fear in her voice since the night their family had died. ‘The King’s Reach.’

Conrad was too far away to see clearly, but Joan could see that he was blond, in his early twenties at most. There was an air of power surrounding him. And something about him made Joan think of the relentless cold of winter; of still, moonless nights.

‘That gate is the only way out of here,’ Ruth whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’

Figures peeled away from the other guests: Aaron and Tom. Frankie trotted underfoot.

‘Conrad is methodical,’ Aaron whispered. ‘He’ll check everyone who passes through the gate. And when he finds us . . .’ He swallowed. ‘He’ll make a spectacle of us.’

‘There must be another way out,’ Joan said.

‘There’s no other way.’ Tom sounded bleak. ‘And there’s no way to travel out—we’re on the mire.’

‘There is a way,’ Joan murmured. ‘We just travelled to the Palaeolithic period and back.’ She looked at her cousin. ‘You need to create another bridge and get us out of here.’

Ruth shook her head. Her fingers felt very cold on Joan’s arm. ‘I can’t feel the Hunt power right now. It’s like I burned it out.’

‘You need to try,’ Joan whispered. ‘Please.’

‘If we try, we need to be very careful about where,’ Aaron whispered. ‘We’re almost on top of Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence. Scotland Yard. If we come out in the wrong place . . .’

‘I know where we can go,’ Tom said. ‘Follow me.’

The guests in the courtyard began to murmur as more guards appeared from the halls. Joan could hear pieces of their conversations. Something stolen, she heard. Guards found unconscious.

Tom ushered Joan and the others along the edges of the buildings, keeping to the shadows. No one seemed to notice as they slipped out of sight.

‘We won’t have long,’ Tom whispered. ‘The guards will check everyone on the grounds. They’ll realise fast that we don’t belong here.’

They walked quickly. The palace grounds seemed to be structured as a series of open yards, each surrounded by buildings. Soon they were in the working part of the palace. Joan peered through the windows of the heavy stone buildings as they passed. One was a kitchen with huge unlit hearths and benches where food could be laid out. Another had deep basins for washing.

It was all as eerily empty of people as the suites had been. And it was dark. The only light was from the moon overhead.

‘There’s a gate farther up,’ Tom whispered. ‘Not too far from where Trafalgar Square will be.’

He took them through a courtyard full of chopped wood. Then past an elaborate brick building with open archways. ‘Stables,’ he said.

‘Wait,’ Joan whispered. She ducked into one of the archways. There were dozens of stalls, pristinely clean. There were no horses in any of them. There’d been no animals on the grounds, Joan realised—except for those brought in by the Hathaways. The woodyard, at least, should have been full of rats and cats and foxes. Insects. But here, alone in the stables, she couldn’t hear anything but her own footsteps, her own breaths.

At the back of the room, there were saddles and neatly folded blankets. Joan took a coiled rope. Then she rummaged through a box of tools until she found a hammer and a couple of nails.

---