The Kingdom of Night (Book 3)

Seventeen - Turning Tides, Changing Fates

Emma

The morning of my birthday dawned cold and snowy. I curled my toes under the blankets, trying to warm them up a little more. Mum would be up any moment to get me up, but I wasn't ready to get out of bed just yet. Not when I was this warm. I burrowed further under the blankets and tried to hold onto the last remnants of sleep.

     Then a knock, and Mum's head poked in. 'Emmy, darling?'

     I popped my head out, blinking the stickiness away. 'Yes, Mum, I'm just about up.'

     'You know I wouldn't do that to you on your birthday,' she said with a smile and a mischievous glint in her eye, one that said exactly the opposite.

     'You've done it before,' I pointed out.

     'All right, all right. I only wanted to let you know that your breakfast is on its way up to you, prepared specially for your birthday. And in case you were wondering, Toby is joining us for luncheon.'

     I felt a heat rise up my neck. He hadn't told me. Maybe he'd wanted it to be a surprise. 'Mum...'

     Mum waved my protest off. 'He asked me so nicely. And I may have told him it was a special occasion.'

     'Mum, you didn't,' I said, but she was already gone. I collapsed back into the pillows. She was taking this more seriously than I was, and I didn't even know the boy that well yet.

||

After luncheon was over and we managed to escape Mum, we went out for a walk along the Buckingham Palace Gardens. There wasn't much to see–mostly some melting snow and the ponds covered with a thin sheet of ice–but the sky was clear and blue, and the sun was out despite the stiff breeze. And it'd stopped snowing. Perfect timing.

     'I must say, it is beautiful here in February,' Toby said, looking round at the gardens on one side and the buildings on the other. 'Pretty cold, though.'

     'That's London for you,' I said, squeezing his hand. We hadn't been walking out together for long, but he insisted on holding my hand, and I let him. 'Is it like this back home?'

     'In New York? Yeah.' He shuddered, tucking his chin into the collar of his coat. 'We get a lot more snow, though.'

     'Snow's beautiful, in my opinion. Only for a few hours, though.'

     Toby grunted agreement, but didn't say anything.

     Just as we were about to turn onto Pall Mall, I noticed we were being followed by a tall man in a long black coat and a peaked cap. I felt a twist in my stomach–he was a Natural. And the uniform looked menacing–no insignias or anything. But I had a feeling of who he worked for without them.

     'Don't look now, but I think we have a stalker,' I said, glancing behind.

     He snuck a peek over his shoulder. 'You mean that guy in the overcoat?'

     I bit my lip. 'That's the one.'

     'Walk faster. We can lose him.' Toby tugged on my hand and we made a hard left into St. James's Square. Right as we turned onto Charles II, he rounded the corner after us.

     'Didn't work. Still following us,' I said as we picked up the pace even more. 'Do we start running?'

     Toby shook his head. 'Wouldn't do any good.'

     Another hard left onto Haymarket, and then again onto Panton. We were almost to Leicester Square by now. If we could get there in time, we could blend in with the crowds. But when I looked back, he was still there. He wasn't running, but our half-run, half-walk hadn't deterred him. We hit the square, trying to melt in with small knots of people. But he always spotted us.