An Absolutely Terrible Idea

Chapter 1

Like most of Lockwood's ideas, it was a bad one.

Like most of Lockwood's ideas, I was a full and willing participant, despite having more than an inkling that it wouldn't end well.

And like most of Lockwood's ideas, it involved blood, gore, and a great deal of blindingly agonizing pain.

My blood, gore, and blindingly agonizing pain.

It started on a London morning as grey and unwashed as George's underpants, when Lockwood and I were sharing a quiet, companionable breakfast at the kitchen table, spilling bits of egg and toast crumbs over George's message that he'd once more spent a night scouring the sludge of the city with Flo. He would return some hours later reeking of stagnant water and with a dirty backside and mulch in his hair, but he would also be too distracted to notice the odd, quiet mood at 35 Portland Row, or the strange matching flush to both Lockwood's face and my own.

But at that moment, George was still somewhere distant, quite possibly snogging in waist-high waterproof dungarees (a mental image I didn't relish), Holly had taken the day off to visit her mother, and Kipps was elsewhere, taking a brief break from trying to fill in as the pale, living, slightly more socially ept replacement for the Skull. Lockwood was frowning at the side of the box of Holly's low-sugar muesli, and I hummed tunelessly as I dipped a bit of solider in the runny yellow yolk of my soft-boiled egg.

Suddenly, there was a great sucking sound as Lockwood opened his mouth very wide then promptly shut it again over a mouthful of air. I glanced at him sideways. He was still frowning, but no longer at the cereal box, and instead looked very puzzled by the dusty sconce on the kitchen wall.

After some obvious deliberation, he opened his mouth again, and said with charm that--oddly--sounded forced, 'There are very few people more Talented than the two of us, Luce."

"Er." My voice was muffled by egg yolk. Crumbs flew. "I know."

He tapped the dry corner of his now-cold toast against the rim of his plate. "My Sight and your Listening and Touch," he said, increasingly thoughtful. "We are quite the unstoppable team."

I swallowed. "Of course we are," I said, then took another bite, sending a spray of crumbs across Holly's shopping list (kale, sunflower seeds, soy granules for goodness sake). He was right, of course; we always had been, even when our teamwork left much to be desired (burning houses to the ground, nearly destroying a large section of London in our attempts to take down Marissa Fittes, etc. etc.), we worked well together. We complemented each other. We were very good at stopping the other from being killed. Hardiness was a sought-after quality in an agency, and no other agency in London had survived what we had been through, nor would they have to, thanks to us.

Lockwood carried on, his normally smooth, unfurrowed forehead looking like a field freshly ploughed. "And George believes that there is a genetic component in Talent," he said. He was speaking very quickly now, as though he thought this a conversation best left to someone else, and was only relaying it out of a sense of duty. "Not always, of course--but that there is a good chance that two parents with psychic abilities will pass those same abilities down to their children."

I gave a little start at the word, children. I'd spent my life surrounded by children: agents, the Night's Watch, my sisters. I'd spent my life watching other children die.

"Lockwood?" I said. I wiped my buttery fingers on my leggings. My hands were shaking, and I had a strange, sick, heavy feeling in my stomach, and though the room was warm, it felt very like a ghostly malaise was creeping, prickling, tingling across the floor and tugging hard at every hair on my skin.