‘Couldn’t have done it without you, Finn. You carried me … Quite literally.’

‘Things would have been different if I’d had two arms.’

‘You gonna keep on looking for your mates when you’re feeling better?’

‘I need to talk to some of them hunters, see what they think. Where I should look. If there’s any point.’

The two of them were sitting in the sun on the steps outside the museum. DogNut had his armour ready, his pack by his side and he was cleaning his sword.

‘I’m sorry you never found them,’ he said, holding the blade up to the light.

‘Yeah, well, I’m glad you found what you were looking for, Doggo.’

‘I ain’t so sure about that,’ said DogNut, and he scratched his bony head. ‘I found something, but it wasn’t what I expected. I think maybe I was supposed to have stayed at the Tower. I don’t know. Is all too deep for me. It just don’t feel right here.’

‘Are Felix and Marco going back with you?’

‘Yeah. We’ll stick together. We’re a team. Go back where we belong.’

‘And Courtney?’

‘Yeah. And Courtney.’

‘You gonna be all right? Just the four of you?’

‘We’ll be OK. We made a deal with Justin. Robbie’s gonna come with us, excort us part of the way. He’s OK, you know, Robbie is. Didn’t get him at first. But turns out we got a lot in common. Neither of us wants to be king of the world.’

‘So which way are you going back?’

‘We gonna cut across to Hyde Park Corner, the same way we came up from the palace, then head along to Trafalgar Square and shoot down to the river from there. That’s where we’ll say goodbye to Robbie.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘No probs. It’s a straight run to the Tower from there, and we’ll have the river protecting our right-hand side. It sucks that we ain’t got our lovely rowboat no more, but we setting off nice and early and, well – we made it here, didn’t we? We’ll make it back.’

‘Good luck,’ said Finn, and he gave DogNut a hug. ‘Say hello to everyone for me, won’t you?’

‘Will do, soldier. And, remember, we all heroes now, whatever happens!’

Courtney was waiting for DogNut with Marco and Felix down near the main gates. She looked up at him, the daft boy, all skinny like a big awkward lizard. He should have been on display in one of the glass cases here. He was almost a fossil already, just hard bones with no flesh on them. Since he’d told her he was going to go back to the Tower and leave Brooke behind a great happiness and calm had settled on her. She hated that it took someone else to make her feel this way, but that was how it was. She had a tough fight ahead of her still convincing bony-boy that she was someone he might actually want to hook up with, and be more than just a mate, his battle buddy. She had time now, though. Time and space. There was a big hole in his thoughts and feelings where Brooke had used to be. She just had to fill that hole.

She smiled. She was much bigger than Brooke. She was really going to have to squeeze herself to fit in a Brooke-sized hole.

She watched as DogNut said his goodbyes to Finn and trotted down the steps, slipping his sword into its scabbard. And then he did something she never expected. He kissed her. Just once. Quickly. On the lips.

‘What was that for?’

‘You had the kind of face that was asking for it,’ he said.

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It means I’m in a good mood today, gyal. You wanna argue about it?’

No. Courtney didn’t want to argue. Instead she kissed him back, then giggled like a five-year-old. Marco and Felix made some crude remarks and DogNut swore at them good-naturedly.

Then it was all hustle and bustle as they checked their weapons, strapped on their odd pieces of armour, slung their packs across their backs and marched over to where Robbie was chatting to his mates by the gatehouse.

‘All set?’ he asked when they walked up.

‘All set,’ said DogNut, and he grinned at Robbie. ‘Look at you. You can’t wait to get rid of us, can you?’

Robbie laughed. ‘It ain’t like that.’

‘Ain’t it? I reckon you only agreed to excort us to the river just to make sure we was really going.’

‘Well … Now you put it like that.’

‘Yeah. You know it, soldier. Just remember we might come back one day, though, screw up your life one more time.’

Robbie laughed again. ‘I like you, DogNut,’ he said. ‘You’re a mad bastard but I like you.’

‘Cool. So shall we go?’

‘We’re just waiting for one more,’ said Robbie, looking over towards the museum.

DogNut counted heads. There were three other boys and Jackson.

‘One, two, three, four, five. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Five guys named Mo.’

‘There’s one more added on.’

‘Who is he?’

‘She.’

‘You got more like Jackson? Yeah! Now you talking. She is one mean girl.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Who then?’

Robbie didn’t need to answer. Instead he nodded towards the museum steps where Brooke was hurrying down, a narrow, decorative sword in one hand. She had changed out of her weird, old-fashioned dress into heavy boots, jeans and sweatshirt and her hair was tied back. She had a pack ready over her shoulder.

Courtney couldn’t believe it. What was she playing at? But DogNut smiled widely.

‘You look the business,’ he said when she arrived. ‘But what you doing, girl?’

‘What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m coming with you.’

‘You joining the excort?’

‘No. Like I said, Donut, I’m coming with you.’

‘With me? How d’you mean exactly? With me?’

‘You are really special-needs sometimes, Donut. Try and keep up. I am coming to the Tower.’

Courtney felt like screaming at Brooke, telling her to stay where she belonged, but instead she just smiled. ‘That’s great,’ she said.

‘Thought you’d like to have me along,’ Brooke beamed. ‘And watch your arses for you.’

‘I’ll watch your arse.’ DogNut leered and Brooke gave him a dirty look.

‘I still don’t get it, though,’ DogNut went on. ‘I thought you liked it here. I thought this was it for you.’

‘Unfinished business,’ was all Brooke said, and she marched to the front of the group where Robbie was opening the gates. DogNut raised his eyebrows at Courtney and she gave him what she hoped was a look that said, How amusing, typical Brooke!

Yeah. Right. Typical Brooke.

She could have killed her.

58

The hunger was terrible, an intense, churning pain, as if some sharp-clawed beast had crawled down her throat in the night and was scraping at her belly from the inside. Maybe it was the squirrel she had eaten, come alive?

Could that happen?

She didn’t know. It was so hard, trying to think. There was another animal inside her head, a rat, gnawing at her brain. She moaned and rubbed her stomach. The squirrel had hardly made a difference at all. There had been so little to go round. One of the others had found a nest of mice, down in the tunnels, the young ones still pink and bald. But these scraps of meat had only made things worse, reminded her stomach that there was such a thing as food.

And then more had turned up.

Friends.

That was the word, wasn’t it? They were her friends. They’d been scattered by the hunters and had been wandering the streets. Now they were starting to arrive in the tunnels. They’d somehow known to come here.

To their queen.

But there were more mouths to feed now. If they didn’t eat again soon, and eat properly, they’d start turning on each other. She remembered eating one of her older friends. He wasn’t strong enough to fight and hunt, and he wasn’t strong enough to defend himself. He had kept them going for days.

She was all right. She had the knife. She was in charge. None of them would dare attack her.

She was their queen.

All she could do now was wait. It was like fishing: you picked your spot and you sat there and you hoped that sooner or later something would swim past.