Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(80)

‘Run!’ Tom said. He pointed to Trafalgar Square—crowded with tourists even this late at night. ‘Split up and run!’

Joan sprinted toward Trafalgar Square. At first she could hear the others’ running footsteps, but soon she found herself alone.

In their planning, Tom had suggested a rendezvous in case they got separated: an ancient stone staircase in Wapping, once used by watermen to access the Thames.

It took Joan nearly two hours to get there. She jumped onto a bus at Trafalgar and stayed on it until she was sure that she hadn’t been followed. After that, she made her way to Wapping on foot.

On the main street, she took a dark passage past the Town of Ramsgate pub to the foreshore of the Thames. She picked her way down the slippery stone stairs, trying not to fall in the dark. There wasn’t much to the beach at the bottom of the stairs. It was tiny and sharp-rocked and stank of sea rot. Joan’s feet crunched over sticks and pebbles and shells.

There was enough moonlight to see that the tide was out. No one else was on the beach yet. Joan squeezed her hands into fists, trying not to imagine that the others had been caught.

At the water’s edge, Tower Bridge was unexpectedly close, still in its night lights. Nearby, on the water, Joan could just make out a bobbing rowboat, moored to something that looked homemade. Transport out of here, care of the Hathaways.

They’d all get on that rowboat, and Tom would take them to a Hathaway mooring for the night. They’d decide what to do after that.

Joan backed away from the shore and sat heavily on the old stone staircase.

There’s something wrong about all of this, Ruth had said at the Court. I feel as if we’ve got something wrong.

Joan dropped her head into her hands. She could hear the river lapping against the bank. In. Out. In. Like breathing. We’ve got something wrong, Ruth had said. But the truth was, it was Joan who’d gotten something wrong. She’d made the others go to the Monster Court.

She’d been so sure that she was right. She’d been so sure that the transformatio would be in the Royal Archive that she’d risked everyone’s lives. But she’d gotten it wrong. Instead of a device that would save her family, they’d found an empty prison cell. Gran had given Joan a key to the Monster Court, and Joan had wasted it.

As always, the thought of Gran brought back that terrible night. Sometimes, it felt like all Joan’s memories of her family had been overridden that night. When she thought of Gran, it was always of Gran in that room, dying.

Think of something else, she told herself. But the memory kept going. Gran’s last words. You’re in very grave danger. Someday soon you’ll come into an ability. A power.

Joan remembered how she’d stood outside that wooden door. She’d slammed her hand against the lock and power had poured out of her. And after she’d touched it, the metal had been as dull as stone—as if she’d somehow returned it to ore. She thought about the dark marks on the necklace. What had she done to that lock? To that chain? Had she transmuted the metal? Was that her power—to change metal into stone?

Joan clenched and unclenched her hand, trying to feel for that strange power again. But whatever she’d done at Whitehall, she couldn’t feel a spark of it now.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before a low whistle made her jump. She turned. Tom’s bulky silhouette was at the top of the stairs. ‘Don’t get up. I’ll come to you,’ he called down softly.

He jogged down the slippery stairs with the sure foot of a boatman. Frankie trotted behind him with cheerful huffs.

Tom got person-size and then Tom-size, stumbling up to Joan, all muscles and dopey good humour. ‘All right?’ he said. ‘Took me a while to get here.’

‘I’m fine. The others haven’t arrived yet,’ Joan said. ‘What if they’ve been caught?’

‘I saw Aaron around Temple. Ruth too. Don’t worry. They’re not far behind.’ Tom’s battered face cut into a smile. ‘Here.’ He unhooked a woman’s handbag from his shoulder and opened it to show Joan that it was bulging with pork pies. ‘Stole us some breakfast.’

Joan pictured him taking time out from dodging the palace guards to snatch a purse. Then she pictured him emptying out the keys and cash to make room for something he really valued. In spite of her worry about Aaron and Ruth, she found herself wanting to laugh. Apparently, you could rely on Tom to keep things simple.

She felt in her pocket. The marzipan lions she’d taken from the palace hadn’t fared well. One was missing its tail; the other was missing its head. Oh well. She offered them to him anyway. ‘If Ruth or Aaron brings some drinks, we’ll have a proper picnic.’ She patted the step and shuffled over to make room for him.

Tom grinned, but he didn’t sit down as Joan had expected. ‘And the other thing?’ he said. ‘You have that too, right?’

Joan looked up at him. ‘I—’ She hesitated. ‘What?’ The sky was a predawn grey now. A trick of the light had put Tom’s mouth in shadow, removing some of the usual slackness from his expression.

‘I thought it would be in his bedding,’ Tom said. ‘Did you find it under the desk?’

Joan stared at Tom’s silly face. Except that right now, his eyes were strangely sharp. The scar across his eyebrow was a pale slash in the morning light. He looked more like a thug than ever.