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would.
    Looking down, Merovech remembered the glass in his hand, and raised it to his lips. Set against the ravages of the past, the damage left by the Gestalt—a few dozen bomb craters, some demolished buildings—seemed minor and ephemeral, a hiss and a pop in history’s sizzling pan; but that was only until you remembered the three thousand dead bodies that had been pulled from the rubble. Three thousand innocent men, women and children who had been caught in a conflict they couldn’t possibly have foreseen or understood, killed in a surprise attack.
    He rinsed the whisky around his teeth. His wife had been among them. At least, she would have been his wife if she’d lived. The date of their wedding had been set, and the preparations had been under way. Then a Gestalt dreadnought appeared in the skies over London and showered missiles on Whitehall.
    When the assault came, Julie had been in a car, on her way to shelter. She’d been crossing Westminster Bridge at the exact moment the parliament buildings took their first hit. A swerving lorry crushed her car through the stone parapet, into the Thames.
    Merovech drained his glass.
    She hadn’t stood a chance.
    With her gone, he had nothing. He had no mother or father, no brothers or sisters, hardly any friends. He felt like a refugee from a vanished land—alone, and the last of his kind. Even the damned monkey had disappeared. All that kept him going was his duty; the same duty he’d once spurned and sworn to resign.
    Three thousand had died in London, but similar numbers had also been killed in all the other cities that had been targeted. In the aftermath of all that tumult and loss, the survivors craved stability. They desperately needed a leader they could count on; somebody whose familiarity would provide permanence and comfort in a world turned outlandish and unsafe; somebody to be a focus for their grief, and embody their hopes for the future. And so he toured the cities that had suffered in the attack; he cut ribbons at construction sites and waved for cameras; he visited schools and factories and spoke about hope and faith and the importance of rebuilding the country; and then, when he came home, he locked himself in his office, away from the public gaze, and drank whisky until the footmen came to pour him into bed.
    He watched the twin-hulled skyliner until it disappeared. Then he turned to the bottle on his desk, ready to refill his glass. As he unscrewed the cap, he heard a soft knock at the office door.
    “Come in.”
    The door opened and his personal secretary stepped into the room.
    “Your Majesty.”
    “Amy?” The neck of the bottle clinked against the rim of his glass as he refilled it. “What are you doing here so late?”
    “We have a bit of a situation, sir.”
    Amy Llewellyn still wore the same clothes she’d been wearing earlier in the day, but now she’d discarded her suit jacket, loosened her collar, and pushed the sleeves of her blouse up to the elbows.
    “A situation?” Carefully, he replaced the bottle on the desk and fastened the cap. Then he picked up his drink. “I thought I’d asked to be left alone.”
    “This won’t wait, sir.”
    Fatigue clawed at him. He gave them body and soul during the day. Why couldn’t they leave him in peace in the evening?
    “What is it?”
    Amy blew a loose strand of hair from in front of her face. “We’ve received a message.”
    He sighed. “Are you sure it can’t wait?”
    She swallowed, and shook her head. “It’s from your mother, sir.”
    Merovech’s fingers tightened on the glass. “My mother’s dead.”
    “Quite so.”
    “Then what are you talking about?”
    “She made a back-up, sir.”
    Merovech felt his knees begin to shake. He’d seen his mother die, blown to fragments by her own hand grenade. He leaned against the desk. “Where is it? Where’s it calling from?”
    Without asking, Amy turned over a clean glass and poured herself a drink.
    “You’re not going to like