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surprise. So though weres were forbidden under Her Majesty’s rule, the law had never been enforced, or not seriously.
    No, the Gold Coats had been sent to India—that William knew—for one reason only: to find the were—the British were, at that—who had been reported to be in possession of the jewel Heart of Light, taken from the primal temple of mankind. And so far the Gold Coats had failed at that mission.
    But their presence on the subcontinent, and the largely imaginary native resistence to it, had been used as a pretext to send William and another twenty-five officers to India, to reinforce far-flung garrisons.
    As a reinforcement they were inadequate. As a cover, they were good enough. They had allowed William to spend a month in Calcutta, gossiping and looking about. But the document that reported the existence of this mythical were said nothing else about its human form—whether he was a sailor or a soldier, a merchant or a nobleman. From what William understood, the rumor had reached Lord Wiltington—the new head of Her Majesty’s Secret Service since poor Lord Widefield’s death—through curiously broken channels of native tribesmen, railroad employees and finally operatives in the north of Africa.
    It was said that a dragon had taken the most magical jewel in the world—Heart of Light—to parts unknown. The twin of the jewel—Soul of Fire—had been stolen by an envoy of Charlemagne and used to bind the magical power that existed in small amounts to the descendants of Charlemagne alone. It should have guaranteed the permanence in Europe of order and of the one true monarchy.
    Unfortunately, noblemen were as prone to sins of the flesh as other men. Or perhaps more. The descendants of Charlemagne had spread their seed with abandon, so that eleven hundred years later everyone from high nobility to country squires like William’s own great-uncle to a few enterprising peasants had magic enough to challenge the holy rule of monarchs.
    The result had been revolutions spreading across the world—from Britain’s loss of the colonies in the Americas, to the revolution in France, to anarchy and rebellion in every corner of the globe. Worse, the enterprising members of the lower classes had banded together to introduce things like trains and flying carpets and textile factories operated wholly by magic.
    While this was, William supposed, good in itself, it enriched the lower classes above the noblemen and gentry so that even those who weren’t revolutionary were starting to get their claws on the nobility—through loans, through mixed marriages, all of it resulting in a great leveling and a complete dissolution of order.
    This William understood, and he understood it very well. His father had told him early on that the worst possible thing that could happen to the world was to see chaos loosed upon it, and also had shown him through history that the only reason Europe had risen above the other lands was Charlemagne’s action. Only that had allowed noblemen to impose order and forward civilization.
    William knew, therefore, that it was imperative that Her Majesty get the ruby and rebind the power to the proper people. He even understood that finding Soul of Fire, spent though it was, had become imperative, as it would, unfailingly, point to the now-vanished Heart of Light
    And he understood, though for personal reasons he very much wished he didn’t, that it was necessary to come to India, the last place Soul of Fire had been. But William wanted out of India as soon as possible. Before he died here.
    He’d been dreaming again. Dreaming of the hordes of weres descending on them from the nearby forest. Worse than that was the idea that the rebellion of 1857 and the massacres that had surrounded it would repeat themselves. The excuse given to send him to India seemed all too plausible an outcome to his stay. He knew it wasn’t rational. He knew it was superstitious fear. But in the dark of night, it seemed