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lurking in the air. There were smashed windows, gaping holes in walls, burn marks on bricks, abandoned factories with obscenities scrawled on every surface.
    The crowds thinned out too, all the evil intent and despair distilled into a smaller and smaller number of people. Tessa shivered and drew the hood of her sweatshirt farther up, partially hiding her face. She hunched over slightly, trying to disguise the fact that she was a girl.
    “Well, look at you,” someone said, the innocent words laced with such menace that they seemed to be saying something else entirely.
    Tessa flinched.
    Gideon would come to my rescue if I cried out, wouldn’t he?
she wondered. And then she was disgusted with herself, because wasn’t she there to rescue
him
? Was she so helpless that she couldn’t survive someone speaking to her?
    Automatically, she glanced ahead, scanning the crowd for another glimpse of Gideon.
    Gideon was gone.
    Tessa almost gasped, but the follower didn’t seem puzzled.The follower scurried three steps forward and then darted into a dark alley.
    I am a fool,
Tessa thought, and stepped blindly after the others.
    Tessa stood for a moment at the edge of the alleyway, hoping her eyes would adjust. When they didn’t—when the darkness before her stayed inky and indecipherable—her brain threw something at her from one of those old spy novels she’d read.
    It’s not like the street behind me is all that bright, but anyone looking out from this alley would see my silhouette….
    She dropped down to the ground, her hands and knees landing in a puddle. She told herself it was only water, but that was probably too much to hope for. She stayed low and listened, her ears straining to make up for everything she couldn’t see.
    She heard voices. First Gideon’s, tight and almost angry: “That was the price we agreed on.”
    Then a stranger’s, low and indistinct.
    Tessa edged closer, deeper into the darkness. She moved slowly, her hands sweeping out before her. Her fingers brushed sleek, curved metal—the side of some sort of vehicle. In this part of the city she would have expected rusted fenders, smashed-up bumpers. But this vehicle, whatever it was, didn’t seem to have so much as a dent.
    “I know what I’m doing,” Gideon said, the anger almost palpable in his voice.
    Tessa thought that he and whoever he was talking to—the follower? Someone else?—were probably several feet away. She couldn’t get too close for fear of running into one of them in the darkness.
    Footsteps sounded, coming back toward Tessa.
    Desperately, Tessa felt down lower on the side of the vehicle. Maybe she could hide underneath it. Lower, lower … her fingers hit some sort of latch, and a door slid open with a tiny whoosh of air.
    The footsteps were getting closer.
    You don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on here,
Tessa’s brain screamed at her.
It’s something dangerous—hide!
    Tessa slipped in through the open door. She felt a seat before her—a leather seat, maybe?—and she scooted past it. She felt around, discovering a wide, flat, open space behind the seat. Maybe this was a van? Then Tessa found a padded column in the open space, and she shifted over to crouch on the other side of that.
    Just in time, too, because the next time she heard the voices, they seemed to be coming from the open doorway.
    “I know how to operate it perfectly well,” Gideon said.
    There was a soft thump—Gideon stepping into the vehicle?
    “We’d hate to see you destroy your investment,” the stranger replied, and this time he was close enough that Tessa could understand every word. His voice was oily and untrust-worthy. “We have your best interest at heart.”
    Gideon snorted.
    “I didn’t pay you enough for that,” he muttered.
    Something clicked, and the barest amount of light glowed from near the seat in the front. Tessa huddled lower. Her foot touched something soft—a blanket?—and she pulled it over herself.
    There was