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men from the Night Police keeping themselves just visible enough to prevent trouble.
    And all around the square, the car lights swirled, carrying ministers and other magicians from their offices in Parliament to their clubs at St. James's. I was near the hub of a great wheel of power that extended over an empire, and here, with luck, I would remain undetected until I was finally summoned.
    Or possibly not.
    I had sauntered over to a particularly tatty-looking stall and was examining its fare when I had the uneasy feeling that I was being watched. I turned my head a little and scanned the crowd. An amorphous mass. I checked the planes. No hidden dangers: a bovine herd, all of it dull and human. I turned back to the stall and absently picked up My Magic Mirror™, a piece of cheap glass glued into a frame of pink plastic and feebly decorated with wands, cats, and wizards' hats.
    There it was again! I turned my body sharply. Through a gap in the crowd directly behind me, I could see a short, plump female magician, a bunch of kids clustered round a stand, and a policeman eyeing them suspiciously. No one seemed to have the slightest interest in me. But I knew what I'd felt. Next time I'd be ready. I made a big show of considering the mirror. ANOTHER GREAT GIFT FROM LONDON, MAGIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD! screamed the label on its back. MADE IN TAIW—
     
    Then the feeling came again. I swiveled quicker than a cat and—success! I caught the starers eyeball to eyeball. Two of them, a boy and a girl, from within the gaggle of kids. They didn't have time to drop their gaze. The boy was in his midteens; acne was laying siege to his face with some success. The girl was younger but her eyes were cold and hard. I gazed back. What did I care? They were human, they couldn't see what I was. Let them stare.
    After a few seconds they couldn't handle it; they looked away. I shrugged and made to move off. There was a loud cough from the man on the stand. I replaced My Magic Mirror™ carefully on his tray, gave him a cheesy smile, and went my way.
    The children followed me.
    I caught sight of them at the next booth, watching from behind a candyfloss stand. They were moving in a huddle—maybe five or six of them, I couldn't be sure. What did they want? A mugging? If so, why pick me out? There were dozens of better, fatter, richer candidates here. To test this I cozied up to a very small, wealthy-looking tourist with a giant camera and thick spectacles. If I'd wanted to mug someone, he'd have been top of my list. But when I left him and went on a loop through the crowd, the children followed right along too.
    Weird. And annoying. I didn't want to make a change and fly off; I was too weary. All I wanted was to be left in peace. I still had many hours to go before the dawn.
    I speeded up; the children did so too. Long before we'd done three circuits of the square, I'd had enough. A couple of policemen had watched us beetling around and they were likely to halt us soon, if only to stop themselves getting dizzy. It was time to go. Whatever the kids were after, I did not want any more attention drawn to me.
    There was a subway close by. I hotfooted it down the steps, ignored the entrance to the Underground, and came up again on the other side of the road, opposite the central square. The kids had vanished—maybe they were in the subway. Now was my chance. I slipped round a street corner, along past a bookshop, and ducked down an alley. I waited a little there, in the shadows among the dumper bins.
     
    A couple of cars drove past the end of the alley. No one came after me.
    I allowed myself a brief smile. I thought I'd lost them.
    I was wrong.

7
     
    The Egyptian boy wandered off along the alley, made a couple of right-angle turns and came out in one of the many roads that radiate from Trafalgar Square. I was revising my plans as I went.
    Forget the square. Too many irritating children around. But perhaps if I found a shelter close by, the amulet's