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access to the leader myself, years ago. It can be done."
    "Really?" Her eyes widened, showing genuine interest. "Tell me more." But Nathaniel had regained control of himself. Safe, secret, secure. The fewer tidbits of information he divulged the better. He cast his eyes across the lawns.
    "I see Ms. Whitwell has arrived unattended," he said. "As her loyal apprentice I should make myself useful. If you would excuse me, Ms. Farrar?"
    Nathaniel left the party early and returned to his office in a rage. He promptly retired to a private summoning chamber and blurted out the incantation. The two foliots, still in orphan guise, appeared. They looked disconsolate and shifty.
    "Well?" he snapped.
    "It's no good, master," the blond orphan said. "The street kids just ignore us."
    "If we're lucky," the tousled orphan agreed. "Those that don't tend to throw things at us."
    "What?" Nathaniel was outraged.
    "Oh, cans, bottles, small rocks and things."
    "I don't mean that! I mean what's happened to a spot of common humanity? Those children should be deported in chains! What's the matter with them? You're both sweet, you're both thin, you're both faintly pathetic—surely they'd take you under their wings."
    The two orphans shook their pretty little heads. "Nope. They treat us with revulsion. It's almost as if they can see us as we really are."
    "Impossible. They don't have lenses, do they? You must be doing it wrong. Are you sure you're not giving the game away somehow? You're not floating or growing horns or doing something else stupid when you see them, are you?"
    "No, sir, honest we're not."
    "No, sir. Although Clovis did once forget to remove his tail."
    "You sneak! Sir—that's a lie."
    Nathaniel clapped a hand to his head. "I don't care! I don't care. But it'll be the Stipples for you both if you don't succeed soon. Try different ages, try going about separately, try giving yourself small disabilities to raise their sympathy—but no infectious diseases, as I told you before. For now, you're dismissed. Get out of my sight."
    Back at his desk, Nathaniel grimly took stock. It was clear the foliots were unlikely to succeed. They were a lowly demonic rank... perhaps that was the prob lem—they weren't clever enough to fully impersonate a human's character. Certainly the notion that the children could see through their semblance was absurd; he dismissed it out of hand.
    But if they failed, what next? Each week, new Resistance crimes took place. Magicians' houses were burgled, cars robbed, shops and offices attacked. The pattern was obvious enough: opportunistic crimes, carried out by small, fast-moving units who somehow managed to stay clear of patrolling vigilance spheres and other demons. All very well. But still no breakthrough came.
    Nathaniel knew that Mr. Tallow's patience was running out. Little teasing comments, such as those from Clive Jenkins and Jane Farrar, suggested that other people knew this, too. He tapped his pencil on his notepad, his thoughts drifting to the three members of the Resistance he had seen. Fred and Stanley... the memory of them made him grind his teeth and tap the pencil ever harder. He would catch them one day, see if he didn't. And there was the girl, too. Kitty. Dark-haired, fierce, a face glimpsed in the shadows. The leader of the trio. Were they in London still? Or had they fled somewhere far off, to lurk beyond the reaches of the law? All he needed was a clue, a single measly clue. Then he'd pounce on them, faster than thought.
    But he had nothing whatsoever to go on.
    "Who are you?" he said to himself. "Where are you hiding?"
    His pencil broke in his hand.

3
     
    Kitty
     
    It was a night ripe for enchantment. A huge full moon, resplendent with the tinctures of apricots and wheat, and surrounded by a pulsing halo, held sovereignty over the desert sky. A few wispy clouds fled before its majestic face, leaving the heavens naked, glistening blue-black, like the belly of some cosmic whale. In the