The Light Within (Shadow and Light Duology #2)

9. Cinn

nine

Cinn

I f someone had told Cinn a week ago that he’d be seeing his mother on Christmas Eve, he’d have died laughing.

But there he was, travelling in a crowded, noisy London Underground tube carriage, his nose pressed into a stranger’s armpit, on the way to see her.

There had been no telephone number in Madame Sinclair’s file. Only a home address, and a work address. Their first port of call had been her house. A new one—not the one of Cinn’s childhood, although it was only a twenty-minute bus journey or so between this and their old digs in Croydon.

When the moment came to walk up to the ground-floor flat, Cinn’s legs trembled uncontrollably. Every step felt heavier and heavier, as if the gravity of the past was pulling him back. What if his mum slammed the door in his face? Or didn’t even recognise him? Sweat dampened his forehead by the time they reached the door.

The old lady who answered informed them Esme Saunders had moved last month.

Cinn almost cried in relief.

Well. That’s that, then. It isn’t to be. Not this time. Oh well.

But no such luck. The others insisted they go to the hospital where she worked to see if they could source her current address.

“She might even be on shift,” Elliot said cheerfully, and just like that, Cinn’s nausea returned in full swing .

After the fun and games of Cinn’s family reunion, they were supposed to be catching the afternoon matinee of a pantomime with Darcy’s parents, so Darcy and Elliot were tagging along for the ride. While it was nice to travel all together, the amount of moral support was actually making Cinn’s nerves even worse. He certainly didn’t think he’d be up for a pantomime afterwards, but it had all been too much to explain to Mrs. Beaumont when she’d handed out the tickets that morning.

Maybe he could hang out at the theatre bar. He’d likely need the drinks.

The trek up to Westminster on the Northern Line to St. Thomas’s Hospital passed quicker than Cinn wanted, even with the number of sticky bodies pressing against him in the carriage.

Before he knew it, he was dragging himself towards the hospital entrance. A fine mist drizzled down on them. Seemed like an ominous sign.

“Hold on.” Darcy pulled his arm back. “There’s a library on the other side of the street. Elliot and I can see if she’s in the White Pages phonebook.”

Agreeing to reconvene by the fountain, Cinn found himself fixated on the black lettering of the hospital sign as it loomed over him. How was it even possible that his mother worked here? She’d never shown any interest in medicine before, let alone caring for the community or shit like that. In fact, she’d ignored their neighbours and given him paper towels in lieu of plasters. One time she’d even tried to cure his cold with boiled water and the ‘Italian mixed herbs’ they used in every dish.

He was getting himself worked up, and that wouldn’t do. He wasn’t looking to meet her to resolve his childhood trauma. No, he was here for answers, and answers only.

“If we do track her down, there are some ground rules you’ll have to follow if you want to be there.”

Julien’s eyes widened. Had he expected Cinn to say he wanted to meet her alone ?

Well, newsflash, he was way too chicken-shit for that.

Julien may be a fucking nightmare, but he was Cinn’s fucking nightmare, and he needed the layer of armour that his presence offered him.

“Rules you say? We both know how much I love following them.”

“Shut up and listen. Don’t get on at her for stuff that happened back then. It’s all in the past now. Alright? Else you’re not coming.”

He met Julien’s gaze fiercely, jaw set. But Cinn’s sharp tone clashed with what his eyes undoubtedly communicated— please don’t make me do this alone.

“ Oui ,” he said softly. “I understand.”

Yes, Julien understood him completely.

The hospital lobby was bustling, the low hum of conversation and the overpowering scent of disinfectant surrounding them as they joined a lengthy queue, to inch closer to the receptionist’s desk at a snail’s pace.

The wait was torturous. Cinn rehearsed possible lines in his head.

Two people in front of him, then one.

He fiddled with the cuff of his beanie.

“Want me to talk?” asked Julien.

Cinn shook his head. He was perfectly capable of this basic task.

The man in front of him walked away from the desk, muttering obscenities under his breath.

“Next,” a burly woman called, her eyebrows so thick and bushy they were like two fat grey slugs. “Next! How can I help?”

Cinn jolted himself forward, Julien sliding in alongside him.

He opened his mouth. “I was wondering if you could help me with something. I’m looking for the address of one of your employees. At least, I think she works here…”

“We can’t give out personal information.”

“I know, but she’s my… my… mother?” The word felt dry and sticky on Cinn’s tongue. “Her name is Esme Saunders. ”

The receptionist gave no flicker of recognition, only pierced him with beady eyes.

Damn it, why hadn’t he thought to bring his passport along? He could have used it to prove they shared a surname.

“Are you listed as an emergency contact?”

Very unlikely . He shook his head.

The receptionist raised a large, sceptical eyebrow, which Cinn couldn’t help but fixate on. “Is there some sort of emergency?”

“Umm, no,” said Cinn.

“Yes, there is,” said Julien.

Cinn stepped on his foot.

Another lady, who’d been busy filing paperwork in cabinets, suddenly stepped forward to join the receptionist. She narrowed her eyes at Cinn and Julien, her withered face further wrinkling in distaste. “Esme Saunders? What are you two playing at? She doesn’t have a son.”

The entire hospital seemed to hold its breath. The distant beeping of monitors and murmurs of staff faded into a weighted silence as a thousand pinpricks stabbed into Cinn’s heart.

Obviously, she wouldn’t be going around shouting about the son taken away from her. Even so, the words still stung. ‘Yes, she fucking does!’ he wanted to shout. Instead, he strained his facial muscles to lift his heavy cheeks into a neutral expression.

Julien pressed a firm hand into the small of his back, using his thumb to rub small circles into it.

The receptionist glanced behind them at the growing queue. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move along.”

An ear-splitting shriek ripped through the hospital lobby.

Spinning on his heels, Cinn quickly found the source of the commotion. An elderly man was shaking his leg, which was soaked with coffee, if the empty paper cup and brown splatter on the tiled floor was anything to go by. The man shook a furious fist at a female nurse in turquoise scrubs standing next to him.

Cinn gawked at the woman.

The woman with her hands over her mouth.

The woman with the chestnut-brown curls twirled into a tight bun.

The woman who he’d recognise anywhere, even after a decade apart.

Bringing her hands down, she mouthed more than said his name—‘Cinnamon’—rolling it around on her tongue, tasting its flavour for the first time in aeons.

Then, his mother stood frozen, disbelief etched into her features as she stared at him, as if seeing a ghost. She wrung trembling hands together, a slight quiver in her lips. Was she going to cry? Oh God, please don’t let her cry.

Without another word, she dropped to her knees, hastily trying to mop up the puddle of coffee with napkins from her purse, her movements frantic and uncoordinated. “So clumsy of me!” she gasped.

Julien’s head flicked to Cinn, clearly waiting for him to make the next move. But now it was Cinn’s turn to freeze. His throat was unbearably tight, so tight he couldn’t breathe.

Battalions of conflicting emotions warred within him.

Shock that they’d actually managed to find her.

The raw ache of abandonment.

Relief that he’d never have to wonder what if .

Julien nudged him gently with his elbow. His mum had finished cleaning the floor and stared again like a deer caught in headlights.

One deep breath in. Cinn took a hesitant step forward. “Hi.”

An awkward silence followed, and Cinn had to resist the temptation to close his eyes and wait for the ground to swallow him up.

Julien extended his hand. For a moment his mother stared at it, then grabbed onto it to shake it with vigour, a drowning person offered a life raft .

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Julien,” Julien said, ever so calm, ever so casual.

The effect was like a drug, the tension instantly evaporating. The tightness in Cinn’s throat lessened as his mum beamed at Julien.

“Shall we go and replace your coffee?” Julien continued. He nodded to the café across the lobby. “Is it any good here?”

“Yes!” Her eyes drifted back to Cinn. Her voice softened. “Yes. Let’s go there. I’ve got twenty minutes left of my break.” She checked the fob watch attached to her uniform.

Cinn still couldn’t believe it. His mum, a nurse . That felt like the most unbelievable thing out of everything.

She led the way to the café, walking slightly too quickly.

“You’re not complaining to the barista if it’s not up to your standards,” he hissed to Julien, to dispel the tension in his gut.

“No promises.”

Julien ushered them to a quiet table in the furthest corner, then insisted he’d get the coffees. Cinn couldn’t help but watch Julien’s back as he left Cinn alone with the stranger opposite him. He wasn’t ready to face her. He needed more time.

“So…” his mother started.

Cinn dug his nails into his palm. “So you’re a nurse now?” he blurted out. It just seemed like such a strange choice for someone who’d spent his childhood treating fevers with crystals.

“Yes.” The proud edge to her voice softened him. “For several years.”

“That’s cool. You have to work Christmas Eve, though. That’s not as cool.”

Stop rambling.

Smiling, his mother replied, “Someone has to. And the other staff have young children. ”

“Speaking of Christmas Eve…” Heart pounding, Cinn unzipped his rucksack. They’d spent a good half an hour that morning making them, and now he may as well hand it over.

He held up a crown made of wrapping paper. Green with shiny red foil swirls. Sharp, jagged points, as even as he could make them. Of course, the ones Julien made looked like masterpieces, but his own looked rather professional, if he did say so himself.

“This is for you.”

Her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her cheeks, unwiped. It was like she’d been holding back, and now a dam had burst.

Cinn was still holding the hat in mid-air when Julien set the tray down. “Should I…” he started, looking back towards the hospital lobby, but Cinn grabbed his jacket and yanked him down into the seat next to him.

With gentle, reverent hands, his mother took the hat from Cinn. “Thank you. It’s lovely. I can’t believe you still do this.”

Had his mother’s voice changed, or was it simply that he didn’t remember it properly?

“It’s so good to see you,” she said softly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You look… well. All grown up. Are you doing alright?” Before Cinn could respond, she continued, “I tried to contact you, you know.”

“What?” This was news to Cinn. “When?”

“It was also around Christmas time. You must have been seventeen.”

He’d spent that Christmas behind bars, but if she didn’t know that part, he wasn’t going to tell her.

“But that stupid social worker! She just made everything so difficult. So you didn’t get my letter, then? I gave it to her to forward to you.”

“No,” Cinn whispered, his eyes falling to his drink. The room went fuzzy at the edges of his consciousness. The lump in his throat came back with a vengeance .

He’d thought about his mother every day at Feltham Young Offenders. Sometimes, he became melancholic, missing her warm laugh and the way they’d dance around the kitchen, remembering their life together through an idealised lens. Other times, he’d worked himself up to fucking furious, angry enough he’d punched walls. Because if she’d had her shit together, he’d never have gotten involved with the crowd one of his foster brothers introduced him to. He’d never have been on that forged-banknotes job. He’d never have been hiding with them in a garden shed, with the police knocking on the door.

Yes, it had been far easier to blame her for his landing in jail than to accept responsibility.

To hear now that she hadn’t completely abandoned him, erased him from her mind like he’d never existed, and had even tried to contact him? It was too much.

The walls of the café closed in further. His breath grew shallow. The coffee cup blurred as the world tilted.

The gold band around his wrist heated, almost to the point of pain.

Calm the fuck down.

His mother carried on talking, but the words were just noise. He pointedly focussed on the bubbles, slowly dissipating within the foam in his coffee. Then, his mother’s reaction be damned, his hand slipped off the table, fingers reaching out for Julien’s. He needed an anchor.

Julien’s hand clamped around his like a vise. Within a heartbeat, he was grounded. The chaos in his mind settled, replaced by a soothing calmness radiating from Julien all the way through him. Every stroke of Julien’s thumb over the back of his hand had his pulse falling steadier and steadier.

“I actually came to talk to you about something,” he spat out, interrupting her. He couldn’t bear any more conversation that skirted too close to his battle wounds. Not today, not this time.

“Oh?” His mum blinked in surprise. “What is it? ”

Without any fanfare, he got straight to the point. “My dad.”

“Oh?” she said again, face falling like a house of cards. “ Oh .”

“So…” Cinn began. He really should have prepared for this bit. “I sort of live in Switzerland now. In this” —oh, God —“special place. And I found out that my dad was there, too? Just before he died?”

For a moment he held his breath, fearing that he’d got it wrong and she didn’t know his father was dead. But his mother only looked confused.

“Switzerland…” She rolled the word around on her tongue. “What on earth was he doing there?”

“I also found out that we’ve got something in common. That we share the same… ability.”

His mother’s face revealed nothing. In fact, her eyebrows knitted even tighter together.

“You know…” Cinn shifted uncomfortably. Did she know? “I don’t know what he would have called it back then. How he would have explained it. He wouldn’t have had the right words for it until he got to Auri, just like me. But sometimes I… leave this world, and visit another. And sometimes, I see dead people there.”

There. The words were out. Now he only had to deal with the consequences. Maybe she’d march him up to the psych ward and lock him up.

“Remember after that car crash? When you thought I’d passed out from shock?”

Very slowly, his mother shook her head. “This has always happened to you?”

“Falling in the river set it off. After that, it only happened a few times before I… moved out.”

The loaded silence sat between them.

Julien squeezed his hand tighter.

“I thought…” his mother eventually said, pressing one hand to her mouth, and running the other through her ponytail. “ Oh, my God. I thought he was sick.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He told me the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Oh my God,” she repeated, as more tears cascaded down her cheeks.

Fuck . He didn’t want this . Should he do something? Hug her?

“I told him he needed to get help,” she whispered. “I’m the reason he left us. I’m the reason you… you…”

Julien passed her a silk handkerchief that Cinn had never seen before, materialising it from thin air.

“He was acting so crazy,” she continued, an edge to her voice, a plea to understand her. “It just got worse and worse and I just couldn’t cope any more. Not between looking after you and him.” She paused to blow her dripping nose. “We had you so young. I always thought, if only we’d been just a couple of years older, then everything would have been different. I thought the stress of having to provide for us drove him to madness.”

Cinn searched for words that didn’t come.

“Sometime after he left, someone phoned me,” she said slowly, as if forming connections. “I don’t think they said Switzerland, but they sounded foreign. They told me he’d died. And that was that.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Cinn blurted out.

Now he knew all this, there would be a tiny part of him that would blame her, of course. He wouldn’t be able to help it. But there wasn’t any point in her beating herself up over it. Not over twenty years later. Not now, when they’d just reconnected, when they had the rest of their lives to try to forge something together out of the rubble they’d been left with.

“There’s no way you could have known. It sounds bonkers, even to my own ears.” Cinn managed a meek smile he hoped would comfort her.

His mum offered him a watery smile. “That’s kind, honey.”

The rain outside pelted the café window with a suddenly increased vigour, reaching deafening decibels. “Did he ever bring anyone or anything back, though?” he shouted, battling against the noise .

“What?” she shouted back, eyeing the rivulets of water streaming down the glass.

“Did my dad ever return back from one of his… visits with something from that realm?” Murderous ghosts? Demon cats? Nope, just me?

Her mouth opened in surprise. “I don’t think so.” Her eyes narrowed. “Well, there was one time…”

Cinn leaned forward. “Yeah?”

“He was in the bedroom, talking to someone, even though there was no phone in there. I tried to open the door, but he’d locked it. He screamed at me to go away, like a mad man. This was right at the end, just before he left. I didn’t even bother to question him about it, I don’t think. I was just… getting through it all, back then.”

This is fucking horrific.

No wonder Cinn’s poor mother had cracked. He pictured her back then—young, poor, a demanding baby to care for, and a partner slowly descending into madness.

“I have to go,” she said, glancing at her fob watch. “I’m so sorry… but my patients need me.” She stood up.

“Mum?”

She held his gaze, eyes wide. It was the first time he’d called her that today. A name she hadn’t heard in a decade.

“I’m proud of you. For… you know.” Cinn gestured to the hospital, hoping she would glean, ‘for sorting your shit out, for becoming a fucking nurse,’ out of it.

His mum nodded, pressed her hand to her mouth like she was suppressing a sob. She reached into her bag and brought out her set of keys. Her fingers quickly found what she was looking for.

She flashed Cinn some sort of coin. It was green with a gold triangle in the middle, with the numeral V dead in the centre.

The shock of what she was showing him delayed his reply .

“Five years?” he said, his voice choking. His mum, who’d had at least one drink every day of his childhood that he could remember, had been clean for five years ?

He jumped to his feet and threw his arms around her. Her soft gasp of surprise tickled his ear as he clutched her tight. He was taller than her now, but he hugged her like a child, clinging to her like he never wanted to let go.

But he did.

He stepped back, blinking back the hot prickles behind his own eyes.

Rummaging around in her bag again, she brought out a scrap of paper and scribbled a phone number on it. “You’ll have to come round before you go back. And your… friend, of course. Julien, wasn’t it?” She beamed at Julien, the smile a touch too bright, proving something.

Julien had been the quietest Cinn had ever known him to be in the history of their entire existence together. It was unsettling. Creepy, in fact.

He could only imagine how much it was paining him.

An overwhelming urge to kiss him, fiercely, struck Cinn. But he tucked it away for later.

Cinn’s mother turned her smile back towards him. It was at once both heartbreakingly familiar and strangely foreign, as if time had reshaped it into something different. Something new.

“It was so good—”

An intense wail sounded from just outside the café. Next came gasps of shock, then a flurry of hushed, concerned murmurs.

They stepped back into the lobby, stopping dead at the sight that was causing the commotion: three people staggering towards the reception desk, surrounded by a growing audience that had cleared a wide semicircle around them. A young woman clutched her side, her fingers slick with blood from a deep wound, while an older man limped beside her, his arm hanging at an unnatural angle. The third, a teenage boy, had a gash across his face, his eyes wide with terror as he stumbled forward.

He looked towards the hospital staff. “Help!”

The less-than-helpful receptionist from earlier stood up from her desk. “The emergency department is—”

“Help,” the teenager repeated, falling to both knees and clutching his stomach. Blood pooled around his fingers.

“I’ll go see who I can find,” Cinn’s mother said, disappearing into the crowd.

Julien snaked an arm around Cinn’s, tugging him to close the space between them.

A knot formed in Cinn’s stomach, one that grew tighter with every passing second.

“Hey!” Darcy’s face, with Elliot standing close behind, appeared beside them. “We saw these three from across the road. The old man was screaming about invisible demons throwing people about. Pretty loudly.”

Elliot pushed past the throng, beelining straight towards the teenager who’d now half-collapsed sideways onto the floor. He knelt down, gently moving his hands away from the wound.

A female doctor shoved Elliot away with force. “What are you doing?” she snapped, before barking orders to several staff just behind them. Three stretchers were placed on the floor. The receptionist barked that the crowd ‘move along please’, giving Cinn in particular a pointed look. He had a new enemy for life, apparently.

Wild-eyed, Elliot lowered his voice to hiss, “I knew it. His wound has umbra contaminant in it.”

“What?” asked Cinn, but as he said it, his mind flickered back to the umbraphage attack they’d witnessed in Seville—the blackened veins of the officer who’d been treated by the paramedics, the tiny flecks of black ink that looked like they were swimming in his blood. Madame Sinclair had said that it made the wounds difficult to close, poisoned them, and often gave their victims terrifying hallucinations and delusions.

The teenager let out a harrowing wail as a team of doctors marched him down a corridor, out of sight. Was this poor boy about to experience such a thing? Cinn was lucky his own encounter hadn’t resulted in that outcome. Then again, he had been imprisoned in some hellish version of the shadowrealm…

“Which direction did they come from?” Julien snapped, eyes darting to the hospital entrance, where the torrential downpour was intensifying—sheets of rain pounded the pavement, obscuring visibility and sending pedestrians scurrying for cover.

“The old guy was shouting about Westminster Bridge.” Water dripped from Elliot’s soaking wet curls. He hesitated. “I’m sure the alarm is sounding back at HQ, but it’ll take a while for them to get through the Baths. It’s Christmas Eve—skeleton staff only. Plus, we’ve got bare minimum gendarmes on shift, with the rest on call. Fuck!” He slammed his fist into a nearby column.

Cinn winced. This was an Elliot he’d never seen before—frantic, a raw, urgent energy dictating his actions.

Conflict passed over his troubled expression. “Look,” Elliot said, “I have to go. Swore an oath, in fact. But as for you three…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Julien snapped. “As if I’d let you go alone. That’s quite frankly insulting.”

Before Julien even considered ordering him and Darcy to stay put, Cinn caught her eye and suggested, “Darcy and I will come but stay way back.”

“That way, we can brief the gendarmerie as soon as they arrive,” Darcy added.

Julien’s lips curled into a thin line. He and Cinn entered a staring match, a silent battle of wills that Cinn refused to back down on .

“Fine,” Julien said through gritted teeth, storming towards the entrance. “Let’s go, then.”

The sky was an ominous, murky grey, the light levels so dim it felt almost like nighttime.

Westminster Bridge might have been only round the corner, but the rain turned the trek into a marathon. As they sprinted across slick pavement that was more puddle than concrete, a squall brought more water lashing down upon them with relentless fury, drenching them to the bone and blurring the cityscape into a watery haze.

Elliot, leading the charge, jogged backwards, shouting, “The Baths for this side of London are close to here—underneath Waterloo Station, hidden in the Leake Street Arches. So it shouldn’t be too long until they arrive.”

But that would only be the handful of officers actually at Auri today. Most of the gendarmerie would be at home enjoying Christmas Eve, relaxing with their families. How quickly could they possibly get here?

For every two steps they took, a howling, wildly strong wind pushed them back.

“This isn’t normal weather!” Darcy might have shouted over the deafening gale, followed by something about a hurricane.

London was in chaos: umbrellas turned inside out, people darting for cover, other people shouting and pointing in the direction of the bridge. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Cinn attempted to regulate his erratic breathing. He only had moments left to prepare for what was to come. He was about to encounter an unknown number of umbraphages. His previous two experiences with them hadn’t been pleasant. The sensible thing would be to run , run like the wind in the other direction and keep running. That’s what any sane person would do .

But Cinn wasn’t a sane person. Never had been. And he wasn’t about to go and cower in some corner when the lives of the people he cared most about were on the line.

More injured people staggered past them, haunted looks of terror plain on their faces. One middle-aged woman caught sight of the four of them running towards the danger. She was wearing a yellow mackintosh, raindrops washing off traces of blood. She gave them several violent shakes of her head, throwing her arm out to block their path.

“What are you doing?” she screamed in Elliot’s face as he tried to push her out of the way.

Darting around her, they increased their pace.

A blood-curdling scream pierced the air, followed by a thunderous crash.

Mere metres from them, an enormous truck had overturned in the middle of the road, its twisted metal frame skidding across the rain-soaked tarmac and blocking off access to the road leading to the bridge.

“ Putain ! That’s all we need!”

A woman in St. Thomas’s hospital scrubs darted towards the truck, closely followed by more staff.

Cinn couldn’t take his eyes off the truck’s driver, the sound and sight of the accident taking him back a decade to the only other car crash he’d witnessed. As if sharing in his memory, the warding band warmed.

Julien grabbed Cinn’s arm. Yanked hard. “Come on!”

Thunderclaps. Mighty splashes of puddles as their footsteps pounded. Shouts and cries of pure panic, muffled by the ruthless, incessant downpour.

Then, in the near distance, through the haze, the bridge came into view.

And so did two dead bodies.

Forms illuminated by the dim glow of streetlights, they lay sprawled across the wet pavement, motionless, the chaotic scene around them a chilling contrast to their stillness.

Cinn found his eyes drawn to Julien’s as he ran alongside him, his own fear reflecting back at him. Shielding his head from the rain with his hand, Julien’s eyes, as grey as the stormy sky above them, grew wide, his expression tender as he reached for Cinn’s hand.

“Cinn—”

Cinn cut him off with a brief press of his lips against Julien’s. “Later,” he promised, directly into his ear. Because there would be a later. There had to be.

Westminster Bridge now loomed ahead, a hint of its Gothic arches and ornate lamp posts visible through sheets of rain. A flash of lightning split open the stormy sky, casting fleeting glimpses of something far onto the bridge. Something dark. Something shadowy. Something that shot an instant jolt of terror through Cinn’s every limb, slowing him down.

Two? Three? It was impossible to tell how many umbraphages hovered threateningly in the air, the amorphous entities writhing their tentacle-like appendages in the air amidst the swirling rain.

“There’s still people over there!”

Indeed, there was a sprinkle of blurry figures attempting to dash across the bridge.

“What the fuck are they doing running towards them? Why are they being so stupid?” shouted Cinn.

A shadowy limb snatched up one runner, to shake them in the air like a rag doll.

Darcy threw him a quick, confused look. “They can’t see them, Cinn. They have no idea what’s going on!”

“What?!”

The information didn’t have time to sink in—they were there, at the entrance to the bridge. It seemed like they’d reached the heart of the storm, because here the wind was even more vicious, ripping against Cinn’s skin. His beanie flew off his head, to be caught by Elliot. Cinn stuffed it into his rucksack.

A colossal whomp reverberated through the air, followed by the sound of rushing water. A tidal wave rose out of the Thames, a wall of muddy grey froth rising as tall as the bridge’s central arch.

Cinn pressed a hand to his mouth to suppress a scream. “Holy shit!”

The wave crashed into the bridge with a thunderous roar, a smack against the tarmac. Shrieking was just audible over the din. Cinn’s heart lurched. The poor people still on the bridge—he couldn’t help imagining the crunch of their fragile bones as they were crushed against the parapet.

“Over there!”

Elliot motioned over to the right, where the bridge’s entrance was flanked by a lion statue. It towered above them, its silent, wise gaze cautioning them not to proceed. Elliot ushered them all into the statue’s weak shadow, then grabbed both Darcy’s and Cinn’s arms. “You two stay here and keep an eye out for the gendarmerie’s arrival, and keep back any idiot who’s running in the wrong direction.”

Julien and Elliot wore identical grimaces as they readied themselves, Elliot rolling on the heels of his feet.

A coldness flooded through Cinn, not just from the icy rain. A tightening chokehold of panic began to grip him. Horrific images of the two bloodied dead bodies from earlier, now wearing Julien and Elliot’s faces, flashed through his mind. This plan was a bad idea. He couldn’t lose them, not either of them, not when he’d just found them. It simply wasn’t an option. They should all stay together, right here, and await the assistance surely on the way.

Reaching an arm forward, he opened his mouth to tell Julien just that.

Nothing came out. He tried again. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, a lead weight anchored to the bottom .

His outstretched hand fell. His face slackened, as if drugged. He stumbled backwards, falling against the hard stone plinth, his skin scraping against it.

Three concerned faces swam before him.

WE SEE YOU, SHADOW

The layered, deep, booming voice came from directly inside his head.

A cold, creeping sensation began to crawl through his limbs. What started as pins and needles soon grew into a fiery, aching burn, numbing his muscles and seizing control of his body.

No, no, no!

His body’s instinctive reaction was to reach for Julien, but his arm remained petrified by his side.

He lurched sideways, stumbling through Elliot and Darcy. His vision blurred and darkened at the edges, a dark haze clouding his sight.

COME TO US, SHADOW

He felt his legs move, not by his own will, but pulled by a puppet master, propelling him forward, step by step, towards the bridge. His fading mind screamed in protest, but his body betrayed him, marching steadily into the heart of the storm.