No, I was different, I had changed. Each twist and turn I knew like the back of my hand. Some chambers swelled to impossible proportions, others had crumbled to little more than dust and debris. Tunnels flowed through intersections, forgotten ticket halls, and dead-end tracks. As though someone had stirred up neglected parts of London’s Underground system, stations and all, and buried them. Some of it was real and solid beneath my bare feet. Other parts seemed deeply wrong; with shadows so thick they might swallow me whole. Things waited in the dark, hideous, unseen, forever hungry things sent here from Faerie, discarded and forgotten.The tunnels changed, softened, warmed. Light filtered through in places, in others bare electric bulbs fought off the dark. My palm itched, seeking something. I curled my fingers into a fist. I needed weapons.What must I look like? A young girl, barefooted, dressed in pink leggings and a silly top; nothing really. My outer shell was camouflage. I was the most deadly thing in these tunnels, besides the queen herself.
