I was in my bedroom. Uncle Alex had told me to stay there until all the mess could be cleared away. I think he also wanted me in my room so I wouldn’t ask any questions. Or see whatever they were going to do to Daniel. I sat there staring out of the window. At the crisscrossing rails carrying traffic. At the distant floating bone that was the New Parliament building, directly above the old one, which had flooded and evacuated many years ago, though Big Ben had been left relatively intact. The bone contained what Dad always used to call ‘a joke of a government’, as most of the politicians who worked there were also getting money from one of the main technology giants, and significantly more money from Castle than from Sempura. Knowing this, and seeing that giant sphere going round and round with the blue castle on it, it was very easy for me to feel like Uncle owned the whole city. That he was a kind of king. And a king with far more power and wealth than King Henry IX. King of the Castle.
