City workers have all gone home, and the twisting canyons hemmed in by high-rises are not on the way to anywhere. Traffic passing through the city blasts past on wider thoroughfares, and the narrow streets that are so busy by day become a ghost town. The Red Queen drove her horses slowly along the road, the ancient design of the war chariot beneath her feet strikingly at odds with the shiny modern buildings towering over her on either side. Her daughters flanked her, scouring each side street and alley as they passed, looking for Edie—or anything that might give a clue as to where she was. Both daughters had the intense look of their mother. They were fierce, mostly silent, girls. But when they needed to move, they did so firmly and decisively. They had her fearlessness running in their veins, but whereas their mother allowed her fire to blaze freely, the girls chose to keep that fire banked up quietly. The one on the left heard it before the others. She touched her mother’s arm, and the Queen instantly reined in the horses.
