winter. I saw Winter before she saw me. Her wild hair was blowing in the wind and although she didn’t seem to wear so many drifty, floaty things these days, her boots and her way of walking made her stand out. She saw me and ran over to me, the locket—the one I’d helped her get back from her thieving ex-friend—jiggling on its chain. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘You look wrecked.’ ‘Big night last night,’ I said, and quickly filled her in on the raid on Rafe’s house and the search through Mum’s stuff. Then I noticed Winter’s eyes, and how anxious and fearful she was looking. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ‘Boges will be here any second,’ she said. I could read in her face that she was dying to tell me something. ‘We may as well wait for him.’ Right on cue, Boges appeared at the top of the clock tower stairs. ‘There he is,’ she said, waving to him. Once the three of us had huddled together in a quiet spot, Winter began to explain the urgent meeting.
