Part jail and part courthouse, if walls could talk this place would scream in horror thanks to the events it’s witnessed through the centuries. It’s a fortress designed to both protect and imprison. You can’t simply walk onto the Tower’s ground, not unless you work there, so we edge along the bank of the Thames to the watery entrance reserved for the condemned. Prisoners too high profile to walk through the front doors are ferried through a sunken gate, as if they were crossing the River Styx. Night has crept in around us and it’s a new moon, making everything that much darker. I stand between Nicholas and Philippe; Tolliver lingers by the water. He seems lost in his own reflection, like Narcissus. I’ve yet to see him smile and part of me wants to tell him a bawdy joke just to see if I can elicit one from him. Nicholas holds my hand tightly and when I tug at it, he looks down at me. “Everything is going to be okay, darling,” he whispers, then leans down to kiss the top of my head.
