“St. Pancras will do quite nicely,” Marsden said.

“Nicely for what?” I asked.

“Oh, you’ll see, girl. You’ll see.”

Michael looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Do we have to keep him around?”

“Safer to keep him where we can see him,” I replied. But it wasn’t just that.

Someone had wanted me here in London. There’d been no guarantee Edward would talk me into coming, so I was guessing that the bad dreams sent through the golem had been an additional goad to force my hand—was that Alice’s part? Whoever it was had tricked Purcell or gained some kind of hold over him so he’d stopped disputing the customs bill and used the charmed note Jakob took to Sotheby’s to help snatch Will. They had to have Will to control the golem, and they hadn’t wanted anyone but me to come looking for him, so they’d left the golem in Will’s place.

I wasn’t sure what connection there was to Edward’s problems, except that with Alice in the mix there had to be one. I knew she wouldn’t want to let that grudge go, but I was also certain she wasn’t the key player. I liked that part better for the asetem-ankh-astet, the Egyptian vampires Sekhmet had described. They were involved in this and in my father’s fate and my own. I still hadn’t figured that angle completely; I didn’t know what they wanted or how Wygan—who I was sure was also asetem—fit in, but so far, things were connecting and I thought they’d all come together when I could figure out what Alice was doing and what the asetem wanted with me.

Several things still bugged me. I didn’t know why they’d snatched Will instead of Quinton if they were trying to get a lever on me, unless it was simply that he was here and so were they. In addition, Marsden may have spilled the beans to the vampires about where I was, but then he’d shown up to detour me and Michael away from them. He didn’t seem to be their friend any more than they were mine. Greywalker or not, he wasn’t my friend either, but I didn’t know where he really stood or what he was up to. He did know something about my father, though, and I wanted that information, even if it meant playing with fire. I wasn’t going to let Marsden slip away—he had answers or he could lead me to them, of that I was sure. I thought about these problems as we made our way north and east toward the canal.

Another ride on the Underground got us up to St. Pancras Train Station. It was a massive, echoing pile of Victorian Gothic architecture—looking more like a red brick cathedral than a train station—that was being rehabilitated and partially renovated into expensive flats. We had to thread our way through leggy forests of scaffolding to get out of the building and around the back, up several industrial blocks to Regent’s Canal.

We passed a sign directing us to ST. PANCRAS OLD CHURCH as we detoured around some construction and the rail yards, looking for a way down to the canal. I noticed that the train rails cut right up against the churchyard walls before they crossed the canal on a low bridge. The rail yard was deep with ghosts and blurry with a mess of disrupted ley lines. The canal, being older than the rail yard and full of water, had bent the energy lines of the Grey gently into its own shape so the magical supply lines curved with its bends and crossed them without a hash and noise of magical strife. It was a relief to get down to the water’s edge and walk across a small park to find the towpath, away from the growl of furious magic.

Along the canal wall, several long, skinny boats were moored to iron mushrooms or stakes driven into the grass. Upstream stood the brick piers and wooden doors of a small lock. Michael led the way toward the lock and around a sharp corner in the path to the sudden appearance of a boat basin. The St. Pancras Cruising Club building stood on the landward side, overlooking a rectangular body of water cut from the canal that was filled with more of the long, thin boats.

The sun was dipping toward the horizon, turning the sky a watercolor pink, but the boats were magnificent even in the waning light, all painted in bright colors and many sporting designs of stylized flowers, castles, and ribbons, with touches of gilding, polished brass and bronze, and gleaming, varnished wood panels on the hatches. Some of the boats had louvered or shuttered windows along the sides while others had names painted on colored panels on the sides that looked a lot like old-style advertising. Some had tillers of curved and tapered poles covered in rope and ribbon for grip, sticking out of oversized rudders that looked like half a Dutch door, while others had stern rails and tiller poles of slender painted iron. Tin smokestacks poked up from the flat roofs of the low, slope-sided cabins. It was a riotous display but still oddly uniform. All the boats were about the same width and height, and most looked between forty and sixty feet long with flat roofs and very narrow side decks. None had lifelines or stanchions on the outside but seemed to rely on fingerholds on their roofs to keep the crew on board when they scampered along the deck—and scamper was what you’d have to do if you couldn’t traverse the boat inside.

Michael trotted down along the basin path and pointed at a primrose yellow boat with green and red trim. “There it is!” The big side board had been lettered “Morning Glory, St. John’s Wood” with curlicues of green filling the corners and trailing around the edges of the rectangle, evocative of the boat’s namesake vine. He stepped aboard at the stern, pulling from his pocket the padlock key he’d taken from the garage, and opened up the boat.

I stepped aboard and down into the aft cabin. Marsden made a face and chose to stay on the land. I found I had stepped down into a utility room with a tiny washing machine tucked under a counter and a number of foul-weather coats and fluffy towels hanging on pegs nearby. I looked forward, into the boat, following Michael’s progress inside. The interior was like a very long and luxurious camper trailer that had been cut down to about seven feet wide. Compact and efficient, it had more than enough headroom for my five-foot-ten frame even in heeled boots. It wouldn’t be much fun if you were claustrophobic, but it was fine for our purposes. Michael pointed out that the boat had one large bedroom and a dining area that could be made into another bed, so we’d each have a place to sleep—except for Marsden. That gave Michael pause.

“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “I suspect he’s not going to stay.”

“I could stand that—the guy gives me the creeps—but how do you know?”

“He didn’t come aboard and he looks like the very idea of a boat makes him queasy. I think it’s just you and me, Michael. Right after I have a little chat with Mr. Marsden. Will you be OK alone for a while? Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone.”

“I can manage. Although. we’re going to need food. ”

“We’ll figure it out. I’ll be back soon.”

I ducked back out and collared Marsden, who was still standing on the quayside, scowling.

“Seasick?” I asked.

“Not a bit of it. I don’t like them closed-up things—like floating metal coffins.”

“Then you’re not staying with us?”

“I should say not. Two of us in the same space for long might attract the wrong sort of attention, and we’re not the only things what can see into the Grey and talk back to those hunting you.”

“I’d like to talk to you a bit more about that—” I started, but he cut me off.

“Good, because there’s a few things you need to know. But here is not such a grand idea. Come with me.”

“Why and where?”

“Where is old St. Pankers, and why is that the presence of a lot of ghosts may mask the presence of the pair of us. And there’s something you should see. Come on.”