Mind the Gap

chapter Thirteen

the light of day

For weeks, Jazz had felt as though the gloom and shadow be-low the city were her natural habitat,

and every time she went upside, into the daylight world, her eyes had to adjust. But she'd been aboveground

most of the day, and by the time she descended once more into the Underground, she had to learn to adjust

to the darkness all over again.

With the bag over her shoulder —the weight of the blade Terence so desired seeming to want to pull

her deeper—she followed the tracks of an abandoned tunnel and descended farther. The geography of the

underworld had become sec-ond nature to her now. Jazz moved as though on autopilot, her mind absorbed

by her conversation with the gentleman thief, his blue eyes locked in her memory. She stepped through the

hole Harry had found in a hastily bricked-up wall and then started down the corridor to the Palace.

On the other side of that broken wall, she found the bucket that Bill had set there with several

torches inside. Jazz took one and clicked it on. The light seemed to be swallowed by the darkness. As she

started down the arched corridor —its marble columns apparently put in place to make it somehow more

acceptable a retreat from utter destruction for the roy-als, ministers, and members of Parliament who would

have used it—she wondered if any of the others would have been positioned out here by Harry to wait for

her.

Jazz faltered. She gripped the strap of the bag and swore under her breath. Flashing the light around,

she tried to de-cide her next step. Part of her thought Terence a dangerous man and did not trust anything

he'd said. But there were so many other things to consider. Her life had been nothing but a terrifying puzzle

since her mother's murder —a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. Terence clearly had some of those

pieces. Then there was the fundamental question of her fu-ture. Her mother had wanted her to hide

forever, but there was more than one way to hide.

Her pulse raced with indecision. She didn't want to de-ceive anyone, and she refused to betray the

kindness of those who had given her a place to belong. But she had to think of herself. No one is to be

trusted, her mother had told her so of-ten. And sometimes you can't even trust yourself. Jazz knew what

she meant. Emotions could get in the way of the smart deci-sions.

She needed more time to think.

Slipping the bag from her shoulder, she glanced around. The torch picked out a square metal door,

about three feet wide and waist high. The metal was rusted. Jazz went to in-vestigate. She paused to listen

for any sound that might indicate she was not alone in the corridor, but the only sounds were the rumble of

a train above her head and the steady drip of water from somewhere nearby. Then the muffled sound of

laughter reached her. It came from the Palace, but there were two doors and thirty feet of winding stairs

separating her from the United Kingdom. For the moment, she was alone.

Shifting the torch to her left hand, she grabbed the handle on the rusted hatch and pulled. The

door jerked. Rust sifted down. She tugged it again and it slid to one side. Jazz shone the torch into the hole

and frowned. Searching with the light, it took her half a minute to realize what it was she was looking at.

Though the pulleys must be just as rusted and any ropes rotted away by now, once upon a time this little



three-foot-square box had been a lift of some kind, like a dumbwaiter in an old hotel. Whoever had built this

retreat to keep bombs from raining down on the monarchy must have used the lift to bring down supplies

and equipment. On the surface, it would have long since been covered over by something else. The

mechanism was useless, but for the moment it would serve her well.

Unzipping her bag, she slid out the two framed photo-graphs and put them inside the rusty metal box.

The blade followed. She looked at it for several seconds, trying to make sense of the hole in the metal —big

enough for her to slip her hand through—and the jagged teeth at the end of the thing. It might do someone a

wicked bit of damage, but now that she studied it, the thing didn't really seem like a dagger or sword at all,

rather a part of something else, some other. ..apparatus.

A screech of metal came from down the arched corridor.

Jazz thrust the blade into the old lift and slid the door closed as quietly as she could, pulse racing

madly. She zipped the bag and put it over her shoulder, then pointed the torch down along the corridor in the

direction of the sound —which had to have been the door that led to the spiral stairs down to the Palace.

"Nothing up my sleeve," a voice whispered behind her.

She spun around just in time to see something tumble to the stone floor. Her torch caught it as it

struck the ground —a top hat with a thick brim. It rolled in an arc along the stones. When it came to rest,

something moved inside. Jazz held her breath. A tiny rabbit poked its face out from inside the hat, sniffing

querulously at the rust-flaked air. The little creature emerged, paused a moment, then darted toward the

wall, where it vanished.

Jazz's throat felt dry. It had looked so real, not like a phan-tom at all. She crouched and reached for

the brim of the top hat, but it faded out as her fingers passed through it.

She raised her torch and pointed it back into the darkness the way she'd come. The magician again.

She had seen him more and more frequently, and he seemed to be growing more tangible somehow. Yet

like the rest of the spirits of old London that lingered in the Underground, he had always been just an echo,

never showing anything resembling awareness. So if he was a ghost, either a manifestation of the

resonance that past events had left on the city or actually the spirit of a person who had once lived, why did

he show up more than the other ghosts? The other specters haunted the Underground, but it had begun to

feel as though the magician haunted her.

A cough sounded from the direction of the Palace. Jazz swung her torch round.

"Who is it?" came a voice from along the corridor. The orange glow of a cigarette burned in the

shadows. "Who's there?"

She sounded afraid. Jazz couldn't blame her after those men had discovered their previous shelter

—after Cadge's murder.

"It's just me," she said, hurrying toward the other girl, bag over her shoulder.

"Jazz?"

"Yeah."

Then they were close enough to make out each other's face in the illumination of the torchlight. Leela

stood gaping at her, cigarette dangling from one hand. The girl's exotic beauty transformed into a fool's grin

and she rushed to em-brace Jazz.

"F*ck's sake, girl. We've been worried sick. Harry's out of his mind." With a laugh Leela stood back

and looked Jazz over. "None the worse for wear, are you? Let's get you home, then."

The girl tossed her cigarette down and ground it under-foot. She took Jazz by the hand and hurried

her back to the metal door, and they descended the spiral staircase to the United Kingdom's lair. When

Leela opened the door at the bottom and they stepped out into the monarchy shelter, most of the others

didn't even look up. Hattie and Gob were play-ing cards on the floor. Switch, Bill, and Marco were eating

big bowls of pasta with red sauce at a round table. Off to the right, near the shelves of books that were

their mentor's own personal library, Harry and Stevie were talking quietly, drink-ing from tumblers of

whiskey.

"Harry," Leela said.

"Back so soon?" Harry asked as he turned. Then he saw Jazz and his eyes lit up. "Well, now, my

pets, didn't I tell you she'd be back? Come in, Jazz girl! Come in!"

The others started calling her name. Bill remained silent, as always, but gave her a smile and a

thumbs-up sign. Gob and Hattie jumped up and rushed toward her, but Harry beat them to her. The old man

wrapped her in his arms. Jazz couldn't help smiling, and she loved the musty scent of his clothes and the

dash of cologne he sometimes used. His stub-bly cheek scraped hers. Then Harry stepped back, holding

her at arm's length.

"Let me look at you! Still in one piece. Good. Good."



"Glad to see you, Harry."

"Glad to see me, she says!" he crowed, looking around at the others. "We were worried sick about

her, weren't we? I sent 'em all out looking for you, Jazz girl, but no sign of you at all. Even kept an eye on

the police station myself, just in case they'd brought you in."

Stevie drifted up behind Harry during this speech. He had his arms crossed, betraying no interest in

hugging her, much to her dismay.

"I told him not to panic," Stevie said. "You were off and running."

Hattie came up beside Jazz and bumped shoulders with her. The girl wore a purple French beret, hair

tucked under-neath it, and smiled saucily at her. "Don't listen to a word, Jazz. Our Mr. Sharpe was even

more worried about you than Harry. Thought you'd been hurt or lost or fell down a hole or something. Jazz

through the looking glass."

"Well," Stevie said, glancing awkwardly away before meeting her gaze again. "Had to come up with

some reason for you to have been gone so long. What I said was, I knew you hadn't been nicked. And the

bloke with the bag who was chasing you, we slowed him down enough so he just gave up. Wanted to get

out of there even quicker than us —hopped in a cab and was gone."

Harry linked arms with Jazz and escorted her to the table. The others all gathered round as she sat

down. The old man had seemed spry enough, but as he leaned on the back of a chair, she saw how much

the injuries from his beating still pained him. His smile faltered but he did not let it vanish.

"What about that gent, love? I'm afraid when Stevie told me about the fellow, I couldn't make any

sense of it. You all saw the mark leave the house and set the alarm. Far as we know, nobody else lives

there, so where did this mysterious man come from?"

Jazz fought to keep her smile on her face. Harry talked about the mark —about Uncle Mort—like

the house was cho-sen at random. But from what Terence had said, and what Jazz herself had seen in that

house, that was simply too much coin-cidence for her to swallow. One of the thugs the mayor had sent into

the tunnels had been a BMW man who worked for the Uncles, and now one of the wealthy men they'd

stolen from had been an Uncle, a man present at the murder of her mother.

The temptation to confront him with her questions that very moment was strong. But Jazz felt sure

that Harry wouldn't make it so simple. She had no doubt his concern for her was genuine, but there were

many things she suspected he wasn't telling her, and that troubled her.

"No idea who he was," she said, putting on a mystified expression as she gazed around the gathered

faces of the United Kingdom. "But he's a thief too."

She proceeded to tell the story of her break-in to Mortimer Keating's house, including the moment the

motion sensors clicked off and her flight from the premises upon be-ing discovered by the house's other

intruder. But Jazz didn't mention that Terence had caught up to her, and she told Harry she hadn't even

gotten a good look at the man's face.

"He knew what he was doing," she said. "Had these little hi-tech gadgets that he attached to the

keypad for the alarm to keep it from going off."

"What did he steal?" Gob asked.

Jazz shrugged. "No idea."

"Who cares? The question is, what did Jazz take?" Leela said, blowing plumes of smoke from her

nostrils. Harry didn't like them smoking down here, but in the excitement, he didn't seem to have noticed.

"Excellent question," Harry said, eyeing the bag she'd set on the ground by her chair.

Jazz grinned and pulled the bag up onto her lap. Her pulse sped up again and she chided herself for

being nervous. It wasn't as if anyone could tell that she'd had anything else in the bag.

"First and most importantly, there's this," she said, pulling Hattie's pink bonnet from the bag. Hattie

squealed, grabbed the hat, and held it against her as though she were five years old and Jazz had just

returned her favorite stuffed bear.

"Otherwise, not much, I'm afraid. Our mystery man was there almost immediately." She reached into

the bag and pulled out several silk ties, a quartet of antique books, a couple of rings, and the wedge of cash

she'd found in Mortimer Keating's sock drawer.

Marco reached for the money and Harry slapped his hand away. Picking it up, he counted silently,

fanning the bills with the speed of a bank teller. Harry's smile grew wide.

"Over two thousand here. Considering the circum-stances, well done, Jazz."

"Who keeps two thousand pounds in their sock drawer?" she asked.

Switch laughed. "Rich f*cking bastards, that's who."

"Language," Hattie snapped, and Switch looked properly chastened.

"There's also this," Jazz went on. From the bag she took a gold watch with diamonds set into the



face. It sparkled in the dim light of the bunker.

"Now, that is lovely," Harry said, nodding. "You keep that for yourself if you like, Jazz girl. No less

than you deserve for your quick mind and fleet feet today."

"I couldn't," she replied. "Besides, it wouldn't fit me. You take it."

Harry seemed overcome by the gesture, but she couldn't tell if his reaction was genuine or merely

theatrics. He clutched the watch to his chest, nodding, and then looked up at her.

"What I'd really like to know, lass, is where you've been all this time. We truly did fear for you."

Jazz felt her face grow warm and wondered if the light was bright enough down there for Harry to

see her cheeks flush pink. Did he suspect she had lied to him?

"I'm sorry to have worried you all. I'd just had such a fright that I needed to clear my head. I took the

Tube to Covent Garden and wandered for a while, had a coffee, watched the mothers strolling with their

babies. When I realized how much time had passed, I came back as quickly as I could."

Harry nodded as though he understood perfectly. "You had a close call today, and no arguing that.

But I hope it hasn't put you off our little endeavors."

Jazz smiled. "Not in the least. We still came out on top. And a coincidence like this —it couldn't

happen twice, could it? Two people trying to rip off the same house at the same time. What are the odds?"

"Precisely," Harry said, but in his smile she saw a flicker of some doubt.



****

In the dark, late at night, Jazz felt as though she could hear the voice of the city coming up from deep

beneath the ground. They were already so far down it was difficult to imagine anything deeper, but Harry

had told those stories about tribes of people who had lived in natural-cavern forma-tions far below the

Underground for generations without ever seeing the light of day. Perhaps what she heard was the chanting

of some subhuman clan. But Jazz could not make herself believe that. What she heard didn't really come to

her through her ears but in her mind and in her gut. It resonated in her like the low hum of electrical wires,

but with the rise and fall of music. It pulled at her. Often, of late, she had felt as though something called to

her from deeper underground, and the lure of it was even more powerful when everyone else had gone to

sleep and she could do nothing but lie there and listen.

From time to time, she heard the distant shriek and rumble of trains passing by. The air vents brought

the occasional sound all the way from the surface. But for the most part, the Palace was silent.

But Jazz couldn't sleep. Thoughts and doubts churned in her head, playing on her hopes and fears and

loyalties, her love for her mother and her need for justice, and the exhaus-tion that had begun to weigh on

her. Even now, when she should be resting, she could not. Living down here, hiding, drained her of strength

and spirit.

Often she dreamed of her mother, and of Cadge, but sometimes her dreams were nothing more than

visits to her old house, to her school, mundane nights out for a curry with some friends. But now all of those

school friends were no longer a part of her life; she had left them behind without so much as a thought.

True, she had never been as close to them as she might have been. The way her mother had raised her

made it difficult for her to grow close to anyone, to trust any-one. Jazz didn't think she'd had a best friend

since the age of six or seven, until she'd met Cadge.

Harry and the United Kingdom were her friends now. At least, she thought they were. They cared

about her, and Harry was always so proud of her. Her mother was dead and she had no one else —no one

to run to, no one who could hide her. Terence had hinted that he could be that safe harbor, but she had only

just met him.

You didn't know Harry when he took you in, she thought.

The truth did not comfort her. Jazz plumped up the folded blanket she was using for a pillow and

turned onto her other side, eyes open in the dark. Only the tiniest bit of illu-mination came from a small light

that Harry left burning in the corridor to guide them to the toilets during the night.

What time is it? she wondered. The Palace was large enough that most of them could have had their

own rooms, but, with the exception of Stevie, all of the kids had instinc-tively grouped into twos and threes.

Safety in numbers, Jazz figured. She had paired off with Hattie, who snored quietly nearby. Her breathing

was low and steady. Jazz listened care-fully but could not hear anyone rustling in the dark. It must be late

for them all to be so deeply lost in slumber.

In the dark, she imagined she could see Terence's ice-blue eyes.

Jazz did not want to die down here. If there was any pos-sibility that she could have a better life yet

still stay safe, wouldn't her mother have wanted that for her? Wouldn't Cadge have told her she was a fool

not to at least try?

And beyond safety and the future, there were other con-cerns. Jazz wanted answers. The



connections were there. The Uncles, the BMW men, the mayor. Harry had sent her to rob Mort's house,

and now she wondered about the other two houses they'd robbed. Who owned those? What did Harry

know, really, about the Uncles? What did Terence know about the ghosts of old London? What the hell was

the Blackwood Club?

"Bloody hell," she whispered.

With a sigh, Jazz gave up on sleep entirely. She rose qui-etly, slipped on her trainers, and left her

room. In the corri-dor, she paused to listen for any sign that others were about, but all she heard was Harry

snoring loudly at the end of the hall. Grabbing her torch, she padded quietly to the door and went up the

spiral stairs. If Hattie woke, she'd think Jazz had gone to the bathroom.

The door at the top of the stairs scraped the floor, so she had to open it very slowly. She left the door

ajar and went along that arched corridor to the old rusted dumbwaiter, slid aside the door panel, and shone

the torchlight inside. The light glinted off the blade.

But when she reached in, she grabbed one of the framed photographs instead. The blade had some

terrible signifi-cance to Terence, and she could feel when she carried it that there was something unusual

about it. The photographs, however, had lingered in her mind even more.

Jazz held the frame in her hand and shone the torch on the picture of that grim assemblage. Mortimer

Keating stood on the left. She recognized other Uncles and wondered whether theirs were the voices she'd

heard in her house while her mother's corpse cooled.

And there was her father.

The Blackwood Club? Logic at least suggested it. Josephine Blackwood controlled the Uncles, who

were in turn served by thugs and lackeys Jazz thought of as the BMW men. Since her father's death, she

had been aware that he was involved with the Uncles, but she had never known how, and any time her

inquiries to her mother had strayed into that territory, the subject was changed. Once or twice, her mother

had warned her away. They were being looked after; that was all that mat-tered. But even when her

mother assured her of this, Jazz had known the woman did not believe it.

Come on, then, Dad. Help me out. What the hell is the Blackwood Club?

She stared at the image so long that she lost track of the time. Her father had been involved in

something ugly, that much was evident. But a photograph wasn't going to give her the answers she

wanted.

Beyond tired, eyelids drooping, she went to put the photo back into its hiding place and caught the

frame on the edge of the metal door. It fell from her hand. Jazz tried to snatch it up again but only

succeeded in striking it with her torch. The photograph hit the ground, shattering the glass and cracking the

frame.

Dropping to a crouch, she shone the torch on the broken glass. The picture looked undamaged, but

the frame was ru-ined. Glancing around to make sure no one had heard, she carefully picked the largest

pieces of glass off the floor and put them inside the rusted dumbwaiter, over to one side so that she

wouldn't accidentally cut herself later when retrieving the blade or the photos. The broken frame followed

in pieces. Soon, only the picture itself and a bunch of glass shards re-mained on the stone floor. Some of the

glass had gone down into the grooves of the mortar, and she would never be able to get them up without a

broom. Careful not to cut her fingers, she brushed as much of the glass as she could onto the photo and

dumped it with the rest of the broken shards inside the old service lift.

Before hiding the photograph again, she studied it one last time. The glass had nicked it in many

places, but she was glad to see it hadn't ruined the picture. With her torch's light to guide her, she went to

put the photo back, and only then did she notice the writing on the reverse side.

It was the imprint of a photographer's stamp. Curious, she held it up and read the words.

15 July, 1981

Harold Fowler, Photographer

The grand entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum was a bit of loveliness dropped in amid an

otherwise austere fa-cade. The receding arch around the doorway made it look as though the museum

were the home of giants, and the people passing to and fro in the intersection of Cromwell Gardens and

Exhibition Road seemed Lilliputian in comparison.

Terence stood leaning against a lamppost with his hands thrust into his pockets, as casual as you

please. A shopping bag from Harrods rested on the pavement by his feet. Like the museum, he had a

certain austerity about him, but he also had the dashing looks of a 1940s film star. Today he wore khaki

trousers, brown shoes, and a green short-sleeved linen shirt. He might not have been wearing the suit, but



Jazz thought his clothes still looked quite expensive. The man seemed to breathe money and confidence.

She had known girls who went weak in the knees in the presence of arrogant men, but she'd never been

one of them.

Now she understood that there was a difference between arrogance and confidence. Terence had

swagger, and in spite of herself, she liked it.

Jazz had tied her hair back in a ponytail and donned big dark sunglasses she had nicked from a

street-corner vendor just after coming off the Tube. She wore a crushed lilac-hued gypsy skirt and a white

spaghetti-strap top and carried a big knit shoulder bag. Had she tried to leave the Palace dressed that way,

there would have been many questions, so she had* worn a loose cotton top over the tank and a pair of

jeans, then changed clothes in the ladies' at Waterstone's a few streets from the museum.

She considered trying to sneak up on him but instead pur-posely let him see her coming. After so

many weeks attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible, it felt strange and liberating to switch gears.

Jazz strode across the street as though it was some fashion runway in Milan. Several car horns blatted the

ap-proval of male motorists and she waved to one driver. She was just a girl out shopping today. If the

Uncles were looking for her, they would be searching for a frightened creature scurrying in the alleys of

London, not this young woman. In her time with Harry Fowler, Jazz had learned more about perspective

and ap-pearance than in any of her meager efforts at onstage drama.

Terence stood up straight, smiling as she approached.

"You clean up nicely," he told her as she stepped onto the sidewalk.

Jazz gave him a flirtatious toss of her head. Without the glasses, her eyes would have betrayed her

turmoil. She kept them on.

"I'll choose to take that as a compliment."

"It is," Terence replied. "No one would mistake you for a tunnel rat today."

"Not even you."

He cocked an eyebrow. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"I wouldn't have," she admitted, still hiding behind her glasses. "But I had a bit of an epiphany last

night. I'm not go-ing to find the answers I'm looking for down below."

His expression turned grim and he replied with a know-ing nod. Then he gave her a more thorough

inspection and bent to pick up the Harrods shopping bag.

"This may be easier than I thought," he said.

"What's that?"

"I picked up some things for you. Camouflage, if you will. But I think you'll do as is. At your age, the

Bohemian look is a fashionable choice. Though I'm impressed you're able to keep clothes so clean down

there. Wherever there is."

Jazz put a hand on his arm and leaned in to speak to him in an exaggerated whisper. "I only stole

them this morning."

Terence gazed at her again. "Well done, you. We're bet-ter off, I think. I had to guess at sizes. I do

hope I succeeded with the shoes, however. Those simply won't do."

He pointed to her feet and Jazz looked down. The san-dals she wore were not particularly ragged,

and she'd worn trainers until she changed at the bookstore.

"What's wrong with them? You said the Bohemian look was fashionable."

He smiled, blue eyes sparkling with mischief. "True enough. But there's the genuine Bohemian and

then there's the young and rich who adept BoHo to dress down. The shoes and the jewelry always give

them away."

Terence reached into the Harrods bag and took out a shoe box. Jazz stared at him a moment, trying

to figure out what the man had in mind that required her to wear different shoes. Out of curiosity, she

surrendered. Taking the box from him, she opened it to find a pair of very expensive-looking shoes, all

straps and high heels.

"You have some kind of fetish?"

"We all have fetishes. Mine don't involve shoes, if that sets you at ease."

"Not much, no," Jazz said. But she slipped off her san-dals, put them into the box, and put the heels

on instead. "Perfect fit."

Terence admired her feet and legs. "Excellent. They change your whole appearance."

"They're only shoes."

"You're taller in them. They alter your center of balance so that you stand differently. They

accentuate your legs, draw attention, and succeed in making your age ambiguous. And they suggest a

certain affluence, which is the most important element."



"Of what?" Jazz smiled at him. "You're a very strange man, Terence."

"I'll never deny it, love. But bear with me. I predict you're going to have a very entertaining day.

Exciting, even."

He took the box —now with the discarded sandals in it— and returned it to the Harrods bag. Then

he drew out an-other, smaller box, and offered it to her. Jazz knew of only one thing that routinely came in

such small boxes, but was still taken aback when she opened it and discovered a quartet of thin gold bangle

bracelets.

"What the hell are you doing, you mad thing?" she asked, staring at the gold.

"We have work to do, Jasmine, and you need to be dressed for the job. I told you if you came to

meet me today, I would show you a different way to hide and to live. This is step one. Class is in session.

Put them on. All on one wrist, please."

Jazz put aside any hesitation and slid the four gold bands onto her left wrist. They were simple, but

she liked them a great deal. Whatever the hell Terence was up to, she had to admit that she couldn't wait to

see where it led next.

He put that box back into the Harrods bag as well and then offered her his arm. With a nervous

laugh, she took it, and they strolled together away from the Victoria and Albert Museum. It had not escaped

her notice that the thief had not yet mentioned the blade. She carried it in her shoulder bag, wrapped in her

blue jeans.

"You're really not going to tell me where we're going?"

Terence gave her that look again, mischief dancing in his eyes. "We have several stops to make,

actually. Promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep."

They walked for a while, and for the first time since her world had changed, Jazz found herself not at

all concerned with her destination. Terence presented her with a game of discov-ery, and she went along

with it quite willingly. Even for late summer it was quite warm, but a breeze blew her skirt around her legs

and the heat of the sun was welcome on her skin.

When Terence led her across the street toward a bou-tique salon, Jazz slowed, teetering a little on

her new heels. He urged her on, but when they reached the sidewalk, she ' stopped and forced him to

face her.

"What are we doing here?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Don't you have a mirror down there? Tying back that hair doesn't make it

any less a rat's nest. You've got to have it cut and washed. A change in color would suit you as well, if

you're trying to hide in plain sight. And your nails are worse than a hag's. Manicure and pedicure are both

in order."

Jazz blanched. She drew her arm away from him, staring first at Terence and then at the salon. He

had to know what he was suggesting. If she had her hair done professionally, cut and dyed —never mind a

bloody manicure—she would never be able to explain it to Harry and the others. She'd have to tell the truth,

an idea that troubled her deeply given the secrets she suspected Harry was hiding from her.

Only if you go back.

Her throat went dry. She licked her lips and took a step away from him. Terence stared at her, but

Jazz studied the ground instead. In the back of her mind she had known all along that by coming to meet

him she was expressing her in-terest in changing course, in discovering if he could change her life the way

he'd promised the day before. But she'd only come because of what she'd seen on the back of that

photograph of her father and the Uncles — Harold Fowler, Photographer. She'd wanted to see Terence

again, there was no denying that. But she'd told herself she had come only for whatever information he

might provide about the mysteries surrounding her. She had not planned to leave the Underground for good.

Not now. Not at this very moment.

Jazz slipped the gold bangles from her wrist and started to offer them back to him. Terence closed

her hands in his, bracelets inside, and through sheer force of will made her meet his gaze. His eyes were

full of a grim determination and kindness that belied his profession.

"Put yourself in my hands, Jasmine. You won't regret it."

She stared at him. "I can't."

"I understand why you wouldn't trust me —"

"I don't trust anyone."

Terence released her hands. His face lit up, and she could not turn away from those mesmerizing

blue eyes.

"Then you've got nothing to lose."