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a large stone, found in the corner of the King George, to fill the sizeable hole in the right side of the skull – and tried to ignore the way his fingers sank into the skin behind the man’s ears.

Finally, Catcher stood, his entire body coated in a dark paste made up of sweat, ash, rain, and dust. He looked up at the sky through the gash in the ceiling, offering a quick prayer

– no, no, not a prayer, a formula – to the Watchmakers.

That done, he waited, watching the body for the first signs of life. The ribcage would heave with breath. The wooden fingers would twitch. He was sure that was what would happen. By all that was Reasonable, he was sure.

The concrete jungle had crumbled back into the earth. The amaranth had done its work, erasing the madness that Catcher had infected the Renewalists with, and now the men lay in the dust, their masks by their sides. Some of them were weeping.

Some of them were staring blankly up at the sky, the rain beating down into dull, empty eyes.

Roz tried to ignore the itching in her wrist. It was getting worse, though she still had no idea what was causing it.

Maybe some kind of allergy, something from the eighteenth century that her highly civilized metabolism wasn’t prepared for? The African prisoners, meanwhile, were breaking their bonds and slipping away into the night. A few remained where they’d been dropped by the rationalists. One of them was staring at her.

‘No trust of you,’ the man said in broken English. ‘Witch lady. Work of the Devil.’

‘What?’ She hadn’t expected that. She’d expected it from the Renewalists, sure, but not from the ones they’d dragged along in the dirt. ‘What are you talking about? I just saved your skin, didn’t I?’

‘Bad magic.’ The man was reaching for something that hung around his neck. A cross, Roz realized, carved out of wood. ‘Better get beat up than saved by Devil’s magic. Jesus says.’

Then he was ushered away by one of the others. Roz gritted her teeth. Every now and then, she had to ask herself why she bothered staying with the TARDIS. It wasn’t as if she was participating in heroic all-singing all-fighting adventures. That was how the Doctor liked to describe their exploits, sure, but only once they were safely back in the TARDIS and the scars had started healing. In truth, she was just being pushed around from scrape to scrape, getting throttled, shot at, insulted, and stranded. No job satisfaction. Seriously. No roots.

She thought about going home again. Just for a second.

‘Oh, God,’ squeaked Daniel.

Roz followed his gaze. He was staring at... her wrist?

Her wrist. Oh God. Oh Goddess. It was pulsing, bulging, and the veins started burning. Something was under her skin, pushing at the flesh from the inside. The itch was growing worse by the second, finally turning into something that could only be described as pain, and the amaranth was still spinning

‘What the hell is this?’ she asked nobody in particular.

Christopher Cwej was being led to the place of execution by the monsters, led up a stairway of bones and broken timbers, down which blood and rainwater trickled as if it were a decorative fountain. The machine at the top of the steps reminded Duquesne of a guillotine, but there was a leather chair in the centre of the contraption, through which some form of galvanistic energy crackled and sparked.

Christopher was shouting something about not having had a fair trial, about how even Roslyn would have been fairer on a suspected criminal than this. The monsters weren’t listening.

They prodded him on with guns and sticks.

‘Stop them,’ Marielle was telling the crowd. ‘He isn’t an aristocrat. He isn’t one of us. You don’t have to do this to him.’

‘I thought you’d be happy to see him dead,’ an old woman in a shawl chimed.

‘What?’

‘He’s a caillou. You’re an agent of the Shadow Directory.

Do you want me to draw a diagram?’

There was a wave of laughter. Duquesne shook her head.

‘It is not so simple any more. I have other...