Silversong (The Fable Series, Book 3)

Chapter 12

There's a late Autumnal chill in the air as we head out of the lobby and into the waiting night. Felix and Alastaire have already gotten into an argument over whose driver (both being parked outside the building in waiting limos) would take us from BYG Records to my hotel, which is literally just a few blocks away - so I insisted that we walk instead. I told the boys I needed some fresh air, which is technically true - my head is still spinning from the afternoon's endless introductions, photos, and meet-and-greets.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Ben pulls his hoodie up over his head to hide his face, and Alastaire and Felix put on sunglasses, which looks ridiculous at night but is probably preferable to being mobbed by fans. Lyall takes a forest green scarf out of the messenger bag he's carrying, wrapping it around his face like a makeshift bandana.

I'm tempted to point out that rather than blending in, they are now sticking out more than before - but they have way more experience dealing with this sort of thing than I do.

For now at least, no one seems to spare us a second look, and I can finally let down my guard and really take in my surroundings.

London, or at least this part of it, looks so different at night. In the daylight, the street was a wonderful, frenzied mishmash of old meets new - mediaeval and modern architecture vying for space and attention. Now night, the great equaliser, has blanketed the buildings in the eerie uniformity of darkness. The street seems to light up gradually, as with the crossing of the dusk lamps flicker on one-by-one and flood windows with a warm golden glow, that pours out into the shadows and illuminates the stoney faces of gargoyles, staring out blindly from their perches beneath the darkening eaves.

I still can't believe that the boys waited more than two hours for me. All of them, that is, except Elliot.

Felix said something about Elliot needing to be somewhere, but he might try to meet up with us later tonight.

Strange, to think that even Elliot - calm, reliable, dependable Elliot - has his own secrets.

As we walk, at the boys' request I tell them everything that happened in the months since they left Portland - how it is that I came to be here. I tell them about the call from Kitty (Felix raises an eyebrow at this), how Nessy came to "recruit" me, the flight in Jeremy's private jet, the whole crazy whirlwind of it all.

I leave out how I pretty much wanted to die in the months after they left - the utter loneliness, the emptiness, the dark days and endless nights filled with dreams of drowning.

No need to tell them any of that.

No one asks about why I essentially ghosted them, and I guess they can probably understand it a little, that I had to do it for my own sanity. I was a mess, and the less said about it, the better.

But I know that the subtle gaps and omissions in my story are telling. It's the things I'm not saying that are speaking the loudest right now. The way Felix is watching me as I talk - I'm sure he knows, or at least suspects, a little of what I went through.

We walk down lamplit cobblestone alleyways and take a shortcut through Covent Garden. I've always pictured it in my mind as being an actual garden - not necessarily someone's literal backyard, but a sort of giant courtyard filled with sculptures and topiary trees. We pass first through an Italian-style piazza, before stepping out onto a bustling thoroughfare lined with taverns and boutique shops, with a high domed glass ceiling above. To call it crowded is an understatement. The place is practically swarming with people; groups of tourists move from store to store weighed down with shopping bags like busy bees hauling their precious cargo of pollen between flowers. As we're swept along by the buzzing crowd, I catch a glimpse of a storefront filled with mannequins wearing cherry-blossom pink tulle-skirted ballet dresses, like a row of giant tulips planted behind the glass. The flow of pedestrians parts and makes way for a weedy rake-thin street performer dancing on a corner, refusing to be uprooted from his spot; while above him glass lamps hang from the ceiling aglow with soft light like luminous golden apples on the boughs of a vast overhead tree.