In the corner of the room, the light of candles flickered; upon his lips, he continued to mutter his prayer, his quiet invocation, words to make the fantastic plausible. The whole thing had the feel of a ritual, he had thought, first time he had witnessed it, seeing Hummer bent over a squirming shape on the fresh, dew-stained grass of Kensington Gardens. No one had never said anything to him directly, but their summoning to such a place—land that was ostensibly owned by the royal family and off-limits in normal circumstances to such lower-class individuals as both he and Hummer represented—inferred a sort of connection between the old god and the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. That much had not disturbed him, he had thought at the time. Instead, what had worried him was the possible conne
