Chapter 18
Esme left No. 8 well before dawn. Darkness stalked her as she stole through the streets, past snaking canals and over pitch-black water. Her way was lit only by the occasional yellow glow of a street lamp, or a forgotten light burning inside a dwelling.
The Merle Fountain was set at the border of the palace’s formal gardens, swaddled in the darkness by the mass of parkland behind it. From a distance, it appeared as though a vast black beast had swallowed Poseidon whole.
The decision to return here had made sense the day before, but not during the sleepless night that had followed. Esme had regressed into the night terrors of her childhood, falling asleep only to snap bolt upright in bed, sure that there were strangers in the room, shadows that could mutate into monsters at an
