The car had taken Luke in the middle of the night.

Abi’s Condemned brother and his jailer, Lord Crovan, had been driven out of Kyneston’s gate straight to a helicopter. By the time his family learned he was gone, Luke was already halfway to Scotland and whatever fate awaited him at Eilean Dòchais.

Jenner had brought word at breakfast, by which point the Hadleys had been sleepless for nearly twenty-four hours. Dad had crumpled at the news, and Mum had simply laid her head against his shoulder and cried. It was such a perfect nightmare that Abi was almost—almost—grateful for the distraction of what Jenner said next.

“Jackie, Steve, you and Abi will need to pack your bags quickly. You’re being sent to Millmoor this afternoon.”

“Millmoor?” Dad looked baffled.

But Mum had caught the word that Jenner hadn’t said.

“Daisy, too, you mean.”

Jenner looked up at the ceiling, as if the words he needed might be written along the wooden beams. They weren’t, of course.

“Daisy stays here. At Kyneston.”

Abi’s head snapped up. She hadn’t seen that one coming.

Mum roared furiously and launched herself at Jenner, battering him with her fists. Abi didn’t move to help him, nor did Dad try to pull Mum away. Jenner ducked and dodged the worst of her blows, then caught both her hands in his, waiting until she’d fought herself to a standstill.

“You’re taking my children,” Mum sobbed, wiping her snotty nose on her dressing gown sleeve. “You’re not human. You’re monsters.”

“It’s not permitted,” Abi said to Jenner, more to have the matter over and done with than in any expectation of a comforting reply. “The law says that children under the age of eighteen can only do days with their parents. Although I remember your mother forgetting that in Luke’s case, too.”

“Abi, my father is the law. He can say whatever he likes. Gavar asked, and Father agreed. Daisy will move into one of the rooms in the servants’ wing, and Libby will have a nursery next door.”

Daisy sat mute and motionless at the table. She twisted round to look through the kitchen door, to where Libby was bashing plastic bricks on a rug in the living room. Her expression was unreadable. She loved the little girl dearly, Abi knew. But Daisy was still a child herself, not yet eleven.

Would Gavar become a substitute family for her—a strange combination of older sibling and parent? How would Bouda Matravers take to her husband’s unorthodox household?

Daisy said nothing.

“We need regular contact,” Abi rapped out. “Letters weekly. Telephone conversations whenever possible. None of this three-month waiting period; it has to happen immediately. You can ensure that.”

Jenner looked chastened. “I will.”

“And I need to come up to the house now. There are things of mine in the office.”

“Of course. I was going to suggest that.”

“Mum, Dad, get the bags packed. I’ll be as quick as I can. I don’t want to miss a moment with you, little sis.”

Abi and Jenner were away from the Row, but not yet over the rise to Kyneston, when Jenner kissed her. For a brief, traitorous moment Abi let herself melt into him. Wondered, madly, what would happen if she begged him to beg his father to allow her to stay.

“I did ask for you already, you know,” he said, somehow intuiting her thoughts. He cupped her face and looked down at her with those warm brown eyes. They were filled with the same regret he’d had when he’d warned her not to be curious, on that very first day. “I didn’t want you to think that if Gavar could get permission for Daisy, that I hadn’t tried.”

“I believe you,” she said, and stretched on tiptoe to kiss him again. She wouldn’t make him say it. Wouldn’t spell out what they both knew—the fact of Jenner’s powerlessness. Gavar was the heir. His alliance with Lord Jardine was an uneasy, volatile one, but father and son needed each other. No one needed Jenner.

Not even me, Abi told herself fiercely. She wondered how many times she’d have to say it before she believed it. And how many more times after that before it became the truth.

The things she was after were in several spots around the office, not just her own desk. So she encouraged Jenner to look through the workbooks and databases she’d set up, to make sure he understood them. While he was occupied, she moved around opening drawers, unlocking cabinets, occasionally announcing what was where, for Jenner’s benefit.

She asked him not to walk her back to the cottage, and they said their goodbyes there in the Family Office. Jenner wound his fingers in her long hair as if he never wanted to untangle them again, and she pressed her face to his chest and breathed him in.

“I want this,” she announced, tugging at his scarf when they separated. He knotted it round her neck, kissed her cheek, and watched her go.

The Hadleys’ final hours together were subdued. They didn’t discuss Luke. His absence was too awful to speak of just yet. Mum and Dad held Daisy desperately, trying to remember every inch of her. By the time they saw her again, their baby would be a grown woman of twenty.

“It’s not uncommon for kids Daisy’s age to be away from their parents,” Abi tried to console their dad. “It’ll be like she’s at the world’s most exclusive boarding school.”

“Only with no one checking my homework,” Daisy chipped in. “And I’m the one doing the teaching.”

Dad laughed, then halfway through the laughter turned into excruciating weeping. For the millionth time Abi cursed herself for talking them into applying to Kyneston. If it weren’t for her, they would all have been in Millmoor: underfed, poorly housed, bored out of their minds—and together.

Jenner came back just after lunch and led the four of them to the wall, where the Young Master was waiting on his black horse. The gate shimmered into existence. Abi hated that its appearance was every bit as miraculous as it had been the first time. There was a car visible on the other side, another silver-gray Labor Allocation Bureau vehicle.

The gate swung open. Four of them walked up to it, but only three walked through. Daisy stood and waved, Libby Jardine cradled to her chest in a harness. Then, just like that, the gate was gone and so was she. Kyneston’s wall stretched away, an unbroken and unbreachable barrier, furred with moss and glowing faintly with Skill-light.

“You’ve not got much,” said the driver as Abi tossed her half-empty duffel into the trunk on top of Mum and Dad’s bags.

“I know how the slavetowns work,” said Abi. “My brother was at Millmoor. They don’t let you take much in.”

She slid into the backseat of the car, Mum beside her, Dad up front. The driver tried to make small talk for the first few minutes, then gave up on them all. Abi watched the roads as the car turned. They’d be cutting west across to Bristol, then north up the M5 all the way to Manchester—and Millmoor.

She shoved her hands into her coat pockets, willing down the queasiness in her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, a short while after. “I don’t travel well. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“What?” The driver looked over his shoulder and scowled.

“Those trees over there. Please.” Abi put a hand up to her mouth to cover a hiccup. “Can you pull over?”

She didn’t dare do more than squeeze Mum’s fingers as she got out, leaving the door open.

She moved a short way into the trees, turning her back on the car and doubling over. Her retching sounds would be plainly audible. She coughed, and moved a little deeper into the woods.

Then once she was out of sight, she took off at a sprint.

The map in her pocket batted against her leg as she ran. The map she’d taken from the Family Office, and studied as she walked back to the cottage by herself. She knew exactly where she was. Just a short way from here was a small A-road that led west, down to Exeter. Someone would stop quickly for a teenage girl on her own.

From there she’d get a train to Penzance, the last city in the southwestern tip of England. All the money she could possibly need was zipped into her coat. She’d emptied the office petty cash box, and needless to say the Jardines’ idea of a float was more than most people earned in a month.

She could buy a change of clothing, or hair dye. It’d be wise to change her appearance, as alerts about her fugitive status would go out soon. On her side was the fact that they’d have no idea where she was headed. They’d probably guess Manchester. Or maybe even Scotland.

From Penzance she could get a ferry. Or a helicopter. Or talk or bribe her way onto a fishing boat or yacht.

She could be in the Scillies by the day’s end. Nestled at the heart of the archipelago was an island estate. An estate that belonged to the only people who might help rescue her brother: Lady Armeria Tresco and her now Skilless son and heir, Meilyr.

Abi ran on. She intended to be at Highwithel by nightfall.