What does it mean?
That’s above your pay grade.
—Text message exchange between two prepaid mobile numbers, 3:03p.m., 31 January 2024
I spend the rest ofthe day locked in our bedroom, while Kit spends it with Singh’s team, no doubt going over their plans for keeping him alive tonight.
At seven-thirty, just before Kit is due to head out, he knocks softly on the door. I’m curled up in our bed with a book in my lap, staring at the same page—the same paragraph—I have been for ages, and for a wild moment, I consider pretending to be asleep. I tell myself that I don’t want to say anything that mightdistract him from his mission, but the cowardly truth is I’m not sure I can face him, either. Not when there’s a real risk I might never see him again.
The seconds tick by in silence, and when I hear the floorboards creak, as if he’s taken a single step away from the door, another wave of panic floods me like a dam has broken, and suddenly I can’t breathe at the thought of not getting to hug him one last time. Flinging the book off my lap, I scramble to my feet and launch myself at the door, only to nearly hit myself in the face as I yank it open and—
There he is, standing a few steps away now, his dark eyes guarded and vulnerable. And I can’t move another inch.
“I…” He clears his throat. “I’m about to head out. I just wanted to…to say goodbye.”
I can feel the impact of the word between us, and something in my chest twists painfully, as if the bullet is still lodged inside and has decided to bury itself in my heart instead.
“It’s a good plan, right?” I say, the words cracking. “Singh and MI5—they’ve got your back?”
“They’ve got my back,” he confirms. “I wouldn’t go if they didn’t, Ev. I promise.”
I don’t want him to go at all, and I curse the version of me that ever thought this was a good idea—that Kit and I could ever bring down a terrorist organization, even with the entirety of MI5 behind us. “Please don’t die,” I manage, nearly choking on the words.
His arms are around me in an instant, and he buries his nose in my hair, even as I press my leaking eyes into his shoulder. He’s wearing a black button-down and gray trousers, and idly Iwonder if he’ll change before he leaves, or if he’ll carry my tears and snot with him to this meeting.
“Singh said you could watch the live feeds with him, if you want,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “And there will be agents everywhere. If anything goes wrong, they’ll be no more than fifteen seconds away at any given time, all right? They’ll get me out of there.”
I count to fifteen in my head. It might as well be infinity. “You don’t have—a Kevlar vest on,” I say, with a hiccup in between, and I run my fingers over his shirt. His chest is beneath, with nothing protecting him from a bullet.
“Singh thinks they’ll search me, and a vest would give it away,” he says quietly. “And I agree. Guns are illegal in the UK, and I doubt Dylan will be carrying around a hunting rifle.”
Even though he’s right, I can’t help the extra layer of anxiety that wraps around me like insulation, muffling any sense. “Howlong?”
“A few hours, maybe,” he says. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
A few hours. I have no idea what I’ll do with myself, but I nod anyway and peer up at him. “I love you,” I say, and it comes out as more of an accusation than a declaration. “Don’t you daredie.”
Kit smiles down at me, but I can see the sheen in his eyes, too. “I’ll do my very best,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
I walk him to the apartment door and watch him stride to the lift, accompanied by four guards in full-body armor. He glances over his shoulder and lifts his hand in a wave, andI hold mine up in return, my vision blurring as the doors open and he steps inside. My last glimpse of him is of the back of his dark, wavy hair, and as the lift shuts behind him, I fill my lungs with air like I’m steeling myself against a storm, and I head toward Singh’s makeshift command center at the end of the hallway.
I don’t bother knocking. Singh barely glances up from the wall of monitors he and his tech geniuses have set up, and instantly I pick out the camera that they’ve managed to attach to Kit through what I quickly realize is a button on his shirt. Apparently he won’t be changing after all.
That feed doesn’t show him—it only shows the lift doors opening, revealing the lobby of our building, and I can see each step he takes. But there are other cameras on the guards that surround him, and with my eyes glued on the expression of neutrality Kit wears, masking his own fear, I settle into the seat Singh gestures for me to take. The one beside his.
“If you kill him,” I say quietly, “I’ll kill you. That’s a promise.”
“Noted,” says Singh. And together we settle back to watch the single most terrifying night of my life.
—
Three hours. That’show long a glossy, charming,poshversion of Kit I’ve never seen before is stuck holding court for dozens of preening sycophants who spend all night vying for his attention. Given his closeness to the crown, I half expect him to be shunned at this party full of antimonarchists, but instead he’s center stage, by far the most interesting thing at an event supposedly dedicated to honoring the real Guy Fawkes’s brutal death. Astartling number of partygoers greet him like an old friend, and beside me, Singh scribbles names and descriptions as they come, noting who shows genuine concern for Kit’s well-being and who praises him for his supposed role in the Modern Music Museum bombing.
Kit’s reluctant to talk about it, but eventually the crowd convinces him to recount his own death-defying perspective of the terrorist attack—with made-up details, as far as I can tell, since I’m pretty sure there was no grand piano in the foyer that was crushed when the ceiling caved in on top of us—and the members of Fox Rex clap and cheer and gasp with delight.
“HowisHis Majesty doing, anyway?” says a smirking boy named Wesley. I want to reach through the screen and throttlehim.
“I don’t know,” says Kit, and there’s a strain in his voice that doesn’t sound like he’s pretending. “I wish I had better news for you, but…”
