Live and Let Drood

each other. Because you never know how valuable such information might become. And then you can trade it.…”
    Molly started to snap her fingers, and then stopped. “Damn. I don’t even have enough power left to magic up a Disabled sticker.”
    “This is London,” I said. “They’re not so easily impressed here. I think I’ll put my faith in the Armourer’s security measures. This car can look after itself. If anyone does try messing with it, they’ll wake up somewhen next year.”
    But Molly had already gone back to studying Buckingham Palace. “Why is the Carnacki Institute based here, of all places? I mean, I know they’re part of the Establishment, but…Is the queen an honorary ghostbuster? Is Prince Philip bothered by poltergeists?”
    “Not officially. It’s because the Institute is a royal charter, not a political department, like Uncanny. Apparently Elizabeth I wanted the Institute where she could keep an eye on it, and subsequent monarchs continued the tradition. It does mean that Catherine Latimer’s private office is protected not only by its own shields, but also by the palace’s. Of course, the Merlin Glass should be able to punch right through them.…”
    “Should?” said Molly, immediately. “I really don’t like that word in this context, Eddie. What if it can’t?”
    “Bugs on a windshield,” I said. “Raise your Sight, Molly. Take a good look at the palace, and See what I’m Seeing.”
    With the Drood torc at my throat, I can See the world as it really is and not as most people think it is. Though mostly I choose not to, for my own peace of mind. With the Sight, Buckingham Palace and its immediate surroundings all but disappeared under layer upon layer of powerful protections: overlapping screens and shields and deadly defences laid down over centuries.
    “Okay,” said Molly, after a while. “Those…are serious protections. How the hell did that burglar get in? You know, the one who just wandered around till he ended up in the queen’s bedroom and she had to call for help?”
    “Simple answer: He didn’t,” I said. “They let him in. To make the rest of the world think they only had standard protections. Anyone who tried to follow in that guy’s footsteps got flash-fried into free-floating atoms for some time afterwards.”
    Molly gave me a stern look. “And the Merlin Glass should get us past all that?”
    “Oh, almost certainly,” I said cheerfully. “If I understand how the Glass works, and I’m perfectly ready to be told I don’t, I think it opens a door on this side of the shields and another door on the other side. And then we step through without bothering the shields at all. They don’t even know anything’s happened.”
    “But if they do detect us?”
    “It’s been fun knowing you, Molly.”
    “Let’s go somewhere else.”
    “If there was somewhere else, I’d be there,” I said. “But we need access to the Regent of Shadows, and Catherine Latimer is the only one I know who can get us there. And as long as Crow Lee is on our trail, the clock is ticking. He can’t let even one Drood live, for fear I’ll find a way to bring the rest back. And then everything he’s risked will have been for nothing. Now grit your teeth and be a brave little witch, and there shall be dark chocolate Jaffa Cakes for tea.”
    “Let me get this straight,” said Molly. “We’re dropping in on the very dangerous boss herself, in her very own private and heavily defended office? Because you’ve been there once before? Colour me officially uneasy, Eddie. Not many get in there and get out again with all their favourite parts still attached.”
    “I did her a favour once on a case I still don’t care to talk about. She wasn’t exactly happy with the way I handled it, because the Droods got more out of it than the Institute did, but we still parted on…pretty good terms.”
    “So she isn’t necessarily going to be pleased to see you?”
    “Is anyone?”
    “What if she point-blank refuses to help you,” said Molly, “now that the rest of your family isn’t around to intimidate her into playing nice?”
    “She doesn’t get to say no,” I said. “I’m a Drood.”
    “My tough guy,” Molly said admiringly. “Still, weren’t we worried that using something as powerful as the Merlin Glass might attract all the wrong kinds of attention?”
    “Oh, sure,” I said. “But not until it’s far too late. I’m not planning on sticking around here that