TWENTY YEARS AGO…
The sky over London was not merely dark; it was angry.
It was a night where the heavens had opened up to drown the earth. Rain did not fall; it lashed against the cobblestones in sheets of gray steel. Thunder cracked like a whip, shaking the very foundations of the townhouse in Mayfair.
Inside, the air was thick with panic.
"Come, Delaney. Quickly," Arthur Kingsley said.
His voice was tight. It was laced with a worry that a seven-year-old Delaney had never heard before. Her father was usually a man of laughter, a man who smelled of tobacco and old paper. Tonight, he smelled of fear.
He grabbed her small hand. His grip was hard, almost painful.
"What is going on, my love?" Genevieve, Delaney's mother, asked. She spoke in French, her native tongue, which she always used when her heart was racing. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"
She was clutching a small travel bag to her chest, her dark hair wet from the damp air of the hallway.
