Prologue Their target was a run-down three-story building in an area of the City of London that had not yet been gentrified. The surrounding streets had been emptied of people and traffic, and the filthy pavement perspired in the thick air. Magical barriers overlaid the soot-blackened brick, beautiful as spun glass. It might have been an ice sculpture, or a fairy castle that hid the menace within. For once the Dragon had stayed online long enough for them to pinpoint his location. Perhaps he'd thought it safe to emerge in the small hours of the morning. Six wizards came through the front door like wraiths, shields fixed in place, knowing the Dragon would attack when cornered. It took them less than a minute to discover there was no one in the apartment to kill. D'Orsay followed them in. The flat was shabby and small. The furnishings looked to be castoffs accumulated over several decades. Layers of grime ground into the carpet made it impossible to guess at its original color. He passed through a front room, a kitchen, into the bedroom in the back. The keyboard and monitor were still there, a harness linked into a tangle of cables, but only a faint outline in the dust of the desk surface revealed where the laptop had been. An inside staircase at the back of the flat led to the roof. The apartment would