was not supposed to have feelings, he developed a fatherlike bond with her. Wanting to avenge her parents, Hester left Shrike despite his pleas for her to stay and travelled to London. Shrike followed her, reaching London first, but was captured by Crome and used to create more Stalkers for London. Hester sees that a London-built scoutship is following them and lowers the balloon onto the Hunting Ground. The scoutship, with Shrike on board, finds the pair and the Stalker confronts them. Before he can explain why he wants Hester to die, two chasing towns run over him, and Tom and Hester manage to board the second of these, a pirate town called Tunbridge Wheels. The mayor, Chrysler Peavy, who knows Hester from her days with Shrike, frees Tom as he is a resident of London and Peavy wishes to learn etiquette worthy of a Londoner gentleman. Tom convinces him to free Hester, and Peavy informs them that he plans to consume the downed Airhaven. While charging at it over shallow water, Tunbridge Wheels beaches on a coral reef, sinking it whilst the survivors escape inland with Tom and Hester. Whilst attempting to feebly retake Airhaven, Peavy gets stuck in a bog and his pirate subordinates shoot him, then attempt to execute Tom and Hester, but Shrike intervenes and kills the remaining pirates. Shrike explains to Hester that Crome had agreed to resurrect her as a Stalker similar to him after he brings back her body. She agrees to this, but Tom intervenes by stabbing Shrike in the eye, shutting him down, and saving her life. Valentine is sent away by Crome on a "secret mission", much to Katherine's dismay. Suspicious of her father, Katherine begins investigating events in London with the help of Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod, whom she befriends after discovering he witnessed Tom chasing Hester. They discover that Valentine salvaged a monstrous ancient weapon called MEDUSA for London and that the Guild of Engineers had reassembled it inside St Paul's Cathedral. The Cathedral's dome splits open to reveal MEDUSA, which is then used to destroy a much larger city pursuing London. Tom and Hester are rescued by Fang, who is revealed to be an Anti-Traction League agent and takes them to the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa which protects the nation-state of the League. Fang suspects that the weapon that London has reassembled will be used to