The dust settled over London like a gentle shroud, the city’s ancient stones bearing witness to a silent victory. Inside a secure conference room at the Barclays vault—now under the full control of Whitmore Industries—Eleanor “Lena” Whitmore stood before a floor-to-ceiling window, watching the Thames flow steadily towards the sea. The phrase from her father’s inscription, where the river meets the sea, had never felt more profound. It was a place of culmination, of endings ...