A Way between Worlds

by Melanie Crowder

  For Addie

  1

  GRIFFIN

  IF GRIFFIN HAD learned anything about magic, it’s that you can’t trust it. Not one bit.

  His eyes fluttered open after a too-short nap and the ceiling was right there, his nose smashed against it, and his toes, too. He floated on a plane of mist high above his bed, with nothing but air holding him up. Griffin jerked in panic, flinging his arms out to both sides, grabbing at anything in reach.

  Laughter tittered below. He swung his head around, banging it against the ceiling. Three children scurried out the door, shrieking and giggling while Griffin watched helplessly from above. They wore gauzy layers of spun spider silk like everybody here, the loose edges trailing in the air as they whipped around the corner and out of sight.

  Without any warning, Griffin dropped out of the air, the curled corners of his mom’s drawings fluttering as he plopped onto the feather bed below. He scampered off the bed in case those little magic workers came back for a second try. (Not that he could do anything about it if they did.) But still, he felt better facing them on his feet.

  He’d only been on this world for four days, and that was already four days too many. Griffin shivered. His body still hadn’t adjusted to the chill of Caligo after the dry heat of Somni. But he’d put up with the cold (and the pesky kids) if it meant he and his mom were safe.

  Griffin shuffled out the open doorway and to the edge of the floating island where they were staying, shading his eyes against the glare. A swarm of birds as tiny as bees spiraled like a tumbleweed, chasing a cluster of windblown seeds. The kids were long gone, seated in one of the shallow boats that rode the currents of air through the city in the sky. In the distance, the lighthouse tower rose out of a bank of crisp, white mist. The lens at the top swiveled, winking as it turned.

  The lighthouse. That’s what had started all this trouble. Well, not that one. The one back home on the Oregon coast that Griffin and his dad took care of. He loved that lighthouse—it was cool in an old-timey sort of way, and it was all theirs, his and his dad’s.

  Of course, he’d always assumed it was an ordinary lighthouse. Why wouldn’t it be? But then his dad was sucked through the glass, and Griffin found out that the lens was a portal between Earth and a bunch of other worlds, and that his parents, Philip and Katherine Fenn, were part of a secret society tasked with guarding the portal against invaders from those other worlds.

  Griffin had gone after his dad, though he barely knew anything about Somni, the world Philip had been pulled into, or the wicked priests who’d kidnapped him. It had been like a nightmare, losing his dad after his mom had died only three years before. But if the priests hadn’t kidnapped Philip, maybe Griffin never would have discovered that his mom wasn’t really dead. Years before, Katherine had been kidnapped by the same priests, who’d planned to use her lifelong study of Fresnel lenses to unlock the portal’s magic.

  Griffin shuddered. That’s the last thing anyone on any world needed—those priests getting ahold of more magic. It was bad enough that if you didn’t have a way to protect your mind, the priests could control your every move and use that power to attack and colonize every world in their reach.

  Griffin turned his back on the mists and peeked into the room beside his. Katherine was sprawled on the floor, books scattered around her as she soaked up all she could about the years she’d missed. Her dark hair was tucked behind her ears and she hummed absently while she read. Relief rushed through Griffin at the sight of her there, alive and getting well.

  If only his dad was here. The family had just been reunited—they weren’t supposed to be separated on different worlds again so soon. But the Somnite rebels needed Philip’s help. He had to stay behind to make glass pendants that would shield their minds, protecting the people of Somni from falling back under the priests’ spell. It had to be this way, at least for a little while longer. Still, Griffin wouldn’t stop worrying until his whole family was together again and those wicked priests were gone for good.

  Katherine glanced up. “You’re awake!” she exclaimed, promptly shutting the book in her lap and setting it aside with the rest.

  Griffin nodded. His mom had been so fragile when she first arrived—half starved and covered in bone-deep bruises. The mists had wrapped around her, healing her hurts and making her stronger each day. She was still terribly thin, and sometimes in the middle of a conversation, her face would blanch, her shoulders hunching over like a wounded animal. Her nightmares woke them both.

  They were supposed to have gone home through the portal, to Earth, where Griffin could get her to a hospital. But the Levitator had other plans (not that he’d bothered to share what those were) and he’d pulled Griffin and Katherine through the portal to Caligo.

  They were stuck here.

  So each day Griffin and his mom took one of the little boats on a tour of the floating islands to see the strange birds in the mews, stroll through the markets, or visit the observatory, where the glare of the mists was blocked out and they could peer into the purple nebulae and red stars and blue planets spinning above. It wasn’t like on Earth, where you had to wait for night to see the stars. On Caligo, they were always there, pinpricks piercing the black floating above the mist. If Griffin had been one of those kids obsessed with rockets and satellites and aliens, he would have spent all his time at the observatory, looking deeper into space than anyone on Earth could.

  But the real reason they ventured out every day was to check in on Fi. Griffin had met the young spy on Somni while he was desperately searching for his dad. She’d been working for the Vinean resistance, disguised as one of the servants. He hadn’t trusted her at first, but without Fi, none of the Fenns would have escaped.

  It was hard for Griffin to be stuck on Caligo, but it was even worse for Fi. At that very moment, the resistance was fighting to save their home world of Vinea. And she was here, powerless to help them.

  As if Katherine could read his mind, she brushed past Griffin, resting a hand against his cheek before stepping into a boat waiting at the island’s edge. “Let’s see if Fi wants to visit the library with us, hmmm? Leónie told me there’s an entire section on the seven other worlds—one floor for each. Over the years, the Levitators have written down everything they observed through the portal. Imagine, Griffin—they’ve peered into Glacies, and Arida, and, oh—do you think even if they could see into Stella that they’d actually see anything in all that dark?”

  Griffin clambered into the empty spot in front of his mom, settling in as the boat rocked impatiently. He didn’t care one bit about Stella. He just wanted his dad back.

  “To the aerie,” Katherine said, and the boat shimmied into the current of mists. The belly of the boat was polished to a mirror shine so it reflected the black of space overhead and the mists passing fleetingly by. Katherine leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her son. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Seems like all I’ve done is sleep, ever since we got here.” Griffin’s words were swallowed in a yawn.

  Katherine chuckled. “Apparently you’re not finished catching up yet.”

  Griffin hung on to her arms where they crisscrossed his collarbone. He was still reminding himself that this was real, that she was okay. Maybe he wasn’t in such a hurry to get home after all. He eyed the lighthouse tower again, all alone at the edge of the mists.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?” Katherine exhaled, leaning back again to let the breeze wash over her as the boat climbed steadily upward.

  “How come there’s never anyone in the tower, guarding the portal? Aren’t they afraid the priests will come here and attack Caligo next?”

  “Hmmmm. It seems like such delicate magic, what the Levitator and
his fleet do, holding everything up.”

  Griffin turned in his seat, rounding his spine and fitting it against the boat’s curved bow so he could watch his mom’s face light up while she spoke.

  “Their gift is fierce, though, too. Only the invited can remain on Caligo. When Somni first invaded, the old Levitator did the unthinkable: He commanded his fleet to let the soldiers fall. This world doesn’t need guards in the tower like Vinea or an alarm system like we have back home. No foreigner can survive on this side of the portal unbidden.”

  Griffin shuddered. He glanced over his shoulder at the aerie. It was a broad platform with a nestlike building at the center. The fleet went about their work, loose strands of spider silk bobbing in the air behind them. Griffin had dismissed them as silly children and kindly recluses practicing their magic in a blissed-out meditative state. But there was more to it that he hadn’t counted on.

  That’s the thing about magic. It has a hard edge, sharp enough to carve right through a person if he isn’t careful.

  2

  FI

  FI SAT ON the edge of the aerie’s broad platform, her feet dangling over nothing but air. As her legs swung back and forth, the mists swirled around her ankles, daring her to launch off the ground and into their playful currents.

  But Fi was in no mood for dares.

  She kicked at a curious tendril of mist, glaring at the vertical gardens across the span of stark white. The only thing better than being home, on Vinea, would be there, with the greenwitches. What little plant life could be found on Caligo was in those gardens, and it seemed to pull at her, beckoning across the space between floating islands. The greenwitches were over there having some sort of meeting. Some all-day kind of gathering. And they were ignoring her.

  They had been ever since Fi and Griffin and his mom had been pulled through the portal in the lighthouse to Caligo. The Levitator had said the three of them were crucial to defeating Somni’s priests, but all she’d done so far was sit around and wait. On second thought, maybe Fi was ready to jump off the edge to test the boundaries of the Levitator and his fleet’s holding-every-single-thing-up power. Maybe then somebody would pay attention to her.

  She wasn’t even supposed to be here. While the resistance was fighting to win back their home world—battling the priests on Somni and storming the fort on Vinea to free the wildlands—she was stuck here, useless. And the people she ached to be with? The ones who seemed to have stepped out of legend right in front of her eyes?

  They were ignoring her.

  Ever since she’d first glimpsed the greenwitches, all she’d wanted was to be with them. There were twelve—more than she’d ever imagined might still be alive—all in one place and lighting up the mists with green magic flowing through their veins. Other than her great-aunt Una, Fi had never met another greenwitch. They were rare a hundred years ago, before the Somni invasion. And after? She’d heard that the priests had hunted down and killed every last one of them.

  Yet here they were.

  Fi had spent twenty-seven months on Somni as a spy, and while some of those days were full of intrigue and heart-in-your-throat terror, most of them passed painfully slowly. Watching this door, waiting for that person to come or go, and then biting her tongue for hours until she could report what she’d seen. And the worst part? She had to act like a servant. All the spies did if the resistance was going to stay hidden.

  To pass the time while she scrubbed and dusted and polished, she told herself stories of the Vinea the resistance would bring back, teeming with life. She imagined greenwitches emerging from hiding deep in the wildlands and calling on the green magic to cleanse their world of Somnites for good.

  She’d dreamed of that victory so many times, it was like a favorite memory playing over in her mind. But she’d never really believed it was possible. The greenwitches were gone. The resistance would have to find a way to beat back Somni without them.

  Only they weren’t all gone. Fi glared across the mists. They were here. Not fighting shoulder to shoulder with the resistance. Not ending the Somni occupation. If Fi had even an ounce of the green magic in her veins, she’d use up every last drop to win Vinea back. The only reason the priests had been able to colonize all those other worlds was that they’d used their mind control, and the best way to fight magic was with magic. The resistance needed the greenwitches’ help. And Fi couldn’t even begin trying to convince them if they only ignored her.

  Fi’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden movement in the distance. She hopped to her feet, squinting. There—past the gardens and the library that spiraled up into the mists, seemingly with no beginning and no end, almost as far away as the lighthouse at the edge of the city in the sky—a boat had left the little floating island where Griffin and his mom were staying and began winding slowly toward the aerie.

  Fi paced back and forth along the edge of the platform. Katherine had invited her to stay with them, of course. But Fi wouldn’t leave her spot opposite the gardens. She slept there, ate there, and swatted sullenly at the perky mists trying to draw her out of her gloom. The greenwitches might be ignoring her, but she wouldn’t let them forget about her.

  When the boat drew close, Fi waved and Griffin waved back, laughing at something Katherine said. As soon as they were near enough, he jumped from the boat onto the platform, and Fi stumbled out of his way, playfully shoving him back toward the edge. Katherine climbed up after her son, wrapping Fi in a hug.

  “You’ll stay with us tonight, won’t you?” She’d asked that same question every day, so she must have already known the answer.

  Fi shook her head, her lips twisting to the side. She wanted to say yes, so badly.

  Katherine dropped her arms, fixing Fi with a sharp look. “You’ll let me know if you change your mind?”

  Fi nodded. She glanced over her shoulder at the fleet dashing back and forth, hurrying about the Levitator’s business. She didn’t like the idea that a kid younger than her was in charge. How’d he get so lucky? If Fi had all that power, she wouldn’t waste it. She’d finish the priests. For good.

  The people of Caligo looped their silver hair in intricate topknots and wore spider silk clothing that wound like spun sugar over their bodies. The elderly members of the fleet sat on fluffy white cushions, their eyes closed, like they were napping sitting up. Katherine insisted they were actually working their magic, holding up the observatory, the mews, the library, and all the people too. But Fi didn’t trust it. How did they know everybody was covered? What if they did fall asleep? Or get bored? Or distracted? It didn’t seem like a very good system. She preferred good old-fashioned dirt beneath her feet, thank you very much.

  And their skin? Fi shuddered. When a Caligion wanted to go unseen, you could walk right in front of one of them without knowing it. Griffin said there were animals on Earth who could do that same shifty thing. His encyclopedia voice took over as he rattled off details about cephalopods, whose skin changed to mimic the sea floor they glided over. He thought it was cool, but she didn’t like it.

  Fi walked with Griffin and his mom under the high roof of the nest, straight into the flurry of activity. The Levitator’s attendant, a brusque woman named Leónie, stepped out of the shadows, her skin rippling as it shifted to reflect the glare of white mists behind her. She wore her pale hair twisted in ornate cones, and a long-legged silver spider perched on her shoulder.

  Leónie held up a hand. “The Levitator can’t see you now.”

  “But—” Katherine began.

  “Why not?” Griffin said.

  “He is in Sight.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Things are happening in the far-flung worlds that require his attention.” Leónie brought her hands together, the pad of each finger meeting its opposite and pushing back. “He left a message for you.”

  The others leaned in, waiting for Leónie to finish that thought, but the woman seemed perfectly content to watch them squirm. She inspected the diagonal c
urve of her long fingernails and absently petted the spider that was slowly making its way down her arm, its many eyes fixed on the visitors.

  “Well, what is it?” Fi finally blurted.

  “Over the past few days, the Levitator has observed legions of soldiers led by Somnite priests moving through the portal from Somni to Vinea, marching without stopping. The thing you three were called to Caligo to do—it’s happening.” She looked down her nose. “You should go now, and make ready.”

  More soldiers? Fi ground her teeth together. Someone had to warn the resistance. That stupid Levitator had no business yanking her here when she should be on Vinea right now, fighting—

  “Fionna?”

  The voice came from behind Fi, and it stopped her thoughts, and her breath too. It wasn’t anyone Fi recognized, but the sound trembled through her, awakening something deep inside. Her eyes drifted closed, and a flash of green lit the backs of her eyelids. She reached out and Griffin’s hand was there to steady her. Fi blinked, shaking her head clear, then spun on her heel, her throat tight, a familiar ache in her chest. There, at the edge of the platform, one of the greenwitches waited beside an eager boat.

  The same jumble of emotions that churned inside her played over Griffin’s face. He squeezed her hand. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

  3

  FI

  WHEN FI LEAPED out of the boat and into the vertical gardens, the ground dipped like a sponge beneath her feet, springing back into place when she stepped away. Fi gasped as the green rose up to meet her, spilling into her lungs and coursing through her blood. The entire island was made of plants. From the ground beneath her to the trellises that arced overhead and the glade of trees at its heart—all of it was green.

  The only living architecture Fi had ever encountered was in the chapels on Vinea. They’d form whenever someone crossed over the threshold, only to dissolve into the jungle again once they’d left. But she’d heard of so many other kinds of living structures from before the Somni invasion—bridges and lookout towers, homes and schools. Fi rested her palm against sturdy vines that formed a thick pillar rising into the mists, bracing the more delicate plants that fountained off it.