There was a thought trying to break through his confusion. He’d been worried about someone, only a moment ago. But though he wanted to help, Micah didn’t think he had anything left to give.
Suddenly, he didn’t even know where he was.
Both universes had gone dark.
Or maybe he was just too tired to open his eyes.
STRING BOY
Micah wasn’t sure he was awake. He could hear voices, close and whispering, and he could feel that he was sitting—on the ground, he thought—with his back propped against something warm and sturdy.
But he couldn’t tell his eyelids to open. Couldn’t even make himself want to. His whole body was heavy, as if someone had tucked him in and piled far too many blankets on top of him. Even breathing was hard.
His ears still worked, though, and after a long while, he realized he could understand the people around him. Their voices were familiar. Friendly. And there were a lot them.
“You will have to try eventually, Yuri. It isn’t good to fear your magic so much.” It was a gentle voice. The Inventor?
“I did not think I should try during an emergency? On a young boy?” And that was Yuri, of course. The cook had stopped Micah from running to save Bowler.
The next voice that spoke was definitely Geoffrey’s. “You could’ve tried givin’ him a little knock on the head. Just enough to scatter his brains before he collapsed an intercontinental Door.”
Micah wondered whose brains the ticket taker wanted to scatter.
“I do not hit people?” Yuri’s tone was surly.
“I’m not sayin’ hit him hard.” Geoffrey sounded almost merry. “Just a little wallop to distract the boy.”
“Oh, that’s terrific advice,” someone said. “Wallop Micah. I’m sure the Lightbender would take that well.”
Wait, thought Micah. I’m Micah. That’s me they’re talking about.
He struggled to open his eyes.
“You’ll see one day, Dulcie,” said Geoffrey, a little more seriously. “Here we all are, thinkin’ we’ve got a cute little knot-tier on our hands, and . . .” He trailed off.
“And?” the Inventor said.
“And he’s awake,” Geoffrey said.
It was unfair that Geoffrey knew that, when Micah was still trying to figure out how his eyelids worked. When he finally persuaded them to open a minute later, he saw more than a dozen magicians staring at him.
Most of the kitchen staff were there, sitting on top of crates. And beside Yuri, wagging its tail, was an oversized bloodhound that had to be one of the circus’s shapeshifters. It turned out that the sturdy prop behind Micah’s back was Big Jean, and he thought he spotted a few more menagerie animals hiding among the luggage, which was strewn everywhere.
But the Lightbender and the Strongmen and the manager and everyone else—where were they?
The magicians present had gathered in a big, loose circle around a glowing copper sphere that hovered above the grass. The sphere crackled like a fireplace full of burning logs, and it gave off heat.
Only a knife juggler named Ten Hands was outside the group. He was circling the perimeter like a guard on duty, flipping his silver knives through the air so quickly that Micah couldn’t begin to count them.
A thick, white fog obscured most of the world beyond them, and just as Micah wondered about it, Geoffrey spoke. “Mistsinger’s keepin’ us all covered, since you’ve gone and stranded our illusionist halfway around the world.”
Geoffrey had somehow gotten hold of a lounge chair. The ticket taker sat with his arms behind his head and his boots kicked off, watching Micah closely.
Micah blinked at him. He had no idea what Geoffrey was talking about, but he had much more pressing questions. “Where’s Bowler?”
Everyone was quiet.
“He’s with Rosebud,” the Inventor said finally. She held something soft and dark gray in one hand, and she was using her jeweler’s loupe to examine it. “In her wagon. We’re fortunate she was still on this side when the Door closed.”
Micah tried to feel good about that. Bowler would be fine. Rosebud could heal anything.
Almost anything.
“And the manager is with Porter by the gates,” said Geoffrey. “Givin’ him a little bit of a magical boost. He’ll be comin’ around shortly, and I suggest you think up a good apology fast.”
“Why?” said Micah. What had happened to Porter?
Geoffrey snorted.
“And where’s Terpsichore?”
“Running?” said Yuri. “I think the Strongmen and the others cannot catch her?”
“They can’t,” said Geoffrey. “But they’re keepin’ pace with her and keepin’ an eye on the sky. They’ll protect her till she tires herself out. Shouldn’t be long now. She’s slowin’ down.”
“How do you know that?” Micah asked.
Geoffrey couldn’t possibly see what was going on through all this mist. Instead of answering, the ticket taker put his hands behind his head and leaned even farther back in his lounge chair like he was thinking about taking a nap.
Micah didn’t know what to make of that, but it didn’t matter. He’d delayed long enough. This mess was his fault, and he had to tell them so.
“I’m so sorry,” he said to the gathered magicians. “I don’t know what happened. I was supposed to be taking care of Terp, and she was in a good mood. And then . . . then . . .”
Images came back to him—something falling out of the sky. Lightning. Bowler on the ground, sharp hooves coming down.
Several people answered him at once.
“You couldn’t have known—”
“Bowler wrapped his arm in the lead. It was just a mistake.”
“None of us were expecting—”
“But I tied the rope so that it wouldn’t come undone,” Micah tried to explain. “Bowler couldn’t break free, and Terp was panicking, and I don’t know why, but—”
“It’s not your fault.” It was Geoffrey who’d spoken. The ticket taker crossed one bare foot over the other and peered at Micah through his monocle. “It’s not the unicorn’s fault either. She’s young, and even a full-grown adult might have spooked under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Micah put his hands on the grass and pushed, trying to sit up a little straighter. His muscles were aching and wobbly. “What scared her?”
“A dire hawk,” said the Inventor, looking up from the gray thing she’d been inspecting. “The biggest I’ve ever seen. It dropped down on top of us.”
A what? thought Micah.
Geoffrey grunted. “A dire hawk’s a bird. Almost as large as Big Jean and strong enough to pick her up if it had a mind to.”
“I thought I saw something . . .” said Micah. “It looked like a piece of the sky was falling?”
“Their feathers have a unique camouflaging property,” the Inventor said. “They aren’t quite invisible, but they blend in well. It’s nearly impossible to spot them from a distance, and it’s hard to keep them in your sights even when they’re close. That’s why we didn’t see it sooner.”
Micah took a breath. “So, it’s definitely her then.”
Of course it was. But he realized now that some tiny part of him had still hoped something else was causing all this trouble. He looked again at the soft, gray thing the Inventor was examining. It had feathers.
Geoffrey was still staring right at Micah. “It’s a storm petrel,” he said. “A seabird.”
Storm petrel. That would explain the weather. And the little gray bird wasn’t moving. It hadn’t moved at all since Micah had woken up.
“It’s fine that it’s Victoria,” Geoffrey said. “At least she’s an enemy we know. It was clever of her to build up a flock of magical beasties to do her dirty work. But she’s cocky, and prone to makin’ mistakes when she�
��s angry. And you can bet she’s angry right now, considerin’ the trouble you’ve caused her.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Micah said.
Geoffrey chuckled. “Tell that to Porter.”
Yuri stood up and walked across the circle to join Micah. He crouched down beside him. “Everything came untied?” he said curiously. “And the storm stopped at the same time?”
Micah frowned. He hadn’t done anything at all to the storm. He’d only been trying to free Bowler from Terpsichore’s lead.
“That wasn’t me.”
Yuri looked at the bird in the Inventor’s lap. “It fell?” he said. “Right on top of the two of us?”
“Is it dead?” Micah asked.
The Inventor nodded. “Yes. Poor thing,” she said, cradling the limp bird in her hands. “The Bird Woman must have been using it horribly, to create such huge storms. Few petrels have that power to begin with, and they never call it on land.”
“You broke Victoria’s hold on the petrel,” Geoffrey said to Micah, “while you were busy untyin’ everything else.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Micah.
But he remembered now. He’d touched that rope of light. He’d been trying to fix it, but it had splintered and . . . died.
Horror grew in him, hollowing everything else out to make room for itself. That knot—that terrible wrongness he’d felt—had it been Victoria’s connection to the bird? If it was, that meant the petrel’s death was Micah’s doing.
He couldn’t have killed such a small, innocent—
“You didn’t kill it,” Geoffrey said, his voice sudden as a slap. “She did. The poor creature was being tortured, and you freed it.”
Micah felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. “But—”
“The petrel was too hurt to continue, Micah,” the Inventor said comfortingly. “It just gave up.”
Micah swallowed. None of this made sense. “I can’t do magic like that.”
Geoffrey rolled his eyes so hard his monocle fell off. A couple of people laughed.
“You have not looked around?” Yuri asked.
Frowning, Micah did so. Everything was in such a shambles, and he couldn’t see how it had happened. The Strongmen had roped everything together, but now the tents were in heaps instead of neat bundles and rolls. Barrels and crates that had been lashed together lay scattered on their sides.
Suspicion growing in him, Micah looked down at his sneakers. The laces were dangling, knots undone.
He reached for his wrist, and discovered, with a punch-to-the-stomach feeling, that his bootlace was gone.
Micah had spent months working on Grandpa Ephraim’s knot, making it stronger and stronger. And he’d made sure the bootlace wouldn’t come off without his permission. Not ever.
If he’d untied something like that without even realizing it . . .
What else did I do? he thought frantically, trying to remember.
Come loose, he’d said. Screamed.
And the world had gone strange—covered with all of those golden strands of light.
Knots, Micah had thought, but they weren’t just that. They were connections. Beautiful connections between people. And those horrible ones . . . between Victoria and the petrel and all the other birds she’d enslaved to do her bidding?
“There was another thing, too,” Micah said, thinking out loud. “This big pile of knots that looked different.”
It had been a connection, but not between people. Between places.
And Micah had accidentally broken it.
“Um,” he said, fresh shock numbing him. “Why are we all still in Argentina?”
The other half of the circus had already gone through the Door when Victoria attacked. And now they weren’t here.
Scatter his brains, Geoffrey had been saying when Micah first awoke, before he collapsed an intercontinental Door.
“Oh, no,” said Micah. He looked around the circle. “I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t have done something that bad.”
“Don’t worry?” said Yuri, reaching into his apron pocket and offering Micah a slightly battered pack of crackers. “We won’t let Porter kill you?”
* * *
Micah’s fellow magicians seemed to think he needed cheering up. Unfortunately, every cheerful thing they pointed out was more than a little alarming.
“You probably knocked Victoria unconscious just like Porter. That’s why she’s not giving us any more trouble.”
“Maybe she fell out of the sky. Ha!”
“Everyone’s shoes came untied. It was funny. Geoffrey landed flat on his face.”
“I’m takin’ protective measures from now on,” said the ticket taker, wiggling his bare toes at the group.
“And the Gardener won’t be wearing lace-up breeches anymore, that’s for sure.”
“He needed a wardrobe update anyway.”
“Plus, we’re on the side with the tents. If it takes days for Porter to set up the Door again, we’ll have somewhere comfy to sleep. The others will be stuck outside.”
“Is it warm wherever they are?” Micah asked.
“Nope,” said Geoffrey, who was one of the few people who knew where the circus had been headed. “But a little while out in the freezin’ weather will be good for their constitutions.”
Micah knew they were trying to make him feel better, and though he was grateful for that, he still found himself wondering if he could persuade Big Jean to roll over and squish him. At least if he was smooshed into the turf, he wouldn’t have to imagine the Lightbender and everyone else shivering out in the cold with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
And what must they be thinking right now?
“Hey, Micah, maybe you need a magician’s name!” someone suggested. “Doorcrusher.”
“The UnPorter!”
“He could be Knot Boy?”
“That will confuse people, Yuri.”
“String Boy is the obvious choice.”
The idea of choosing a magician’s name would have been exhilarating a few hours ago, but now . . . String Boy was so horrible Micah thought he probably deserved it.
“How did you do it?” Dulcie asked suddenly.
The candy maker was digging through her pockets, looking for something to feed Micah. Apparently, Rosebud had told them he needed to eat when he woke up, but he wasn’t hungry. He’d already had the crackers Yuri had found and a plum, and he’d had to choke those down.
“I mean, you’re a kid who makes bracelets,” said Dulcie, reaching into the bib of her overalls and smiling when she pulled out a square of fudge. “And they’re clever bracelets! Don’t get me wrong. But what does that have to do with Porter’s Doors?”
Micah looked down at his hands. It didn’t make perfect sense, even to him. And he didn’t think he could describe the golden world to them well. It already felt like a dream he’d had a long time ago.
“I think my magic isn’t just knots. It’s more like tying and untying all kinds of things? Does that make sense?”
He could tell by most of their faces that it didn’t.
“It’s like . . . there was a connection between the gates Porter set up here and the ones on the other side? And I broke it. Accidentally.”
There was a moment of silence. The crackling of the copper fireplace sphere in the middle of their circle seemed unnaturally loud.
“Oh.” Dulcie’s voice had taken on a weird, high-pitched note. “Okeydokey then.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Micah had to make sure they understood that. “I was kind of untying everything all at once because I was so scared for Bowler. And the Door was really pretty. I didn’t know what it was. I just wanted to touch it.”
He felt his face heating. It sounded foolish now. You couldn’t go around poking magical things you didn’t understan
d. Micah knew that.
He opened his mouth to say he was sorry again, but footsteps were approaching through the mist. A moment later, the manager appeared across the circle from him, the thick white fog curling away to let him pass.
Mr. Head’s eyes pierced him like darts.
Micah’s breath caught.
“Well done, Micah Tuttle,” the manager said softly. “Rosebud tells me that Bowler will be fine, thanks to you. Though we would appreciate it, in the future, if you refrained from experiments that interfere with the work of other magicians.”
“It’s just rude,” said an exhausted voice.
Porter appeared behind the manager, and everyone let out happy cries of welcome.
The magician looked ghastly. He was slumping where he stood, and he had circles under his eyes as dark as bruises. He pointed at Micah.
“I’m forgiving you,” he said. “But only because you said my Door was pretty. And because I like to imagine that wherever she is, Victoria feels even worse than I do.”
“I am really, really sorry, Porter,” said Micah.
“Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
Micah’s head felt a little lighter on top of his shoulders. Bowler was going to be all right. And Mr. Head didn’t seem mad. He’d almost sounded proud.
“We will collect Terpsichore and be on our way,” said the manager. “Those of you who know our destination, do not speak of it. I doubt the Bird Woman is in any fit state to be listening in, but we shouldn’t risk it. We do not want to reveal our plans.”
He looked at Porter. “Be ready.”
Porter nodded, but as soon as Mr. Head disappeared into the mists again, he collapsed onto the ground. “I’m just going to lie here. Don’t wake me when it’s time to go.”
“That might be a problem,” said Geoffrey.
“Make Micah open the Door,” said Porter, draping an arm over his eyes.
“I don’t think I could do that,” said Micah, remembering how complicated and impossible the Door had looked in that golden realm. “I think you have to create the connection before I can do anything to it.”
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