“The Thieves. I heard you’d not been around for a long time. Not properly. Just a skeleton crew, is that right?”
Flick thought about the great emptiness of the travel agency and how alone Jonathan had been in it. Even now that she was with him, the place wasn’t exactly packed out with Custodians.
Nicc took a swig of her drink and shrugged at the awkward silence. “None of my business, I’m sure. But be careful. This place isn’t what it used to be.”
Why did you say we should come here instead of the Marigold?” Flick asked.
Nicc clicked her tongue before she spoke. “Because the Marigold is gone. And it’s not the only thing. Five Lights really has changed. There’s always been the odd time a building disappeared or one of the fountains started running backward, but now it’s happening all the time. Whole streets are vanishing. Stalls, shops… people.”
“People,” Jonathan repeated.
Flick’s heart gave what felt like a sharp nudge.
I’m the last Mercator.…
She gave a quick glance at Jonathan, whose face was gray.
Nicc nodded. “Something’s happening here.” She looked at the suitcase again. “The stories said that the Strangeworlds Society used to look after us when things like this happened. They’d send someone to investigate.”
Flick felt as if a heap of puzzle pieces had fallen into place. She trod deliberately on Jonathan’s foot.
He glanced at her and gave a single nod. “Things have changed for the Society, too,” he said to Nicc.
She nodded thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t linger around here, if I was you. Something’s going wrong. And I wouldn’t want you to get caught up in it.”
Flick didn’t know what to say. She really needed to talk to Jonathan, alone.
Nicc de Vyce didn’t stay to eat with them. She greeted Jesper merrily when he brought their food, and Flick noticed her take a bottle opener from his belt without him feeling it, before she vanished out of the inn.
Flick counted silently to one hundred before broaching the question. “This was the last place your dad traveled to, wasn’t it? Why didn’t we just come here first?”
Jonathan put his cutlery down. “When I arrived at the travel agency, after I heard he was missing, the suitcase to Five Lights—the one we always kept in the wall of cases—was gone. He traveled here. I followed him, through this spare case.” He tapped it beneath the table. “I tried asking around for him. People were kind, but not especially helpful. Or else downright hostile when I tried to get any scrap of information I thought might help. Nothing anyone said gave me a clue. I didn’t stay long. Went back to Strangeworlds, tried to make sense of why he would have… gone. And that was a couple of months ago.”
Flick tapped the table as she thought. “Do you think he knew about what Nicc told us, then? The disappearing streets, buildings vanishing, and so on?”
“He must have,” Jonathan said. “He always took his Head Custodian duties very seriously. He would have come here to investigate.”
Flick paused, not sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question. “What do you think he found out?”
Jonathan didn’t answer.
The space between them could have frosted over.
Flick pushed her plate away. “Could someone have kidnapped him? The Thieves?”
Jonathan pulled a skeptical face. “I doubt it. Even they have rules and a code of conduct. People, for instance, shouldn’t be stolen.”
“People?” Flick coughed.
“Yes.” Jonathan fished out the Five Lights guidebook for her to see. “Apparently, there’s an agreement with the City Guards. People are strictly off-limits. Inanimate objects only.”
Flick scanned the page.
In accordance with orders from the Five Lights City Guards, theft is restricted to objects that are not alive. This includes a ban on thieving both animals and people. Incidents of kidnap should be reported to the Guards, who will assist you.
“I don’t know what to say,” Flick said. And she didn’t. Everything pointed to Daniel Mercator having come here and then… vanishing. Either he was dead, or he’d deliberately run away, or someone held him hostage. None of the outcomes were comforting.
Jonathan gave a sad sort of shrug.
Sympathy settled over Flick like a blanket. “So… What made you come back now? After all this time?”
Jonathan looked up at her. “You.”
A shiver crept over Flick, like spiders’ steps over her skin. For some reason, it didn’t feel entirely welcome to have been part of Jonathan’s decision to come back.
When they had eaten, Jesper showed them to their room. Jonathan assured Flick that, even if they slept overnight at the City of Five Lights, only a few hours would pass in their own world. The room was split into separate compartments with sliding doors separating the two beds. The beds themselves were on the floor and were rounded at both ends, like used bars of soap. They were padded on the inside and a snug mattress filled the bottom, along with a pile of blankets and pillows. Flick was reminded of cocoons.
Jonathan pushed back the third screen and made a delighted sound at the bathtub and sinks. “This is delightfully rustic. I’m sure we could have done worse.”
Flick pressed the bed’s mattress with a hand. It felt the perfect mixture of firm and soft. “I can’t wait to sleep in it.”
“You don’t want to sleep yet,” Jonathan said, going over to the window. “The sun is going down. And night-time is when this place really comes alive.”
* * *
Jonathan wasn’t wrong. As the sun dropped below the horizon, the City of Five Lights lived up to its name. The fountains central to the quads each had five frosted glass lamps atop them, and as the darkness crept in, the lamps lit up in a bright blue-white light. Tiny fairy lights were strung between the surrounding buildings and the fountains, creating a cobweb of twinkling lights over the heads of the tourists and shoppers below. Each stall and cart followed suit, their wheels and displays sparkling with colorful lights that glowed and glimmered, competing to be the most noticeable.
Flick watched from their window as a magician took to the square, smashing two bottles of magic beneath his boots before catching the mists of the escaping magic and changing it from magical energy into light energy. It was as though he was holding two tiny suns in his hands. He gave them a twist, and again, until he had three smaller balls in each hand. And then, he began to juggle them. The balls of light didn’t act like the juggling balls Flick knew. They drifted slowly through the air, leaving glowing, ribbon-like trails in their wake, and as the juggler turned on the spot, he became surrounded by a waterfall of light. Flick laughed, her earlier unease almost forgotten.
Flick and Jonathan went out into the evening. Jonathan still had the case in his hand; he was too nervous to leave it behind. The evening air was warm, and there was a smell of roasting garlic and herbs coming from the kitchen of the Wilting Lily. Outside, stallholders were glazing nuts in sugar, turning meat on wooden sticks, frying battered hoops that looked a little like onion rings, and stuffing thin, pita-like breads full of spiced vegetables and rice.
Flick’s stomach growled. She nudged Jonathan and pointed to the stall with the stuffed pitas. “Can we?”
He rolled his eyes but followed her over.
“Lovely evening!” The woman making the food beamed at them. “Best street food in Five Lights. You’ve chosen wisely. What can I get for you?”
“What’s in these?” Flick asked politely.
“Spiced yellow peas, rice, and rough-cut peppers.” The woman showed her the frying pan, where more of the mixture was cooking. Flick leaned forward and sniffed appreciatively at the fragrant steam. “And jumping crickers, of course.”
Flick froze, her mouth drying up like the Sahara. “Jumping what?”
“Crickers.” The woman spooned up something brown that Flick had taken to be a vegetable; only now she could see it had legs. Several of them. “Ver
y nice. Filling and not too spicy. You want two?”
Flick gawped in silent horror at the insect on the spoon.
Jonathan was shaking with suppressed mirth as he patted Flick on the shoulder. “As much as my friend here enjoys eating invertebrates,” he said, grinning wickedly, “I am a vegetarian. Do you have anything without wing-cases?”
“Of course. One for each of you?”
Jonathan parted with two seashells for the food, as Flick recovered enough to thank the stallholder, and they then both walked over to the fountain to eat their snack. The pitas were doughy and squishy and warm, with a subtle hint of what tasted like coconut in the bread. The rice and vegetables inside were delicious, and Flick sat in happy silence as she chewed.
Flick beamed. She was in another world. A world she had never known existed before today! The warm evening air was like a welcoming hug, and the lights and music around her were like magic. And there was even real magic! She beamed, mouth full, as she watched a girl spin a glass hoop filled with tiny twinkling light up her arms, over her head and down her body to her feet, before freeing one of her feet and gracefully balancing on one leg, the hoop still spinning merrily on the other. The hoop then dissolved into a flurry of pink-white blossoms, which swirled through the busy square before vanishing completely.
“This is the best day I’ve ever had,” she said, once she’d swallowed.
Jonathan blinked at her. His face seemed stuck somewhere between surprised and sympathetic. “R-really?”
“I don’t mean that I’m not worried about…” She gestured at Jonathan, who gave a sort of I don’t mind shrug. “Sorry. It’s not fair that I’m enjoying this.”
“I don’t want you to not enjoy yourself,” Jonathan said. “It’s fine, really. You don’t need to apologize.”
She gazed back at the mingling crowds of people and sighed. “I’ve wanted to travel places my whole life. But we’ve never been able to afford to go anywhere. I’ve never even been abroad in our world. And now I’m here! In another world, where there’s magic and fun, and people to meet, and new things to learn. And no one else knows about it. It’s like… it’s ours.” She looked down at the suitcase. “And we’ve got to look after it, right? We’ve got to find out what’s going on here.”
“That’s right.” Jonathan’s expression was thoughtful.
Flick gave a cheerful swing of her legs. “Tell me about this Quickspark place.”
Jonathan swallowed the last bite of his pita and balled up his paper bag. “Quickspark’s is a Strangeworlds outpost, a place where people trusted by the Society could be contacted in the event of anything going wrong. We have outposts in a few different worlds, but Quickspark’s is especially important. Five Lights is more than just another world we visit,” he said. “It is thought to be the very hub of the multiverse. To lose contact with it would be extremely undesirable.”
Flick turned. “Does the outpost here have suitcases?”
“A few. But, more importantly, it has Custodians.”
“People like you?”
“They might aspire to be like me, certainly,” Jonathan said, smirking.
Flick rolled her eyes. “And you want to go see them? All right.” She looked back at the crowds of people, some of whom were wearing glowing jewelry. The crowd was like a mass of fireflies, moving gently through the gathering darkness. “As long as you know what you’re doing.”
“We have plenty of time.” Jonathan showed her his watch, which was still keeping Earth time. “Besides, there’s nothing too dangerous here.”
Quickspark’s Travel Emporium isn’t too much of a walk from here,” Jonathan said as they left the Wilting Lily the next morning. The sun was already beating down onto the city, which seemed subdued and sleepy after its long night. There were a few scattered carts selling breakfasts and teas, but none of the trinkets or toys or performers from before. Flick felt rather out of place as they walked over the square, as though she was seeing a part of the City of Five Lights that was supposed to remain private.
“What’s the point in keeping suitcases in other worlds?” Flick asked as they turned down a side street. “Sounds a bit of a security risk, to me.”
Jonathan smiled. “Don’t keep all your suitcases in one basket, I say. Think of them as back doors—if there’s a wolf prowling on the Strangeworlds front porch, you’ll go out through the back. It hardly makes sense for there to only be one point of entry and exit to other worlds. Plus, what if you needed to visit somewhere without anyone else knowing about it?”
“Why would you need to keep it a secret anyway?” Flick frowned. “Anyone who saw would be part of the Society, wouldn’t they?”
“After one hundred and forty-seven years of travel, I would be very surprised if no one ever visited another world or three in secret.”
“I don’t get why you’d want to keep secrets from an already secret society,” Flick said shrewdly. “Do you know secrets that I don’t?”
“I know everything my father told me, and I’ve answered all of your questions,” Jonathan said.
Except that one, Flick thought to herself.
They went down one of the smaller alleyways, where the gloom clung to the walls like burned-on chimney smoke. There were no signs outside the shops they passed, and the flagstones were somewhat sunken, misshapen from centuries of footsteps.
“It should be here,” Jonathan said, examining his guidebook. “At the end of Spectral Lane.” He looked up at the building to his right.
And then went very, very still.
“What’s wrong…?” Flick followed his gaze and trailed off.
A dusty window stared back at them. Above the window, there was a pale oblong of stone where a sign should have been. Inside, the shop was completely empty.
Flick stepped forward. Her footsteps sounded very loud. “Is this it?”
“It should have been here.” Jonathan closed his book. “It was here.” He put a hand to the window.
Flick stepped up to the shop front. There was grime on the window and thick spiderwebs over the cracks between the bricks. It felt empty, even on the outside.
Jonathan stepped back, as if expecting the view to change. “It was here when I last came. It’s always been here.” He had gone very pale. “I don’t understand.”
Flick went to the door, which was a heavy wooden one, and pushed it. “It’s not locked,” she said, as it creaked open. Flick pushed the door further and went inside.
The room was icy cold. Wallpaper—a handsome design of trees and rivers that had faded to skeleton lines—was half-torn from the walls. There was a fireplace, like the one in Strangeworlds, in the center of the wall. The mirror over the fireplace was smashed and there were shards of glass on the floor. There were two chairs overturned on the rug, and a desk with scattered papers littered over it.
The wide floorboards were dull with a thin layer of dust.
Flick stepped farther in. “There’s nothing here.” Her voice was loud in the eerie empty space. “What happened?”
Jonathan followed her in. He dragged a finger over a shelf and wrinkled his nose at the dust. “Not been left too long.” He’d gone paler than ever, his eyes like saucers, gleaming in the dim light. His usual swagger had completely evaporated, his shoulders up and tense, and he was gripping the suitcase so hard his knuckles were white.
The cold feeling under Flick’s skin grew as she watched the lost movements of her companion. He looked out of his depth. Drowning in disbelief.
A suspicion began to form in Flick’s mind, like a snake uncoiling in the shadows. She gripped the ends of her sleeves tight. “You knew your dad came here,” she said. “Why did you bring me here?”
Jonathan shook his head like he was in a trance.
“Jonathan,” she snapped, louder, startling him out of wherever his mind was. “What’s going on? Why are we here?”
He didn’t answer.
The suspicion struck a hard punch to Flick’s brain. And then
dread, like a slow-motion drip of poison to her stomach, began to gather. “You… you didn’t just come here to show me the outpost, did you?”
Jonathan shook his head. He looked utterly lost.
Flick pressed her fingers to her temples as if she could slow down her thoughts, which were beginning to race. “You said you came here before looking for your dad. But you couldn’t find him. So”—she blinked rapidly—“what’s changed? Why have you come back now?”
Jonathan gave a very forced laugh. “You think that’s what’s important, right now? We simply have nothing else pressing to think about, after all. It’s not as though an entire Society building has been—been ransacked!”
Flick ignored the snappish sarcasm. “What’s going on, Jonathan?” she asked, her heart thudding in her ears.
“An outstanding question,” he replied, not really answering. He paused, his foot scuffing against something close to one of the overturned chairs.
“What’s that?” Flick frowned as he bent down and extracted a thin piece of paper. He shook it out and read it.
“Oh.” Jonathan’s face went from fearful to disgusted and back to fearful like someone was flicking through a series of increasingly unflattering filters. “Oh, they wouldn’t…”
“What is it?” Flick reached over and grabbed the paper.
Receipt of Theft
Conducted by the Thieves
of Five Lights
At Quickspark’s Travel Emporium
For the Sum Total of
All Goods
Repurchase by arrangement only.
Flick turned the note over. It had a stamp on the reverse side—a hand clutching a drawstring purse. “Someone took it all?” The growing acceptance she’d been feeling about Thieves was immediately replaced by a raging sense of injustice.
“It’s all gone,” Jonathan said flatly. “Everything here is gone. The suitcases. The people. The… everything. That’s it, then. A dead end. It’s over. Everything I did… bringing you here… It was all pointless.”
“What do you mean, bringing me here? Jonathan, you’re freaking me out.”
Strangeworlds Travel Agency Page 14