Jonathan went over to the window seat and sat down. “It means that coming here was a complete waste of time. I’ve got no one to ask, no suitcases to take back, and I can’t even check if they were used lately.…” He went to brush at his eyes, but the suitcase swung from his wrist and hit him hard in the chest. “Ouch… for god’s sake!” He thumped the wooden seat.
Flick waited until his jaw had unclenched. Jonathan seemed to her like a frightened animal with teeth and claws—he wasn’t like Flick had ever seen him. “Jonathan… ask about what? Why did you bring me here?”
He gave another bitter laugh. “I might as well tell you.… We didn’t come here just to update the guidebooks, or to show you the pretty lights. I wanted to come here to trace my father.”
Flick’s mouth dropped open. “But I thought you said you’d already asked the people here? They couldn’t help you?”
Jonathan was looking anywhere except at her. “That’s what I thought. Until you walked into Strangeworlds.”
“What do you mean?”
A twist of utter misery crossed his face. “When I look through a magnifying glass,” he said, “do you know what I see? A soft golden glow. A blurred light moving to and fro.”
The tension in Flick’s chest began to wind tighter.
“I don’t see sparkles,” Jonathan said. “I don’t see glitter; I don’t see which suitcases have been used. And I certainly do not see schisms. Because no one is supposed to be able to do that.”
Flick’s clockwork tension strained against her rib cage. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed. “The only person who was ever able to see schisms was my great-great-great-grandmother, Elara Mercator. And no one since.”
“You can’t see schisms?” Flick realized she couldn’t feel her legs. The tension in her chest had gone, but now she was numb.
Jonathan shook his head. “No one can. Except you.”
Flick felt as if she ought to gasp.
But all she felt was empty. It was as though something had burst inside her, and all the joy and happiness and excitement she’d ever felt about Strangeworlds was being dragged into an abyss.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“If you’d seen the look on your face when you realized you could see magic…”
“No.” She stepped forward. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted it to be me, all right?” he yelled, standing up quickly and dropping the suitcase to the ground. “This is my family’s business. It’s my history. My great-great-great-grandmother who invented the suitcases, who founded the Strangeworlds Society. No one else could do what she did. And then…” He shook his head bitterly, “And then you wander in, off the street, a nobody… and you could see all of it. It was like you’d snatched it away from me.”
“I didn’t take anything from you,” Flick said. She looked around at the ransacked and ruined emporium. “What did you even want me to do?”
Jonathan’s anger vanished like flicking a switch. “You were supposed to find him.”
“Find your dad?”
He nodded. “You can see schisms. You can tell which suitcases have been used and maybe even in what order. I knew he came to Five Lights and it must have been to use this agency. He was going somewhere in one of their suitcases. You could have helped me to find where he went next. Even if we couldn’t follow him all the way, we could have—”
“We?” Flick gawped. “Jonathan, you didn’t even tell me only I could do those things! And I thought you could see schisms too! I…” She looked at her hands, remembering how the sparks of magic had caressed her skin. It was as if the magic in the air had known she was special too.
No, not special.
A freak.
“I don’t want to do this,” she said quietly.
“You have to!” Jonathan exploded.
“You lied to me,” Flick snapped, her throat tightening as she fought off tears. “You lied to me so you could use me like—like a tool!”
Jonathan gave a laugh that Flick wanted to slap clean off his face. “You’re an outsider! You’re just a girl with a bit of magic and you were actually going to walk away from all this! I had to keep you coming, don’t you understand? You’ve got a gift, and you don’t even know how to use it. God only knows what else you can do. You need me.”
“No.” Flick shook her head. “You need me. You were using me.”
“I never intended you to feel like that,” he said.
“Oh, apology accepted,” Flick snapped. “You’ve been stringing me along with nice trips and sweets, and… Oh god, why couldn’t you tell me I’m like this?” Flick shook her head. Her jaw was aching from clenching her teeth. She’d never felt so angry in her whole life. Or so lost. She didn’t know what she was capable of, or even what it truly meant. “I don’t want to do this.”
“See? I knew you would refuse to help me—”
She pointed at him. “You lied to me. If you want someone’s help, Jonathan, you don’t manipulate them. You ask, and you hope they say yes. And if you took one look at me and thought I wouldn’t help you…” Flick shook her head. “You don’t know me at all. And I don’t want you to.” She stamped toward the door.
“So that’s it?” Jonathan called. “You’re marching off into a world you don’t know, with no way of getting back, because you’re angry?”
“I’m going for a think.” Flick grabbed the door handle. “I’m not your tool, Jonathan. You can’t twist me to work how you want. If I decide to help you, it’s my decision. You don’t get to force me into it.”
She let the door slam.
Flick stormed angrily through the streets. It was busier now. The roads and sidewalks were crowded again, and Flick only worked out where she was from the tall central fountain in the middle of the quadrangle.
How dare Jonathan lie to me like that? Her mind buzzed like it was filled with angry bees. Why didn’t he tell me I was special for seeing schisms the first time I did it? He just wanted to use me.
She pushed through a group of chattering children and caught sight of the Wilting Lily up ahead. She didn’t know why she was marching back there. She needed to get away from all of this. Everything.
“Whatchit.” Someone grabbed her arm.
Flick turned, fist raised.
Nicc let her go and held her hands up. “Whoa. Take it easy, short stuff. Where are you running to?”
Flick dropped her arm. “Back to the inn.”
“Right…” Nicc frowned. “Where’s your friend?”
“He isn’t my friend.”
Nicc raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Well, where’s your associate, then?”
“Back on Spectre Street.”
“Huh. Used to be a nice street, back in the day…” She put her hands in her pockets. “You’ve had a falling-out?”
“Something like that.”
Nicc sighed. “How are you going to get home?”
Flick opened her mouth to explain about the suitcases, then quickly realized it was back with Jonathan. She didn’t actually have a way to get home without him. The idea of relying on him made her want to scream.
Nicc took in her expression and seemed to understand. “I’ll take you back to the Lily. He can find you there. He’ll come back for you. Or else he’ll have me to answer to.” Nicc jerked her head. “Come on, Flick. This way.”
* * *
“Maybe he was worried you wouldn’t want to help him if you knew. Didn’t want to scare you off?” Nicc said, half an hour later. They were in the Wilting Lily, mugs of soup between them.
“I would have helped,” Flick said indignantly, stirring her lunch with a very long metal spoon. “Now I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I can do things that even he can’t, and…” She looked again at her hands, imagining the magic washing over them. She wished more than ever she had a magnifying glass of her own. Just to see the swirling glitter again would make her feel better—to know it was r
eal and try to make peace with the fact that only she could see it.
“He must have had a good reason.”
Flick let go of her spoon. “But who keeps something like that from their friend?”
Nicc raised her eyebrows at her.
Flick pushed her mug away. “I don’t trust liars. If he wants to find his dad, he can do it on his own.” But even as she spoke, she felt rotten. It wasn’t Daniel Mercator’s fault his son was the prince of deception.
“What happened to his father?” Nicc asked.
“I don’t know,” Flick said. “He came here and then disappeared. We don’t know what happened. He could even be dead.”
Nicc sat back and sighed. “Grief does funny things to people.”
Flick blinked.
“Makes you forget what’s important.” The Thief scratched at her hair. “I don’t think Jonathan did any of this on purpose. I think he was just really sad. That can make you not yourself.”
“That’s not an excuse!” Flick said.
“I’m not saying it is. I’m saying maybe it explains his behavior, a bit. You don’t have to think it was okay, but— hello?” Nicc looked up.
Flick followed her gaze, as two shadows fell across the table.
“On your way, de Vyce,” the owner of one of the shadows growled. It was a hooded man with a Thief’s red cloak and a curtain of lank hair.
“Says who?” Nicc didn’t move from her seat.
“We don’t explain ourselves to the lower classes, you filthy little pickpocket. On your way.”
“Every Thief was a pickpocket once. Hid, isn’t it?” She tried to see inside the red hood. “I’ve done nothing wrong, you can ask anyone. I’ve flashed my license.”
The second figure—a woman—pushed her own hood back. She was very short, with cropped hair. “We are not here for you, de Vyce.”
Flick froze.
Nicc glanced at her, then back at her Thief colleagues. “What’s the kid got to do with anything, Pinch?”
“You’re both kids, de Vyce. Listen to your elders and be on your way. This does not concern you.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Flick said, panicking.
“We have orders to bring you in.” Pinch smiled, and she smiled like a cold knife. “De Vyce, if you don’t plan on assisting us, be on your way.”
Nicc ignored her. “Orders? From who?”
Hid’s smile joined Pinch’s. And his was even colder. “The Overseer.”
Pinch clamped a hand down on Flick’s shoulder. “Stand up without fussing, child. Come with us.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Flick tried to brush off the woman’s hand, but it was like a vise.
“Then we shall take you.”
“You can’t steal people,” Flick said. “You can’t.”
Pinch beamed, simply delighted. “Oh, heard that rumor, have you?”
Then, before Flick could blink, she was hauled to her feet, her arms pinned behind her back.
“Hid, the mask,” Pinch demanded.
“Get off her!” Nicc punched at Hid’s arm, making him pause for an instant, long enough for Nicc to pull a handful of dusty glitter from inside her cloak. She blew it straight into the man’s eyes.
Hid howled, clawing at his face.
Pinch tightened her grip on Flick’s arms. She yanked Flick backward. Flick yelled and she kicked out, trying to throw her weight to the floor, to escape.
Hid, still blinking glitter out of his eyes, swiped with an arm. He caught hold of Nicc’s wrist as she came at him with nothing but her hands. He threw her backward into her chair, then pulled a black hood from inside his cloak and tossed it at Pinch.
Flick screamed as Pinch grabbed the hood and yanked it down over her head.
And then everything went black.
Jonathan let Felicity go, annoyance burning through him like wildfire. At least, he told himself that the sick and twisty feeling running through his insides was annoyance.
A not-so-small part of him suspected it was actually guilt.
Yes, he’d lied. No, not lied, as such. Avoided the truth.
He’d had to lie, anyway. Avoid the truth, rather. People were all so selfish. Felicity could have easily decided that her powers meant she should be in charge. There was no reason to think she would have helped him.
And yet, you never gave her the chance to offer, a soft voice nudged the back of his mind.
He ignored it and lifted the suitcase. He should go after her. There was enough at stake now, without losing someone else. She’d been gone for a while. It didn’t look as though she was coming back. She would have gone back to the inn.
Jonathan exited the shop and gave a quick glance up and down the alleyway. There was no sign of Felicity—she had marched out of sight.
“Silly girl,” he muttered.
“She certainly is.”
Jonathan jumped at the voice, which was far, far too close. “Where in the blazes did you come from?”
A woman pushed a burnished scarlet hood back from her head. She had short brown hair and a pair of spectacles that sat flush against her face like goggles. She also had a smile on her face that might have been called beguiling, but to Jonathan it merely looked hungry. “You got our note, I see?” Her eyes flicked to the paper in Jonathan’s hand.
Jonathan made himself stand up straight. “Your note?”
“Yes, our note.” She sighed. “I’ve come with a message from the Overseer.”
“And who might that be?”
The Thief raised her eyebrows. “I thought everyone knew Overseer Glean.”
“Glean. How very imaginative,” Jonathan drawled. “What is your message?”
The Thief gave a quick glance over Jonathan’s suit. He forced himself to keep staring at her face, as much as he now wanted to check his pockets. “I’m Lute. You’re Mercator’s child.”
Jonathan couldn’t help it. “You know my father?”
She smiled. “You have a famous name.”
“I’ll thank you to judge me on my own terms, not my surname, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Except that it isn’t all the same to me.” Lute stepped even closer, into Jonathan’s personal space. His lip twitched as he tried not to curl it in distaste. “Strangeworlders have much to answer for, around here.”
“The message?”
She took a battered book from her inside pocket. “Would you like to see your friend again?”
Jonathan recognized the guidebook immediately. “Felicity? Where is she?”
“Safe. For now. Although the clock is ticking, Mercator. We want to arrange an exchange.”
“An exchange? For what?”
“We want a way out of this world,” Lute said. “A suitcase.”
Jonathan laughed. “You want me to trade a suitcase—something so valuable its worth couldn’t be measured—for a girl I barely know?”
“She’s your friend.”
“She’s really not,” he said slowly.
Lute’s face fell, uncertain, for the first time. “We will allow you to purchase her back,” she said.
Jonathan gestured at the shop behind him. “Did you not get what you wanted from the people here?”
Lute blushed. “We have reason to believe the Custodians here were tipped off about the likelihood of a raid. When we came to the emporium, there were no cases to be found. It seems they had secreted the suitcases away.”
Jonathan blinked; then his face cracked into a grin. “Ha. The Society was one step ahead, wasn’t it? And anyway,” he asked, “what would be the point in your taking a suitcase? You can’t survive in a world that isn’t your own. Your life-magic would drain out of you.”
Lute’s expression didn’t shift. “Magic certainly is the key to life, but as Thieves we can always obtain more. First Class Thieves are skilled bottlers. We know how to weave magic and to take it from any source.”
A sort of sharp horror ran through Jonathan’s veins. “Any source?”<
br />
“Any.”
“From people?”
“Why not?” She shrugged.
Jonathan fought off the urge to push her away. “You’d suck the energy out of a new world to survive?”
“Why not? It isn’t as though this is the only world we have.”
Jonathan shook his head. “No.”
“No? What do you mean no?”
“I mean: No, as Head Custodian I can’t allow you to do that.”
Her eyes flicked to the suitcase in his hand. “The Overseer is being very generous. You may return to Strangeworlds and select a suitcase for us, allowing you to choose which world we move to. I could just as easily take that case from your hand.”
Jonathan tried not to flinch. “You would have to take my hand as well.”
Lute gave a sinister smile. “That would be just fine.”
Jonathan suppressed a shudder. Suitcases were two-way doors. If Thieves were twisted enough to drain magic out of anything, giving them access to Strangeworlds would mean putting his entire world at risk. His world, and the hundreds of others linked to Earth.
“You honestly expect me to exchange a suitcase for Felicity? You think I value anyone enough to do that?” he scoffed.
“I do.”
“She is nothing to me,” he half laughed. “She wouldn’t even help me when I… She’s useless. Hardly much of a bargaining chip.”
“I certainly hope you are lying, for your sake.” Lute pressed Felicity’s guidebook into Jonathan’s grip. “The Overseer will give you until the lanterns are lit to present yourself. Tick-tock, little Mercator. Choose a world for us to feast upon, or your Felicity may end up devoured herself.”
Jonathan watched her sweep around the corner, before he exhaled and leaned against the wall. Then stood up again, sharply, a question coming to him abruptly. “But”—he shook his head—“why on earth would they want to leave Five Lights so badly?”
The Thieves didn’t hurt Flick as they pulled her through the streets. But they held her tight and steered her this way and that, so she had no hope of being able to remember where she was being taken. She concentrated on trying to listen to anything that might help her, but the hood over her face made it almost impossible. She tried anyway. Concentrating helped take her mind off what might happen to her once she got to wherever she was being taken.
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