And why did they have her, anyway? She wasn’t important. And Thieves weren’t meant to take people. This was all wrong.
Everything Jonathan had told her was wrong…
She felt a sudden surge of anger and her muscles bunched up, making the Thieves tighten their hold on her arms.
The temperature dropped and the ground went into a downward slope. Flick’s sneakers skidded on the damp surface she was walking on, and she thought about sewers and tunnels and caves. But Nicc said the Thieves had a grand building. Why was she being taken down?
And then the hood was removed, and the strong hands held her shoulders steady as she caught her balance.
“Get off me.” She pushed the hands away. “Where am I? What is this?”
“You are in my private office.” A soft voice came from across the room. “Welcome.”
Flick turned toward the voice.
The room was not large—about the size of her living room—and every surface had been covered with soft rugs and carpets. There were even carpets on the walls and the ceiling. It made the room feel small and close, like there wasn’t enough air in it. There were a great many crystal-fronted cabinets around the walls, full of shining glass objects. The room was lit by two enormous chandeliers hanging from the carpeted ceiling, light dripping off their dangling crystals. And occupying a space on the far wall, between two cabinets that were full to bursting of those shimmering glass bottles, was a desk as wide as a man was tall and as deep as a sofa.
A woman sat behind it, watching Flick with an expression of soft amusement. She wore the lush scarlet of the Thieves, but as a waistcoat rather than a cloak. Red bands of velvet encircled her biceps and wrists, and as she stood, Flick saw a flash of scarlet trim running down the outside of each trouser leg. The woman was not tall—about Flick’s height—but she moved like someone with a great deal of physical strength. She came around the desk and walked over to Flick, her hands behind her back.
“Good morning.” She smiled. She tucked some of her blond hair behind one ear. “I do hope my Order members didn’t harm you.”
Flick shook her head, fear battling with curiosity. “Who are you?”
The woman’s smile didn’t move. It was as if she had learned to smile by studying a picture of someone else doing it; her mouth was the right shape, but her eyes were all wrong. They belonged to someone who was thinking about where to bury you. “I am the Overseer.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Flick said. “I don’t know why I’m here—please let me go. I haven’t done anything wrong. This is a mistake.”
The Overseer’s disconcerting smile did not change. “It is not a mistake, child. We have Thieved you for a purpose. You came here with the Mercator boy, didn’t you?”
“Jonathan?” Flick asked, then felt like kicking herself.
“Quite. We require something from him, and you are suitable leverage.”
“What do you…?” Flick’s mind helpfully answered her own half-formed question: A suitcase That’s the only valuable thing he’s got.
“I can see you understand. This is not personal. We simply require what he has. We will exchange your freedom for one of the boy’s suitcases. Simple.”
“But why do you need a suitcase?” Flick glanced at the piles of magic-filled bottles. Surely there was enough magic stored inside them for any number of trips through a schism. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere,” Pinch supplied from behind her. “Away from here.”
“Silence.” The Overseer glared, her false smile falling clean off her face.
Flick looked between them. “But what’s wrong with here? You can steal anything you like, apparently, and there’s magic and it’s fun.…” She trailed off as the Overseer gaped at her in astonishment.
“You travel between worlds,” she said, “and yet you are ignorant of the plight of this one?”
“Plight?” Flick said. “You mean the streets disappearing? What’s wrong with this place?”
The Thieves exchanged looks.
The Overseer rolled her eyes. “Save me from the ignorance of children. I told you to take the older Mercator when he arrived weeks ago!”
“He was too quick, ma’am,” Pinch said. “By the time we got word that Daniel Mercator was in Five Lights, he’d gone.”
Flick stared. “You know about Jonathan’s dad?”
“Shut up.” The Overseer turned back to her Thieves. “It does not matter how much these children do or do not know. Lute has gone to the Mercator boy. The wheels are in motion. Continue as planned. Jonathan Mercator has until the lanterns are lit to bring us what we need.”
Pinch put a hand on Flick’s shoulder again. “And the girl?”
“Put her in the Waiting Room. And call a meeting of the First Class. Everyone must be prepared to leave.”
“What are you talking about?” Flick tried to get out of Pinch’s gripping fingers, but it was like trying to escape a bear trap. “What’s happening in this world?”
The Overseer looked at her. “This world, child, is doomed. And we do not intend to be here when the end comes.”
“The end? What do you mean doomed?”
The Overseer beckoned to Pinch. “Hood her, Pinch. Take her to the Waiting Room. And call the others.”
“No! Don’t—wait—I—” Flick’s cries were cut short as the dark hood fell over her eyes again, and this time, the blackness erased even the feel of the ground beneath her feet.
Jonathan let himself back into Quickspark’s, too nervous to stay on the street. He checked the coast was clear before climbing into his suitcase and quickly pulling it through behind him.
He tumbled back into the travel agency and slammed the suitcase lid shut. He puffed out a breath. He was home. He was safe!
But the emptiness and quietness of Strangeworlds felt strangely wrong.
The clocks ticked their weird ticks, and there was the occasional glug from the ancient water pipes. But the atmosphere of the place was changed.
Felicity wasn’t there.
Jonathan sat on the floor of Strangeworlds, feeling extremely alone. The walls of the travel agency seemed to loom over him in disapproval. He’d never intended for any of this to happen. He’d only wanted his father back.
Jonathan pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets as the misery of his situation washed over him. He’d been utterly selfish—there was no point denying it—and now he was faced with this stupid, impossible decision. It was all his own fault. If he’d simply been honest with Felicity in the first place, if they had stayed together instead of fighting, she would not have been taken.
And they expected him to give up an entire world to get her back?
With a sick feeling of shame, Jonathan acknowledged that, if the Thieves had asked for a suitcase in return for his father, Jonathan would have handed one over without question.
What sort of person did that make him?
Jonathan lowered his hands and looked around the travel agency. All he could see were the cases, each containing an entire world. He could choose one. He could. Any one of the suitcases he had could be handed over to the Thieves in exchange for Felicity.
Tentatively, he reached for one and pulled it down. It was a case he knew. It led to a world of knights, villages, farmers, and witches. It was quiet and fairly peaceful, and Jonathan had learned to horse-ride there when he was fifteen.
He could give it to the Thieves. Give it to them and get Felicity back. Apologize to her.
Was she worth giving up an entire world for? Not just giving up, but dooming to world-collapse, destruction, and nothingness?
Was anyone?
No.
He pushed the case away and dragged himself to his feet.
If he gave the Thieves this source of magical energy, he wouldn’t simply be giving up a suitcase. He’d be sacrificing an entire unique world, and all the living beings within it. He’d have to live with the knowledge that he had enabled the Thieves
to drain every speck of magic from a world in their efforts to stay alive.
He wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—that person.
Felicity was his friend. A real friend, right up until he ruined it. The first real friend he’d had for a long time.
Jonathan wanted his friend back. He wanted his father back. But there was no way he could give up a suitcase. Not now, not ever. He was the last Head Custodian of the Strangeworlds Society. And he would not hand over a world to Thieves to be used and emptied.
He would have to get Felicity back another way.
And he would.
* * *
Flick sat up sharply.
It took her eyes a moment to catch up. And when they did, she was tempted to shut them again and try to restart her brain because this couldn’t be right.…
She was sitting on the floor in a place that was rather like her dentist’s waiting room. The floor was covered in threadbare carpet tiles. Metal and foam chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a coffee table topped with books and magazines in a language Flick didn’t recognize. One of the chairs was covered with broken toys, including a sad teddy bear with only one leg. It reminded her of a lot of Freddy’s toys, which regularly went through amputations when her brother’s teeth punctured the stuffing. The sudden thought of Freddy and her parents made Flick press a hand to her chest to try to shift the dragging ache that started.
There were two other people in the waiting area with her, an elderly couple who were watching her curiously, books in their hands. There was also a woman behind a desk that separated the waiting area from the small reception area at the front of the room.
Flick ignored the couple and stood. Her legs felt steady despite being dragged all over the city. She remembered being under the hood—she could still smell the strange weave of it—and then… she was here. There was no memory of anything in between.
It was as though someone had changed the channel in her head.
She went over to the woman behind the desk. “Excuse me. What’s going on? How did I get here?”
The woman at the desk sighed. She had sharp slices of blond hair and an expression to match. Some people are born to work in certain professions, and the Receptionist was one of them. She disliked almost everyone, except for herself and her cat, Mr. Plimsol. And, as Flick was neither of these, the Receptionist gave Flick a curled lip that wouldn’t have been out of place if someone wafted a plate of rotting prawns under her chin.
She pointed at her name badge, which was only a piece of lined paper folded over her blazer lapel with RECEPTIONIST scrawled on it. “Does this say, ‘Ask Me Anything’?”
“No,” Felicity said. “It says ‘Receptionist.’ Which must be an anagram for unhelpful pain in the—”
There was a sudden fit of coughing from behind Flick as the old man in one of the chairs interrupted her. “She’s a lot of things,” he managed to croak, “but what she is most is a jailer.” He grinned.
The Receptionist closed her false-lashed eyes with a practiced expression of purest scorn. “Sir,” she managed when she had pried her lids open again, “I am not a jailer. I am the Receptionist. When you’re collected, I’ll call you through.”
“What do you mean, ‘collected’?” Flick asked, in no mood for bewilderment.
“I mean, when you are picked up. Collected. Claimed.” She studied Flick with the same expression she might have worn if someone asked her to examine something freshly pulled from the sewer. Then sniffed. “Someone will be along directly to collect you.”
Flick sat back down. But moments later her leg started bouncing up and down with pent-up nervous energy. She sat down for less than a minute before getting straight up again. “Why are you both just sitting here?” she asked the older couple, making them jump. “Why aren’t you trying to get out?”
“Try, if you like,” said the man who’d spoken before. He had a reddish nose, watery eyes, and hands that curled in like claws, but he had a kind face, like someone’s grandad. “Vault over the desk, give old smacked-bum-face a good shove, and make for the door, but you won’t get out.”
“Why not?”
“Locked,” he said. “We’ve tried to open it many a time, but it won’t give. And if you tick her off”—he nodded at the Receptionist—“she can turn very nasty. Once she didn’t turn the heating on for two days and let us freeze. All because Darilyn threw a book at her.”
“Worth it,” Darilyn said, under her breath. “It was a hardback.” She checked to see if the Receptionist was looking, then stuck her tongue out at her.
Flick smiled, but it didn’t last long. “So you both got kidnapped? Same as me?”
“Same as you. I’m Greysen.” The man held a hand out and Flick shook it, though it was shaking a little by itself.
“Flick Hudson.”
“Not from Five Lights with those clothes, are you?”
“I came with… a friend. Sort of.”
“Oh? What did you come here for?”
“We came to—” She stopped, the wound of Jonathan’s betrayal still raw. “It doesn’t matter. I got kidnapped. The Thieves want to trade me for something valuable.”
“That’s usually their way. Gone are the days when Thieves were honorable. As soon as Glean took control as Overseer, things went downhill fast.” Greysen closed his book. “You came with a friend, you said? To Five Lights?”
Flick nodded. “He knows about—about magic, and stuff.”
The old man smiled, showing brown teeth. “I expect he’ll soon have you out of here, Flick. You only need to worry if you don’t have anyone who wants you back.”
“What do you mean?”
Darilyn gave her a sad look. “We’re stuck here, aren’t we? If no one comes looking, eventually… we’ll disappear.”
“Disappear?” Flick stepped back from the woman in horror.
“Don’t ask me how.” Darilyn shook her head. “But there were more of us here, at the start, not only Greysen and me. And one day, we woke up… and there was just us.”
Flick looked behind her at all the empty chairs and the one stacked full of toys. Who had they been for? She felt sick. The Receptionist smirked, her red lips slicing into her face. Anger quickly took over from Flick’s sick feeling and made her glare. “What are you smirking at, lady?”
The Receptionist blinked in surprise at being spoken to so insolently. “How dare you—”
“Did you stand there and watch those people… watch whatever happens to them?”
The Receptionist blushed, red spreading across her cheeks like ketchup wiped across a plate.
“Calm down, Flick.” Greysen sat up. “She’s a mean old crow, but I don’t know if she’d actually sit and watch people be hurt if she could do anything about it. At least, I don’t like to think so.”
“You said she kept you in the cold!”
“Yes, but she could have done worse.” He shrugged.
Flick gawked. “Just because she could do worse doesn’t mean what she does is all right!”
Darilyn shushed her gently. “We know, we know. But don’t make life difficult for us.”
Flick paused. “If I get angry at her, will she get angry at you?” she asked in a lowered voice.
“There’s every chance, yes.”
Flick peered back at the Receptionist, who was twirling a pencil in her fingers, then nodded and sat back in her chair, exhausted by the hurricane of feelings inside her.
Greysen went back to his book. “I wouldn’t worry. You’ll be out of here before you know it.”
Flick swallowed. She was worlds away from home, stranded without a suitcase, and stuck in a tiny room with no hope of escape. She had never felt less convinced of anything in all her life.
As a rule, Jonathan Mercator hated asking for help from anyone who wasn’t either a medical professional or simply taller and better equipped to reach the cookies that were on the top shelf. But times were pressing, and he knew that as bitter as his own pride tasted,
he was going to have to swallow it. He picked up his guidebook and leafed through it quickly. He needed the List.
A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF STRANGEWORLDS SOCIETY OUTPOSTS
(correct as of 1987)
Strangeworlds Travel Agency—flagship base, Earth. A Custodian is available at all times. Strangeworlds is home to the largest number of suitcases of any posting. Established by Elara Mercator in 1873.
Contact: the Mercator family.
Quickspark’s Travel Emporium—secondary base, the City of Five Lights. Custodians can be contacted at all times. Home to a small number of suitcases. Established by Elara Mercator in 1880.
Contact: the Quickspark family.
Phaeton’s Trading Post—secondary base, Mount Snowmore. Custodians are family in nearby village. A handful of suitcases and supplies available. Established by Nicolas Mercator, 1965.
Contact: Maskelyne.
The Laughing Dog Travel Station—emergency base, Palomar. Custodians may not be available and discretion is advised. Established by Margaret Mercator, 1952.
Contact: lost.
Thatcher’s Apothecary—no Custodians on site. Established by Anna-May Thatcher, 1985.
Contact: none.
The House on the Horizon—emergency base, Desert of Dreams. One Custodian. Established by Elara Mercator, 1895.
Contact: lost.
The City of Five Lights hadn’t been chosen on a whim to be an outpost—it had been chosen because of its nature. Five Lights was a place of transference and travel and it was somewhere you could get to via multiple suitcases. Jonathan himself knew of three suitcases that all led to Five Lights. Two of them were at the agency—one being the pink and gold suitcase sitting next to him. The second was filed away in the travel agency’s Back Room. The third, he was sure, was with his father.
Jonathan needed to get back to Five Lights; that was essential. He was not about to abandon Felicity there. But he could not afford to use the pink and gold suitcase he had used with Felicity, in case it was stolen.
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