Part 15 (2/2)
”He lives in the forest,” Moth offered. ”He can merge into trees, so the Shadows can't find him.”
”He trades in knowledge,” Ethan said. ”So if you want information from him you'll have to offer something in exchange. He's already collected stories from a hundred different worlds, so finding something he doesn't already know won't be easy. Most of the people who try to bargain with him walk away empty-handed.”
”We'd like to try,” Devon said quietly. ”Would you put out the call for us?”
”If you want.” He shrugged. ”Just remember, there are no guarantees.”
I twisted around on my cus.h.i.+on, looking after the strange pale boy they called Isaac. He understood the concept of other worlds in a way that the others didn't. And if what Ethan said about his education was true, he might be able to shed some light on the situation with Tommy. If we could figure out why the Shadows had kidnapped my brother, maybe we'd know how to retrieve him.
I glanced at Devon and Rita. They saw the question in my eyes and nodded.
Quietly, I got to my feet and headed after pale aris...o...b..y, while the group conversation continued on behind me. The exit that he'd taken led to a tunnel with very little light in it, so I had to be especially careful not to walk into anything. It was hard while peering down lightless side pa.s.sages, and one time I struck my head against a pipe so hard that the noise of it resonated down the length of the tunnel.
When I found him at last, in a little nook leading from one of the main conduits, I almost walked right past him. Apparently he'd heard me following and waited. From up close he looked a little less like a ghost, but only a little. There was a haunted quality to his gaze that made me s.h.i.+ver, and the shadows cast by the small lamp at his feet gave his lean and elegant features an eerie cast. In the full light of day he would have turned heads in any high school. In this light he looked . . . well, d.a.m.ned creepy.
For a moment we just stared at each other. Then he nodded ever so slightly and said, ”I'm Isaac.”
”I'm Jessica,” I responded, with equal formality. ”Jesse, to most.”
The dark eyes studied me in silence for a few seconds. It was impossible to read his expression.
”You followed me,” he said at last. ”Why?”
I decided to go for the direct approach. ”They said you might have information for me.”
Again a moment of silence. ”Why does he matter to you?” he said at last.
I blinked. ”Sorry, what?”
”Your brother. You crossed into another world to save him. That was very brave of you, but it was also very foolish. Why do it?”
I didn't know quite what to say. ”He's family.”
”Which means what to you?” he pressed.
”Same thing it means to everyone, I'd expect.” But as soon as those words left my lips I knew I'd made a mistake. This was a boy who'd run away from home because his family wanted to breed him like a prize farm animal. I had no way to know how much he still loved them-or didn't-or what had led him to that terrible decision. ”I'm sorry.”
He didn't look upset. He didn't look anything. His face could have been carved from marble for all the emotion it revealed. ”How did you get through the Gate?” he asked.
I felt a twinge of frustration. It had made sense that in the group interview we'd had to answer endless questions before being given any information, but now that was over. The game was getting old. ”We took the place of some bodies on tables. The Shadows wheeled us across.”
This time there was emotion visible: A flicker of surprise. ”Clever. Though I imagine when the Shadows decide who to blame for that, there'll be h.e.l.l to pay.”
d.a.m.n. I hadn't thought about what would happen to whoever had been in charge of security that night. Probably the grey guy. d.a.m.n.
”It bothers you?” he pressed.
”Shouldn't it?” I snapped.
He shrugged. ”The security of a Gate isn't something to take lightly. Imagine all the terrible things that might happen if the wrong person came through one of them. Or the wrong thing.”
Suddenly I was tired of providing amus.e.m.e.nt and getting nothing in return. ”Listen, you want to ask me questions? Then you answer some of mine, okay? One for one.”
He stared at me for a long moment, but I'd been through enough staring contests with Tommy to know how to hold my own. No one could do a better eerie stare than I could.
Finally he nodded. ”Okay.”
I exhaled sharply. ”Then yes, it bothers me. It bothers me a lot.”
”Why?”
”That's a second question,” I pointed out.
I thought I saw a spark of humor in those dark eyes. It made him seem a bit more human. ”Very well. Go ahead.”
”What are the Shadows?” I asked.
A black eyebrow arched upward in surprise. ”That's a rather big question, isn't it?”
”I don't recall a size limit.”
I thought I saw a smile flicker briefly across his lips. ”Their Gift allows them to see the pathways between the worlds. Their sacrifice allows them to travel them safely.”
”What kind of sacrifice-”
He smiled slightly as he held up a finger, reminding me of our bargain.
Despite myself I smiled.
”Why did they take your brother?” he asked.
”I was hoping you could help answer that.”
He shrugged. ”I have no special insight into Shadow business. The things I'm telling you can be found in any high school textbook.”
”Not in ours,” I said. ”Our textbooks are full of things like electricity, polymer chemistry, rocket science . . .”
I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Were the aristos familiar with our technology? It stood to reason they would be, if tourists from this world were constantly crossing over to visit mine. But then why hadn't anyone done the obvious, like, oh, bringing back a flashlight from Walmart? Or better yet, a high school science textbook? The more I learned about this world, the less sense it made.
”If your brother was a changeling,” he said thoughtfully, ”and it turned out he was Gifted after all, that might have drawn their interest. It happens sometimes.”
”He isn't the changeling-” I began. Then suddenly I realized I'd been tricked into giving him more information than I'd intended. Screw you, I thought, I'm counting that as a question. ”How does the Gate work?”
I thought he might try to evade the question, but he didn't. ”There are places where the barrier between worlds is naturally weak, and things from one sphere can leak into another. Mostly it's insubstantial stuff, dreams and the like. Few people even notice it. But sometimes it's possible for physical matter to cross over, and even living creatures. The Gate doesn't create such a phenomenon, it just stabilizes it. Otherwise things might not line up quite right, and you could lose time during the crossing, arrive at your destination a hundred years later than when you left. Or wind up in the wrong sphere altogether. It's a pretty unstable system. Sometimes things go wrong even when the proper precautions are taken.”
”Like fairy abductions,” I mused aloud, and when he looked curious I explained, ”There are legends in my homeworld of people who travel to a magical land for a short time, but when they return home they find that decades have pa.s.sed in their absence.” And the fairies leave changelings behind, I remembered suddenly. That was where the concept came from in the first place. Fairy children exchanged for humans in the cradle, left behind for the human mothers to raise as their own. They looked like the real kids in every way, and their mothers rarely caught on to the switch, but they didn't belong in our world, and they never really fit in.
<script>