by Matt Whyman
Great ripples form across Aleister’s brow. “How so?”
“This is so much more than a city,” replies Yoshi, sounding dreamy now. “This is a waypoint in a global Faerie Ring!”
The twins turn to one another, as if to check they have heard him correctly.
“Are you feeling alright?” asks Mikhail.
“Never better,” the boy replies, rubbing his hands together. “Although perhaps next time I drop down there I’ll choose to visit a warmer waypoint.”
“Yoshi.” Aleister grips him by the shoulders, and peers into his eyes. “Where have you been?”
Yoshi grins, and says, quite simply, “Moscow.”
“Moscow?” Billy tucks in his chin, as if balancing a question mark on his head. “He really has cracked.”
“Not at all,” the boy replies. “It all makes perfect sense, in fact. Down there, if you search around in the mist, you’ll find seven gateways to seven capital cities, including the one we’re in right now. Julius might have given us the slip to become closer to God, but he’s left behind a whole world of possibilities.”
Livia bunches her mouth to one side, regarding him with some suspicion. “If it takes me to Paris, Rome or New York, that’s fine by me. I feel the need for a new outfit if this adventure is going to continue.”
Yoshi grins, aware of the magnitude of what he’s sharing with them here. “Each city must be linked by ley lines in a much bigger Faerie Ring than the one that circles London. With seven of us, we just need to find a way to fire up each one, and we’ll be on our way to the next Faerie Ring in the chain. A chain that could literally take us out of this world! Everything is connected, just like Julius always claimed.”
Mikhail looks to the ceiling, considering the only place this could go from there. “There are seven visible planets in the solar system,” he says. “But it hurts my head just thinking about what that might mean.”
“God alone knows what must come after that,” suggests Aleister. “This is bigger than I could have ever imagined.”
Yoshi peers into the celestial light once more, as do his seven friends. “We’ve come a long way,” he says, recalling that fogbound night he had hurtled into the streets of Chinatown. “And yet this is just the beginning.”
