The Illusionists

by Laure Eve

  Just give me time enough to use them properly, he thought silently. Then you’ll see.

  There was no use in delaying. Planning had always seemed pointless to him. People of consequence, of history, took action. So he opened the bottle, upending two little pills onto his palm. The technician had warned him never to take more than two at a time – they hadn’t tested beyond that.

  Wren stared at them, as befitted the moment. It should be marked, the next phase of his life. Pity there was no one to mark it for him, but it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t trust anyone with this but himself. It was selfish to want an audience, and dangerous, too. He knew that now. Show-offs were not the people that really changed things.

  He swallowed the pills.

  It seemed to take a while – it was not like the first time at the test facility. He waited for the surge, but when it came it was more like a rising, slow and graceful, his heart speeding up, his body kicking smoothly into overdrive.

  He closed his eyes, thinking of nothing but the Castle.

  The drug did the rest.

  A moment more, and he was there.

  The corridor he found himself in was squat and the walls were papered with flower designs. The cold ruffled across his arms, setting his shoulders in a shiver twist.

  He stared at the nearest door. Where to go? He didn’t even know what he was looking for.

  Explore, said a voice inside. Find its secrets.

  But he’d barely had time to put his hand on the smooth glass handle when he heard a long, animal cry that froze his blood.

  No.

  No.

  How could one of them be here so soon? He hadn’t even been able to scratch the surface of this place. He needed a weapon, or something that told him what they were and how they worked. Something. He needed more time.

  The wailing filled the corridor, clouds and clouds of sound threatening to drown him. God, it sounded like it was just around the corner. His legs kicked into gear without him and he started to run.

  Doors flashed by as he ran – so many doors – and objects that he couldn’t examine, pieces of furniture, things that might have helped him, but the wailing never got any quieter. At times it seemed to get louder so his whole body buzzed with it and he could think or feel nothing but wordless, sick terror. He must get away, he must, he must.

  Listen to me, said a voice in his head.

  He screamed in reply. It might have been a scream of ‘shut up I can’t think right now’. But the voice insisted.

  Listen! It wants you to run. It wants to chase you. Can’t you feel that? It feeds on your fear. So what if you stopped feeding it?

  Not even possible. His hindbrain was in control now, instincts driving him.

  Let me take control, said the voice. He knew the voice of old. It was the one that pushed him on when he wanted to give up, the one that urged him to gain the upper hand on everyone, that won the game for him sometimes when he just couldn’t face it any more. The one that stopped him from being weak. He relied on that voice. That voice would help him to climb out of the pits of obscurity. That voice would help him become great.

  I don’t understand, he managed.

  Just let me take control. Stop running.

  He did.

  He stopped. He wasn’t out of breath, and though he sucked in air in heavy, dragging pants, he didn’t know if it was actually air he was breathing. Did the Castle even exist in that way?

  The wailing grew louder. Wren trembled on the spot, every nerve in his body, every physical part of him screaming to go. He clamped down.

  He turned, facing the thing as it came.

  I’m going to see one of them for the first time. Actually see it.

  There was nothing, at first.

  Then there was something.

  They were black, and they crept across the walls and the ceiling like long, thick sticks, jointed so they could crook and beckon. Beyond them was some kind of mass.

  The mass filled the whole corridor. Top to bottom, side to side.

  The black sticks crept closer. They weren’t far from him now. He felt himself start to give, his vision cloudy. Was the drug running out?

  No, you just want out of here, said the voice. You’re forcing yourself out and back to the real.

  I won’t, he thought fiercely.

  I WON’T.

  And he held on with everything he had until the feeling passed.

  The mass was closer now. He started to make sense of it – you just had to know how to look. It was something like a giant cockroach, an insect with too many feelers and whiskers and pincing, brittle arms.

  Wren held fast.

  I’m going to die, he thought, now calm in the face of it.

  Maybe not, said the voice.

  The black stick feelers were inches away from his face. And then, incredibly, the wailing died. The mass stopped scraping itself through the corridor.

  He couldn’t see any eyes, but felt himself scrutinised.

  Wren opened his mouth.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. His voice sounded sickly, trembling. But at least he could still speak.

  The thing didn’t reply. Who even knew what language it spoke? If it couldn’t understand him, this might end up badly after all.

  ‘My name is Wren,’ he said into the dark, his voice barely carrying over whispery scraping as the mass retracted its feelers.

  Silence.

  Then a voice vibrating through his skull, so loud that he sank to his knees.

  WHAT IS IT

  Wren moaned, bringing his hands to his ears and gripping the sides of his head tight, even though he knew that could do nothing.

  WHAT IS IT

  The thing repeated.

  Wren had his eyes clamped shut. ‘What do you mean?’ he shouted.

  WHAT IS IT THAT IT DOES NOT RUN

  IT IS AFRAID BUT IT DOES NOT RUN

  ‘I’m Wren,’ he yelled. ‘Wren. I’m … I’m a human.’

  IT IS AFRAID

  He hesitated. What if it knew when he lied?

  ‘Yes!’

  IT DOES NOT RUN

  ‘No!’

  God, the scraping, the horrible scraping of that voice on his brain.

  WHAT DOES IT DO

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he forced out.

  DON’T TALK

  EAT

  ‘If you eat me, you’ll never know why!’

  The mass shifted.

  WHY

  ‘Why? I want to talk to you! I came here to talk to you! To find out about the Castle!’

  WHY

  ‘Because … I … because I want to open it!’

  He still had his eyes screwed closed. It occurred to him how bad a move this was. He couldn’t see what it was doing. But maybe it was better not to see it coming. He felt himself drop inside, a sickening lurch.

  And then there was a curious feeling of vacuum, as if the world had clicked into a different setting while he wasn’t looking.

  Open your eyes, urged the voice. You have to know.

  So he did.

  ‘No!’ he screamed, when he saw his bedroom. His ordinary, ordinary, so-dull-it-physically-hurt bedroom.

  He was back. Either the drug had run out, or he’d lost control of himself and had kicked back into the real.

  I’ve got to go back. I was so goddamn close. I was talking to it.

  But the memory of that voice and those black jointed sticks surged inside him, such a feeling of wrongness that his stomach clenched into a pulsing fist and he threw up on his floor. He threw up and threw up until his skin was covered in a blanket of sweat and he could barely sit up without feeling like he would collapse.

  He heard his door open. He opened his mouth to say something to the intruder, but his voice wouldn’t come out.

  ‘Wren? I heard … I heard weird noises … ’ came Sabine’s voice. And then, ‘Oh. My. Wren!’

  ‘M’okay,’ he muttered. But he wasn’t. He really, really wasn’t. He’d never be
en so decayed and limp. He felt her hands on him.

  ‘I’m calling the nearest medical hall,’ she said, and he didn’t have the strength to protest.

  CHAPTER 23

  WORLD

  RUE

  Rue blinked. The bedroom had taken on full light. It was mid-morning, at least. If they hadn’t checked on her yet, they would soon. Maybe Livie would even be asking her to leave already, and she couldn’t – she hadn’t found White yet.

  No more thinking.

  It was time.

  She straightened up, gathered the bedclothes around her protectively, quietened her breathing. She started to concentrate on Red House, letting her sense memories of it fill her mind. It was the most likely place to start looking for him.

  But it wouldn’t come.

  It had worked with Cho, hadn’t it?

  You were threatened. Panicking.

  I can’t exactly threaten myself right now, can I? I have to learn to do this like any other Talented, not just when I’m terrified!

  She tried to calm down. Try again.

  Half an hour later she was covered in sweat and no closer.

  She buried her face in her hands.

  No, said a voice in her head sharply. Don’t be a baby. Don’t give up. Don’t get all tantrums because it’s hard. Calm down and try again. And again. And again. Until it works. Just. Keep. Going.

  It was gods knew how long later, and her concentration was broken by movement downstairs. Maybe Livie, or Cho, coming to check on her.

  They can’t come in here, she thought. It’s got to be now before I lose it.

  Her heart rate had reared up a notch. She felt the difference immediately.

  Calm doesn’t work with you, you drama queen, she thought to herself with a grin. She would have to tell White that when she saw him. He had always insisted that the calmer you were, the easier it was to Jump.

  Voices at the bottom of the stairs.

  Come on, come on.

  ‘Rue?’ called a voice. It sounded like Cho. ‘You awake?’

  If she didn’t say something, Cho might come in to check on her.

  ‘Give me another hour,’ she called. ‘I just need a bit more sleep.’

  A long pause.

  Her pulse pounded. She had time to register Cho’s movement back down the stairs. The blackness rushed at her, sudden, easy to feel now she was anxious. Here it was, unending. It waited for her, inviting her in. She was careful not to rush into it.

  Red House. There. The dusky brick, the old furniture. The smell of lamp oil and books, polish and mud on boots and fireplaces, coal lumps and ashes.

  She pushed her way through.

  She was in a room. Her old room. A fire burned cheerfully in the grate. In front of it lounged a girl, her skin lit by the flames. She looked up as Rue arrived, one hand spread on top of an open book.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Hi, Rue,’ said the girl, at last.

  ‘Hi, Lea,’ said Rue.

  Lea got up from the floor and walked carefully over. Before Rue could decide what she was up to, she’d encircled her arms around Rue’s neck and hugged her close.

  ‘I missed you,’ she said into Rue’s hair.

  ‘Don’t squeeze. I’m still a bit strange from the Jump.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  Rue hugged her back. It was nice to talk in Angle Tarain again.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Lea demanded when she pulled away. ‘I mean, they said you defected to World, but I never believed it.’

  Rue looked down at the carpet.

  ‘Oh, Rue.’

  Lea sank back down next to the fire. Rue joined her, hesitant.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am. I should never have left. I see that now.’

  ‘Why did you? Was it that boy, Wren?’

  Rue glanced up, astonished.

  ‘He came to the rest of us, too,’ said Lea. ‘He was … well, you know.’

  ‘Well, at least you weren’t stupid enough to fall for it.’

  ‘Was it all lies, then? The things he said?’

  Rue opened her mouth, but something stopped her. ‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘Well … mostly no, to be honest. The things he told me about World were true. But he made it sound perfect.’ She made a face. ‘Nothing’s perfect. Nothing, ever. You got to be really addled to think you could ever find any place that’s right in every way.’

  ‘You should come back, then.’

  Rue smiled. ‘I don’t think they’ll be letting me back, do you?’

  ‘We’d make them.’

  Lea was all ferocity. Rue found herself missing this, a sudden desperate ache in her heart.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, pushing it out of her mind. They’d probably never let her back. But she had no time to cry over that. ‘In the meantime, I got to go speak to someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  Now it came to it, how ludicrous to voice it out loud. But hadn’t she said to her future self that truth was the way? No more hiding.

  ‘White,’ she said. ‘I need to see him.’

  Lea’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes went round.

  ‘Oh gods, you don’t know,’ she said. ‘Well, of course not, how could you? I just thought maybe, after what Lufe said, that you’d be talking to each other somehow, maybe White had even been visiting you, or you him, or something –’

  ‘Lea. What?’

  Lea rubbed her bare arms with her hands, as if she were suddenly cold. ‘White’s gone,’ she said. ‘He’s gone. I’m sorry.’

  The nausea reared. Rue resisted the urge to hold her stomach.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘No one knows. They’re looking for him.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. He could have Jumped anywhere.’

  ‘I know, but you know what they’re like. Most people barely even believe in the Talent. Anyway, he can’t go back to World, can he? So it’s either here or nowhere.’

  ‘There are other countries,’ Rue said, thinking madly. ‘He could have gone somewhere new.’

  ‘Maybe, but how would you ever find him?’

  Rue looked up at her. ‘What happened?’

  Lea shook her head. ‘No one really knows. For a while they were saying that he attacked Frith and disappeared, tried to kill him or something. But apparently Frith’s fine, only he’s gone somewhere, too. Presumably to look for White.’

  ‘Frith’s not here, either?’ said Rue, her voice thin with despair. Now what would she do? How would she ever find White?

  ‘No. I’m sorry. But … ’ Lea broke off.

  ‘But what? Tell me. Please.’

  The older girl looked into the grate for a moment, her shoulders stiff.

  ‘I shouldn’t know this, maybe,’ she said.

  Since when had Lea been shy about knowing anything?

  Rue stayed silent, encouraging.

  Lea cleared her throat. Mercifully she still couldn’t stop talking for long, it seemed. ‘Well … Lufe said he went to see White, not long before he disappeared. We haven’t told anyone else this, mind you.’ Her voice became sharp. ‘In case they thought Lufe had anything to do with it. But he said that White didn’t know about what you could do with your dreams, and he acted really funny when Lufe told him. To be honest, when he disappeared we thought he’d gone back to World to find you.’

  ‘What? What can I do with my dreams?’ said Rue, puzzled.

  ‘You pull people into them, Rue. You dreamshare.’

  Rue stared at her.

  Lea blinked. ‘But … we all thought you knew.’

  It made sense.

  It clicked beautifully into place.

  She’d been pulling White into her dreams. No wonder he never acted the way she’d thought he should in them. No wonder it had always felt like it was really him there, instead of her made-up version of him.

  ‘I know how to find him,’ she said.

  Lea smiled. ‘Took you long enough.’

  Rue lo
oked at her. ‘You seem different. Is it ’cos I missed you, or are you really different?’

  ‘You seem different, too.’ Lea put her head on one side. ‘Older. Like you know things.’

  Rue thought of the Ghost Girl. The Castle. Wren. Cho.

  ‘I know things,’ she agreed. ‘Listen. I have to go. But I need one thing from you before I do. And in return, I’ll make a promise to you.’

  ‘Promise first, then.’

  ‘All right. The promise is that I’ll come back. I’ll tell you … I’ll tell you everything. I’ll explain. No more secrets. It can’t be now. But I promise I’ll come back.’

  ‘There’s something else going on, isn’t there?’ said Lea.

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Can we help?’

  Rue looked at her seriously. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But for now, it’s got to be just me. D’you trust me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rue felt a rush of complete affection for her. She hadn’t even hesitated.

  Lea hugged her knees comfortably. ‘What’s the thing you need?’

  ‘Sleeping powder,’ said Rue. ‘Got any?’

  CHAPTER 24

  ANGLE TAR

  FRITH

  Six days until people began arriving to herd him home, if the Spymaster was to be believed.

  Six days left.

  He’d launched a campaign. He’d told the owner of The Four Cocks, the inn he was staying at, about his memory loss. The owner had thought this far too fine a story to keep to himself, and now most of the village knew. He’d been spending his days going from shop to shop, business to business, buying a ‘souvenir or two’ and making friends with the owners, having cups of tea and passing the time while he shyly expanded on the rumours they’d heard. They all greeted him by name, now, inviting him round to their houses of an evening, for drinks and supper. Crossing the village square earned him at least one or two hellos. He’d bought bread almost every morning from the bakery, to be seen. The baker’s wife, gorgeous and heavily pregnant, had taken an especial shine to him and often gave him a free saffron bun. Even the baker himself, a monosyllabic brooder, had time enough to spare him a hello and a nod.

  There was no time for subtlety.