They don’t know what they’re missing.’ Conall took a few steps in one direction, then another, gazing around the room, apparently looking for something. He frowned, checking his pocket watch. ‘Eight-sixteen, wasn’t it, Sofia?’
‘Eight-seventeen,’ she told him. ‘We still have time.’
‘Ah.’ Conall glanced from his pocket watch to the centre of the room and back again. ‘Three … two … one.’
Morrigan flinched as a long, tiny sliver of light appeared exactly where Conall was looking. It was as if someone had taken a very sharp knife and sliced open the air, or perhaps pulled at a tiny Gossamer thread and unravelled reality, revealing something else on the inside. She could hear distant, muffled noises from within.
Sofia went first, nudging the incision with her snout. It opened up just enough for her to slip through it … and disappear. Morrigan breathed in sharply, looking up at Conall, but he was unfazed.
‘Nothing to fear, Wundersmith. Off we go.’ He opened the air like a curtain, confidently following the foxwun.
Morrigan reached out cautiously. Her fingers met the line of light. She felt warm air and a gentle pull, like whatever was inside had arms and they were reaching out for her, welcoming her in. She stepped forward, slipped through the gap and felt time shudder.
It was the strangest sensation.
Like she was made entirely of water, and she’d somehow … rippled.
Sofia and Conall were waiting for her on the other side, watching for her reaction.
‘Isn’t that something, Wundersmith?’ asked Conall. His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled.
It was something, all right. They were in the same room, but everything was different. It was brighter and noisier – and warmer, too. From one corner of the room came occasional blinding bursts of orange light that made Morrigan blink, accompanied by the sound of roaring flames and a smattering of cheers and applause. Whatever the show was, a small group of people dressed in old-fashioned clothes were gathered around, obscuring it from view.
‘Bravo, Stanislav, bravo!’ cried an elderly man. ‘Extraordinary improvement in such a short time, my boy. Who’s next? Amelia! Three cheers for Amelia, gang – huzzah!’
‘What is this?’ Morrigan whispered.
‘It’s okay, they can’t hear us,’ Sofia replied at a normal volume.
‘Can they see us?’
‘No. Come closer. Let’s see if – ah!’ She weaved between their legs and disappeared into their midst. ‘Excellent choice, Conall. It’s annotated.’
Nobody seemed to have noticed the presence of the three newcomers. Morrigan was reminded of Christmas night, her first year in Nevermoor. She and Jupiter had taken the Gossamer Line train – a magical, highly dangerous and decommissioned railway line – all the way to Crow Manor, her childhood home in Jackalfax, and while she’d stood in the middle of a room full of people, the only one who’d been able to see her was her grandmother. To the rest, she didn’t exist. Her father had walked right through her.
‘Are we travelling on the Gossamer? I’ve done this before – oh!’ She’d bumped right into the man who’d given three cheers for Amelia. He turned and looked right at her, and she felt her face flush with heat. ‘Oh – I’m so sorry—’
But the man turned away again, as if it hadn’t happened.
‘Come on, through we go.’ Conall took hold of her elbow and steered her among the group.
‘Are you sure – shouldn’t we be more careful?’
They were actually jostling people. Occasionally someone flinched or even turned to look, but almost immediately their eyes would glaze over and look away again, as if it had never happened. Nobody looked at them directly.
‘Your turn, Jimmy!’ cried the elderly man.
One by one the group members were called on and ran eagerly to the front, where they showed off an eclectic, extraordinary range of skills. One plucked a shadow from the wall and draped himself in it like a cape of darkness. Another made a collection of three-dimensional, glowing, brightly coloured shapes seemingly from nothing, and sent them dancing through the air in formation. A teenage girl performed a series of sly impersonations of everyone else in the room, imitating their walks and posture and voices and laughter – but it was more than just an impersonation, she was becoming them, her features twisting and remaking themselves into exact replicas of her fellows, to their uproarious delight.
The most curious thing, however, was the words that appeared in the air beside them while they performed, scrawled in glowing letters as if by some invisible hand, hanging there momentarily until they began