had diverted them from their master’s orders.
“She had his athame and our helm,” Nott responded sluggishly, even though he knew Geb was right.
“Useless, you are,” Geb muttered. “I bet you can’t even count all the way up to two hundred on your own.”
Hearing his own voice as though from far away, Nott said, “We got you, didn’t we? Without us, you’d still be sleeping here.” Nott didn’t feel it was important to mention that he did, in fact, have trouble counting to two hundred all on his own. That was none of Geb’s business.
“Shut it, Nott,” Wilkin whispered at the speed of a snail. “We’re almost there.”
Nott fell silent. His hands gripped the lantern’s handle tightly, and in the lantern’s light, he could see the four of them—himself, Wilkin, Geb, and Balil—moving through the darkness There. They were all cut and swollen. Nott had so many bruises on his face, he could feel it puffed into strange shapes; his knuckles and chest were so sore it was hard to move. The others had makeshift bandages over shallow whipsword slashes on their shoulders, and beneath these were ugly seams where they’d sewn each other up.
“Here they are.” That was Geb speaking, and he was nudging Nott to hold the lantern higher.
Nott responded after a few moments. His mind was fuzzy and his arms and legs seemed to be swimming through the waters of Loch Tarm. As he raised the lantern, he became aware of two figures standing perfectly still in front of them. More Watchers.
“Let’s not stand here and stare,” Balil said slowly. “Let’s get back. I already feel strange.”
“Wait here,” Geb ordered. “I’m getting the other things we need.”
Geb disappeared farther into the darkness, the lantern’s light glinting dully off the helm on his head and licking at hidden forms rising in the black. Geb was now in among those forms, searching for something. But Nott couldn’t focus. He was stretching out.
“Should we leave the runts here?” Geb asked. He was back. Nott had lost track of time, and somehow Geb was already back.
“Might as well,” Balil said, his words as sluggish as Nott’s own breathing.
Were they really planning to leave him here? Nott wondered, though the thought seemed distant and unimportant. No, they were only taunting him; Geb was already hitting the athame and lightning rod together and carving a new anomaly back into the world. The edges solidified, and Nott could see their broken fortress through the hole, illuminated by a waning moon that hung behind its turret.
They didn’t let Nott pick up the sleeping Watchers. Wilkin and Geb and Balil did that without him.
“Hold the light steady, runt!” Geb ordered.
Carrying their new comrades, the Watchers stepped across the anomaly and into the shallow waters of the lake. Nott stumbled through after them.
—
An hour later, the new arrivals were still lying on the floor of Dun Tarm in awkward, stiff poses, staring blindly up at the night sky. It might be hours yet before they began to breathe and move normally again.
Nott hugged his knees to his chest and studied the faces of the two newcomers. They weren’t what he’d expected. They were scrawny and spotty, and hardly older than Nott himself. Is that what I look like when I’m frozen There? Nott wondered. Is this what my master sees when he comes to wake us for our turn in the world, our turn to look out for him?
But these boys did not really look like him. They were dressed, in the way of all Watchers, in gray wool, but their clothes were much newer than Nott’s, as though their master had found them somewhere just a few years ago. Their eyes were open and staring, and one of them wore spectacles.
Nott’s mind had gotten lost There, and it was only now coming back. He asked suddenly, “Why did we get only two Watchers? We were supposed to get all of them.”
“Yes,” Geb said. “Eventually.” His eyes flicked to his partner, Balil, who nodded encouragingly.
“Eventually?” Nott asked. He looked back to the frozen newcomers. “But…why did you pick these two? Who are they?”
“I don’t know their names,” Geb said defensively.
“But—but are they indeed Watchers?” Nott asked.
“They are training to be Watchers. Just as you did once. Just as we all did.”
“Training?” Nott asked. “So they’re not full Watchers?”
“Not yet.”
“But—what about our orders!” He bared his teeth at Geb.
“We will follow them,” Geb assured him. “Very soon.”
Nott cried, “Soon? That’s what Wilkin has been saying all along. ‘Soon.’ ” He