Page 12 of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Antsy barely heard her through the rising static, the sudden ringing in her ears. After a long pause, broken by the hammering on the door, she nodded.

“I can afford one,” she said. “All of you, follow me. It only charges the person who does the opening. You can follow, as long as you don’t let the Door close, and if you let it close, it’s probably going to disappear.”

If any of them replied, either to accede or object, she didn’t hear it. She was already wandering deeper into Kade’s sanctuary, slipping between towering stacks of books and into a narrow aisle defined by heaped-up bolts of fabric. She didn’t bump or brush against anything. In fact, as she walked, she began to relax, feeling more at home than she had since leaving the Store. The Doors may have taken her childhood to pay for passage—and while she feared and respected them, she didn’t blame them; no, that was reserved for the adults who failed her, the ones who refused to tell her what they knew when it might have helped—but the Store had kept her safe. It had protected her from her stepfather, it had given her a purpose and a home, and she missed the narrow, towering shelves more than she could say.

Kade’s attic was a return to the familiar. She couldn’t hear the others stumbling after her through the ringing in herears, but she did see Kade dart forward to catch a box of trim that one of them had somehow dislodged, before it could come crashing down and hit her. She shot him a grateful look, and kept going.

A hand grabbed her arm. She shook it off. The attic was large, but even large rooms can’t go on forever, and the wall was just ahead, dust-brown wood visible between shelves and piles of sewing supplies, and the outline of a door etched into the planking. There was no drywall, no attempt to disguise the wood, just faded stain, worn with age, but the Door was clear.

It had been formed by small discolorations in the wood itself, by scratches from moving furniture and old irregularities in the stain. It would have been easy to overlook, if it hadn’t been shouting quite so loudly. At the very top of it, the woodgrain swirled in tight, almost regular loops, becoming words:

Be Sure.

“I am sure I can afford to pay three days for the sake of not becoming Seraphina’s lapdog,” said Antsy, voice clear and calm. Then she reached for the illusion of a doorknob.

It was no shock when her hand closed, not on empty air but on a crystalline orb, and the door blossomed into existence in front of them.

It was an imposing, rainbow-hued thing, seemingly carved from a single pane of shimmering crystal. There was no direct light on the door, but it sparkled all the same, as glittery and alluring as anything had ever been.

The ringing stopped. Antsy looked over her shoulder. The others were staring at her. Kade, particularly, was paler than she was, which was odd, given his normally golden-brown complexion.

“Are you sure?” asked Antsy.

The pounding below them stopped as the attic door slammed open.

“Yes!” shouted Emily.

Antsy opened the door.

PART IIGETTING LOST AGAIN

7 INTO THE GLITTER HELLSCAPE

ANTSY HELD THE DOORopen as the others tumbled through, moving so quickly that Christopher tripped Kade, who stumbled and landed on top of Cora, causing her feet to slide out from underneath her. She sat down, heavily, on the glistening hillside.

“Oh, Lord, I am so sorry—” said Kade, pushing himself away from her and grabbing Christopher’s arm as he got to his feet. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” said Cora. “But wherearewe? Antsy?”

“This isn’t one of the worlds I’ve visited,” said Antsy. She looked around.

Most of the others were doing the same—all except Kade and Sumi. Kade was looking fixedly at Cora, and Sumi was watching Kade, standing with the easy readiness of a warrior who thought she might be called upon to start cracking skulls at any moment.

They had appeared on a gently sloping hillside, the kind that was almost an invitation to stretch out in the grass and just start rolling. The grass itself was lush and emerald green, but gleamed with rainbows where the light hit it. A forest grew above them, trees close together without becoming foreboding, and those, too, glittered like their leaves had been painted in streaks of impossible color. Tiny rainbow flowers dotted the hillside, and the sky was alight with sheetsof dancing light, like the aurora borealis had decided to appear during the day and everywhere.

“It’s beautiful,” said Cora, whose peacock-blue hair had a similar oil-slick nacre to it.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Kade.

“It’s Prism, and we should leave as fast as we can,” said Sumi.

Christopher swore.

Emily looked confused. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“This is the world Kade’s door took him to,” said Christopher. “The one that threw him out because he wasn’t what they expected.”

“Why did you openthisdoor, Antsy?” asked Cora. “Why not any other?”

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