Page 30 of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Dimly, Antsy remembered Vineta’s explanation of her own origins. Fifteen and running from an arranged marriage. She’d never said anything else about the world she came from, never given it a name or refused to walk through one of the Doors Antsy opened because it might lead her back to a place that had long since ceased to be home.

“That’s cruel,” she said, horrified. “She was only fifteen when she ran away from there. She’s an old woman now. She won’t know anyone, or how anything is done, and it’s not like she can go back to her family.”

“We offered her a nest and she abused it,” said Hudson. “We might have been able to forgive the lying; she’ll die long before Yulia is used up, and I could have kept my promise to you once she was gone. But as soon as Vineta put me in a cage and threw me out to die, she lost the right to expect kindness from our kind. All keepers serve on the behalf of the shop, and not the other way around.”

Antsy nodded slowly. The logic was undeniable, if harsh.

“So we confront her,” she said.

“No,” said Hudson. “You confront her. I will gather the mischief, and we’ll pass our own judgment.”

Then he flew away, high into the rafters, vanishing in the shadows. The cluster of out of place teens looked at one another.

“When I first got here, Vineta told me that she couldn’t open Doors anymore,” said Antsy. “She said they stopped working for her. It’s pretty clear that wasn’t true—she just ran out of time she didn’t need to keep herself alive. What if we throw her out and she can find the Doors outside the Store the same way I can? What if she just comes back?”

“Then you throw her out again,” said Kade.

Antsy looked at him, miserable. “I don’t know if I can push an old woman out of her home over and over again, even after she hurt me the way she did. She didn’t pushmeout when we disagreed. She let my own uncertainty do it for me.”

“It took us two doors to get here,” said Cora. “Do you think that was about the normal number, or was that a short route?”

Antsy hesitated. “The Doors… they’re not clever. They have a function, and they do it. I don’t know why the system exists, or why the Doors work the way they do, but it does, and so do they. I do like to think, though, that since they’re a sort of… an immune system for making worlds better? That maybe they can act a little bit intentionally when they get something really wrong. So that feels like it was a short route. Like they were putting the Doors that would get us here the fastest where I could find them.”

“So say it’s normally four doors, not two,” said Cora. “She’ll be traveling alone, and she’sveryold. Even assuming she started hunting for doors immediately, I don’t thinkyou’d have to worry about her coming back here more than once.”

“I wish I didn’t have to worry about it at all.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen just because we stand around here talking about how awful it’s going to be,” said Sumi, picking up a croquet mallet from where it leaned against a nearby shelf. She gave it an experimental swing before smacking it against her open palm in punctuation, then slung it over her shoulder and grinned at the group, feral as always. “Let’s go serve an eviction notice.”

“You know you’re terrifying, right?” asked Emily, walking close to Sumi as the group started moving. “It’s really important to me that you know you’re terrifying. Stephanie lives with dinosaurs, Christopher sings to skeletons, and I used to dance with scarecrows around a bonfire that never burned down, no matter how long the night lasted, and I still say you’re the terrifying one.”

Sumi favored her with a beatific grin. “I am, and it’s great, and I’m still a hero with her best world-saving days ahead of her, so I plan to enjoy it for just as long as I can. I’m not as terrifying in Confection.”

Emily glanced to the others, seeking some confirmation of this statement, and Kade nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “Bunch of us went there to bring Sumi back from the dead in the first place—and that was what kicked off this whole run of quests—and that world’s pretty and sugar-sweet and dangerous as hell. I’d rather go back to the Moors.”

Cora shuddered.

“Is this a quest?” asked Antsy.

“We’re worlds away from home with no way back unless you help us, trying to take your Store back from a woman who lies to and steals from children, and puts intelligentbirds in cages so she can feed them to whatever comes along,” said Kade. “Yeah, this is a quest. Whether or not we want it to be, this is a quest. And if we fail, we may not be able to find a way back to the school.”

“I’ll get you back unless Vineta kills me,” said Antsy. “I’m staying here, but I’ll get you back.”

“Don’t make promises until you’re certain you can keep them,” chirped Sumi, and that was somehow the truest and the most terrifying thing anyone had said that day, so they walked on in silence, letting those words linger in the air a little longer.

The Store played no tricks with distance this time, and they hadn’t been walking for very long when they rounded a corner and saw the counter, currently unoccupied, with the curtained room beyond it. Antsy didn’t bother ringing the bell. She went straight to the little waist-high door off to the side, unhooked it, and stepped through, pausing to relatch it before turning to the others.

“Staff only, and the Store knows how to enforce it,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait—are you currently staff?” asked Cora.

Antsy shrugged. “I’ll be right back,” she repeated, and ducked through the curtain, into the hidden room beyond.

She didn’t reemerge. Cora started to step toward the little swinging door, and stopped when Kade’s hand landed on her shoulder, tugging her back.

“Wait,” he said. “Give her time.”

“But that woman could come back at any second—”

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