Page 75 of Office of the Lost

“How do you two know…” Crispin sighed.“Oh, never mind.”One more mystery for later.

He was so tired.He just had to hold himself together long enough to save Leo, and then he could rest.

“Can’t we just go home?”Aspin sounded whinier—and younger—than usual.

“Just be glad you’re three-dimensional again.”Crispin wished his brother was anywhere else but here.It would make things easier.

Cerillia suppressed a smile.

Crispin set the example, stepping confidently through the portal into a warm, rainy summer afternoon on Earth 2.The rain smelled like spring.

His mother and Aspin followed.“Thank you, Thea.I’m sorry if I overlook you, sometimes.”

“You’re welcome, Crispy.”

Oh no, we’re not going to let that get started.“Crispin, please.”

“As you wish.Crispin.”

They all expectantly turned back to the still-open portal.

A massive thumb slipped through, grasping the edge of the shimmering portal.It began to tug, dragging the edge of it upwards with a hideous howling screech.The door between worlds grew in fits and starts, fighting the giant’s grip but losing in ever weakening stages until its top edge finally jumped all at once a good thirty feet into the air with a loud cracklingsnap.

Fromlith stepped through, his giant feet shaking the park, and then let go of the poor, abused portal, which popped out of existence like a soap bubble.

Crispin stared at the space where it had been.That was interesting.

Giants were surprising creatures, far beyond the lunkish (and somewhat flesh-eating) traits usually assigned to them in the stories.Thank the Red Dukes that Frommy’s a vegetarian.

Then he looked around.

Their arrival on Earth 2 had drawn a crowd of archosaurs and their humanish pets.

Leo, we’re coming!They’d better snap to it and find his former wizard friend, and then move on to the Office before the Chaos Wave caught up to them.

Fromlith dusted himself off, causing cries of consternation from the crowd.“Where to, my little friends?”

28

Leopold

Fishing for Chaos was exhausting.

It wasn’t a terrible or painful task.In fact, every little bit of Chaos that Leopold reeled in felt satisfying, like adding a rare figurine to a collection or fitting a Lego piece properly into place.And it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do with his time.It was either Chaos-fishing, napping, watching ancient TV, or feeling sorry for himself.Honestly, he could do two or three of those things at once, which was better multitasking than he usually managed.

But catching all those parts of himself and drawing them inward was mentally taxing.If he didn’t concentrate, those parts slipped away from him, and then he had to redo his work.He wasn’t especially good at concentrating; he’d never done much of it in the past.

So eventually he needed to take a break.He locked his imaginary Chaos fishing reel in place so the line wouldn’t play out, and he collapsed onto the couch with a heavy sigh.He desperately wished there was something else to distract him in this prison.Chores to do.Food to eat.Books to read.Someone to talk to.

He’d led a fairly solitary life, not because he chose to but because his knack for causing disaster drove people away.Maybe nobody knew he was made of Chaos—that wasn’t the sort of thing most folks would assume—but they could sensesomethingoff about him.Something hazardous.

His loneliness had been painful when he was a kid and never got picked for teams or invited to birthday parties.Things got worse after his parents died and he bounced from foster home to foster home, dragging his meager belongings in a plastic garbage bag that inevitably tore at the most inconvenient times.By the time he reached adulthood, he told himself he was used to solitude.Lone wolf, he assured himself.Individualist.Hardcore introvert.He’d never been fully convinced, though.And his recent time with Crispin had blown all of that out of the water.

Gods, it had felt so good to spend time with someone.Even if a good chunk of it had involved escaping disaster or death.

Oops.There he was, self-pitying again when he was supposed to be on break.“You’re not on the clock, Leo,” he said.“Chill.”

Easier said than done.Maybe he should get back to fishing.He had no idea how big his task would be.How much Chaos was there in the Connected Worlds?

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