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“Seven will have to do.” He gently pulled Lucy to one side and got down on his knees in front of Archie. “Arch?”
“Yes, my wizard friend?” answered Archie proudly.
“Arch, I’m going to say goodbye now. This machine is going to make you forget me, but I’m never going to forget you. When all this is over, I’ll come and find you and we’ll start over, OK?”
“Whatever you say, wizard. I think you’re magic!” saluted his excitable friend.
“I think you’re magic too,” said Ned sadly, and blew very softly through the de-rememberer.
Archie closed his eyes and began to snore.
Heart heavy, Ned turned to his other friend and made ready to say goodbye.
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A World of Trouble (#ulink_876d26f3-feb2-5d9d-80c0-da9c72d84de0)
utside the tent again, Ned felt his knees turn to jelly. Being separated from the ones you love was not new to him – if anything, it had been the one constant he’d had in his life. But being forgotten? Being forgotten felt empty and cruel, even if he knew that his friends wouldn’t mind. The truth was that they wouldn’t even know. At least he’d get them back, he hoped, eventually. What upset him, what made his blood boil, was that he still didn’t know why. Why had his home been assaulted and why hadn’t he been warned?
“You two need to tell me what’s going on, right now.”
Lucy and George gave each other a look, as though they weren’t entirely sure what to say.
“Mum and Dad are missing, I’ve just said goodbye to my two best friends, quite possibly forever, and everyone here looks like they’ve either been beaten senseless or scared out of their wits. So you two had better start talking. For starters, what was all that about with Jonny Magik? I thought he was going to be sick when he met me.”
George cleared his throat.
“Our new arrival often takes to his bed with ‘ailments’. Unfortunate considering he’s our new head of security. He’s a funny chap, keeps to himself mostly, and the troupe are still a bit wary of him, as am I.”
“You just haven’t got to know him yet, George. He’s a sin-eater, Ned,” cut in Lucy. “Benissimo brought him in from Jamaica to help us deal with the Darklings. He gets rid of the bad ones for us – sin-eating’s heavy magic.”
“The bad ones? I thought they were all bad.”
“Well, the boss’ll explain things properly,” said George. “But we’re in a bind, old bean. Something’s going on, only we’re not exactly sure who’s behind it. The Tinker hasn’t had a word from any of his relatives in weeks, and no one knows why. It’s as if Gearnish, the entire city and all its inhabitants, has simply fallen off the grid. But that’s not the worst of it. There has been an uncommonly large number of Darklings getting out and we’ve been stretched to capacity trying to contain them all. Things got really out of hand a few weeks ago, which is when Bene sent for Jonny Magik. So far he’s been very ‘effective’ at getting rid of them.”
“How does he do it?”
“We don’t know, he just takes whatever needs removing and the next day it’s gone,” explained Lucy.
“Probably feeds them to Finn’s lions,” grinned the ape.
“Oh, George, that’s disgusting! Jonny’s far too nice for that, and Left and Right have been vegetarian for ages,” scolded Lucy. “Besides, you heard Bene, they’re old friends. I’m sure whatever Jonny does and how he does it is above board.”
“You always look to the good in Folk, Lucy, and I commend you for it. If I’m honest, I think you spend too much time with him.”
“George, you know why, he’s been helping me with …” and for a moment Lucy’s voice trailed off.
“Lucy? Helping you with what?” asked Ned.
“Her gifts, old bean.” And at that George went a little misty-eyed. “She’ll never replace old Kitty – forgive me, dear. But she’s now not only running our infirmary and serving as just about everyone’s favourite agony aunt, she’s also becoming quite the promising Farseer. It’s Lucy who had the mirror moved from the safe house to the Glimmerman’s tent – she sensed you might be in trouble, long before we heard from the Olswangs.”
Ned looked at Lucy. The two of them were bonded through their rings in ways that neither of them truly understood. They both wore Amplification Engines – he was an Engineer and she a Medic – but to hear that she’d taken on the gift of “sight” was a genuine shock. And that’s when he noticed it, just as it had been the last time he’d seen her. She was wearing one of Kitty’s pink and white Hello Kitty hair-clips.
“But how, how’s that even possible?”
Lucy shrugged. “Nobody knows. Whether Kitty somehow passed on her powers to me when she died, or if the change started when we connected to the Source. All I know is I’m starting to sense things, lots of things that haven’t happened yet.”
“And she’ll be our greatest asset once she gets past a few teething problems.”
“Teething problems?” asked Ned, who was still reeling from the revelation about his friend.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” said Lucy.
All of a sudden the night sky looked as if it were being swallowed by darkness. The moon and every star above them disappeared, blocked out by a fast-approaching silhouette, and the roar of powerful engines.
Ned, Lucy and George looked up, George tensed and ready to fight.
A gust of wind, a blast of horns, and Ned saw two blue and cream striped zeppelin balloons coming in to land. They were tethered together and carrying a large gold-plated gondola. An intricate crest with the letter “O” had been carved in its side.
George lowered his hands and his shoulders dropped. But he was still frowning, his forehead deeply furrowed.
“Who is that?” yelled Ned over the airship’s engines.
George turned to him. “The Mirabelle’s the only ship that carries the ‘O’ of Oublier. And if the Prime of the Twelve is making an unscheduled visit – I shouldn’t wonder that trouble is close behind.”
“I know who she is,” said Ned. “She runs the Twelve, right?”
“And every circus and pinstripe in its ranks.”
“But why turn up without warning?”
“I expect she’s just found out about you, dear boy,” said George. “Either you’re in a world of trouble, or the world’s in a world of trouble.”
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Madame O (#ulink_0ab3155b-2e07-505f-b53f-7c53c241f2ef)
ed’s head was reeling when he walked into the meeting room. His quiet word with Benissimo was now to be a larger affair and Madame Oublier’s arrival had stirred the troupe into wild panic. Rugs and wall hangings, fresh sawdust and the circus’s best bunting had been hurriedly arranged in a tent where they could talk, away from prying eyes and ears. When Ned walked in, Scraggs the cook was barking orders at a team of kitchen gnomes who were helping him to set everything up.
“What’s got into him?” whispered Ned to Lucy.
As well as having one of the filthiest cooking aprons Ned had ever seen, the clearly agitated cook also had a large set of tusks, the nose of a pig, and the hearing of a bat.
“Madame Oublier – met her, have you?” Scraggs snarled back.
“No,” smirked Ned.
“For starters she’s French. Imagine Monsieur Couteau, the finest blade in Europe; now make him more serious and a witch that has issues with dust.”
Behind him, Julius, Nero and Caligula, the circus’s resident pixies, were attempting to lay out a collection of biscuits for their important visitor. To the rest of the world they looked like performing monkeys in matching bellboy outfits and caps, but – without their glamours – to Ned and the troupe they were mischievous blue-skinned terrors. For every carefully laid out biscuit, they swallowed at least three others.
“Scraggs, old bean, calm down. She is perfectly amiable as long as everything’s clean,” chuckled George, who seemed to be enjoying the chaos enormously – and despite his troubled heart, so was Ned.
Scraggs looked down at his apron and started to sweat profusely, at which point Ned saw Caligula – or was it Nero? – dropping a full tray of chocolate eclairs on the sawdust by their feet. Scraggs responded by pulling a rolling-pin from his belt, and the three emperors bolted for the exit.
“All right, all right, that’s quite enough. Get back to the kitchen before you have a heart attack, and take your gnomes with you,” ordered Benissimo, who had finally stopped pacing the floor of the tent, though his moustache was still in full twitch.
A very relieved cook and his diminutive accomplices did as they were told. No sooner had they left the tent than Ned heard a loud gong being struck outside. Madame Oublier had arrived.
Ned leant across to Whiskers, who was still perching happily on Lucy’s shoulder.
“Not a squeak out of you. Madame O is a VIP. And if you’re there, Gorrn, that means you too.”
Something on the floor undulated and Whiskers gave Ned a short but courteous blink.
Madame Oublier entered the tent with little fuss. She was without doubt the most heavily tattooed person Ned had ever seen, in either the known world or the Hidden. She was elderly and silver-haired, much like Kitty, the troupe’s old Farseer, though with none of her pink and white garb or eccentric charm. The Twelve’s Prime was dressed from head to toe in unapologetic black. For a moment Ned felt a pang – how he wished dear Kitty was still with them and especially now.
The elderly Farseer was also slight, calm and quiet, because she did not need to be anything else. To the travelling kind, Madame Oublier’s word was law.
Behind her were two dwarven berserkers. From the plaits of their beards to the blue woad markings on their faces, Ned could tell they were high-ranking. Though small in stature, berserkers were almost unstoppable in a fight, as Ned had found out at the battle of St Clotilde’s.
Ned also knew that Oublier did not usually employ bodyguards; she was a formidable force in her own right. If she was travelling with specialist muscle, then things were indeed dire behind the Veil.
She took a seat and studied her surroundings without addressing anyone. George held his breath as she peered at a cup and saucer, probing them for any evidence of dust. There was a slight pout of the lips, her eyes flicked to Benissimo, and finally she spoke.
“Bon. Coffee, black.”
“Madame O,” said Benissimo, as he poured her a cup.
A face that had as many wrinkles as tattoos broke into a much-needed smile.
“It is good to see you, old friend, zo I wish ze times were brighter.” She looked to Ned, and her eyes softened. It was a look that ran straight through him, as if she could see right into his troubled heart.
“You are always welcome, Madame, under my or any other tent.”
Madame Oublier sipped from her cup of coffee, or at least that was how she started. What began as a sip soon turned into a violent and guttural slurp. Her eyes clamped shut, her cheeks turned pink and Madame Oublier, quite possibly the most formidable woman Ned had ever seen (besides his mum), downed the entire cup in a noisy and violent gulp. No one said a word; as much in awe as he was, Ned had to hold back the laugh that was now lodged in his throat.
It was clearly a blend that she didn’t like and, ignoring her own greedy glugging, Madame Oublier glanced at Scraggs’ assortment of nibbles with nose-curling disdain before scanning the faces at the table. One by one she looked at each of them gathered there, then lingered for a while on Lucy, who for some reason could not meet her gaze.
“How are you, child?” she asked.
“Fine, Madame Oublier, thank you,” said Lucy quietly, who at that precise moment looked anything but.
The Farseer’s lips pursed. It seemed very much to Ned like the two of them had met before.
“We shall see. And tell me, where is ze conjuror?”
“Resting. The return of our young Engineer proved to be too much excitement,” explained Benissimo.
“Keep a close eye on him.”
“Always, Madame,” said the Ringmaster solemnly.
Ned glanced at him. Why did Jonny Magik need a close eye? Surely he was Benissimo’s friend? But before he could dwell on that or Lucy’s obvious discomfort, he was met by the Farseer’s eyes again.
“Now, it is ze boy that I have come to see. Dear Ned, after everything your family have already endured, I am so sorry. If you will permit, I wish to take a peek inside your mind.”
Ned froze. The only other person to “take a peek” had been the dearly departed Kitty, and she had done so by slapping his face.
“Be still, Monsieur Ned. I will not hurt you.”
She leant across the table and rested her hand on his before closing her eyes. For a brief moment something in him lifted and he felt the beginnings of a glimmer of hope. Madame Oublier was an intimidating woman and he sensed within her a powerful force matched only by well-hidden kindness.
“Allow yourself some light, child, not all is lost. I fear ze taking of your parents is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and to return them safely to you, we will need to do much digging. Tell me, Ned, at your home did you come across any liquid? Anything zat looked like mercury?”
With everything that had happened, Ned had forgotten all about it.
“Yes! Whiskers took a sample, but … how do you know?”
Ned’s Debussy Mark Twelve was preparing to “excrete” the liquid from Lucy’s shoulder, when Madame Oublier stopped him with a raised palm.
“No need, little clock, I know already what it is. We have seen it before.”
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Project Mercury (#ulink_9ad6bae3-00ea-51c7-a625-f314c4ed2700)
ed’s heart was racing. Finally an answer, some clue as to where his parents had been taken, or at least why.
“What’s happened to my parents?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
In reply, the Farseer only clapped her hands, and two men in pinstripe suits entered the tent.
“These are …” began Madame Oublier.
“Mr Cook and Mr Smalls,” said Ned. “We’ve met before.”
“Indeed,” said Mr Smalls, with a nod.
The pinstripes acted as spies on Ned’s side of the Veil. They infiltrated every level of the josser world, from its newsrooms and government right through to its police. It was their job to alert the Twelve of any issues ahead of time.
Mr Cook cleared his throat.
“Ladies, gentlemen, George. You all know how bad things have been of late. It would appear that someone is helping Darklings to cross over to the josser side of the Veil. There have also been several sightings of Demons, though their aversion to daylight has at least kept the sightings brief, and their impact minimal. Like you, the other circuses under the Twelve’s command are struggling to keep up and we are at the point of needing outside assistance.”
Ned shifted uncomfortably. On the countless occasions back at the house that he’d argued to see his old friends at the circus, not once had his mum and dad told him about the trouble they were clearly having.
“It points to a much larger conspiracy,” said Mr Smalls. “And one that has both the Twelve and their allies extremely concerned. Master Armstrong, the liquid you found has been seen elsewhere and it is because of this that we have come to see you. I’m afraid the incident at your home today was but one of many.”
