X, Madame?”
“I fear so. George, I hear it told zat you are something of an encyclopaedia on ze Hidden and its treasures. Why don’t you tell ze children what you know about Vault X?”
“Yes, Madame, and thank you,” began the ape, who clearly enjoyed being referred to as an encyclopaedia on anything. “Society at large believes that there are seven wonders of the ancient world. Were they to travel beyond the Veil, they would know that there are in fact eleven, and that the remaining four are still intact. The British Museum concerns itself with wonders of every kind, a staggering construction of some nine hundred and ninety thousand square feet, its marbled corridors—”
“Ze Vault, monkey.”
“Ahem, indeed. Of its staggering thirteen million objects, there are some that originate from the Hidden side of the Veil. This is not known even by the people who procured them, though they do know that these objects are peculiar, and they treat them as such. They abstain from any categorisation, or even rudimentary analysis by the museum’s learned custodians. Instead, they lock them away. On a secret floor of the building’s never-ending underground storage, in vault ‘X’. It was decided that the items in question would pose less of an academic problem if nobody knew they existed.”
“But ze Twelve are not ‘nobody’,” cut in Oublier again. “We have always monitored ze museum. Some of its artefacts are extremely powerful and I have no doubt zat zis mercurial thief is after one or more of its treasures.”
“Let us deal with it, the museum is not far from here,” offered Benissimo.
“I am not here to ask or to allow, Bene, I am here to order. The sum of gold taken could build a hundred armies with which to wage war, yet combined with such ‘particular’ kidnappings I fear a more obscure purpose.”
“Indeed,” said Bene.
“So,” said Madame Oublier. “Your mission is simple. Find zis thief, find out who he is working for and report only to me. Until I know what is happening, I do not know who is on our side, or who has been compromised.”
“Well,” began Bene. “You can trust us to—”
“Yes, yes,” Madame Oublier said with a dismissive wave. “I know. But I trust nothing to chance. I shall have my men unload an item for you before we leave. To watch over Ned. For … protection.”
“What is it?”
“Oh,” she said. “A little extra insurance.”
With that, she stood and swept out of the tent.
Though the great ape had lost much of his beloved library to a fire, the comforting wall-shake of his snore was at least familiar. Less so were the howls of anguish and what sounded like sobbing, coming from a trailer nearby. George’s trailer was always placed next to the Darklings and their cages. More as a deterrent for any would-be escapees than anything else. Jonny Magik’s trailer was right beside it, in a similarly distant plot to the rest of the troupe, and Ned was starting to see – or at least hear – why. Whatever the man was suffering from, it didn’t sound like indigestion, and his howling formed a constant and unpleasant serenade.
What with that, the snoring, the loss of his parents, and his fear of the voice that awaited him in his nightmares, Ned wasn’t hopeful of getting much sleep at all.
At least he was back at the circus. George had endearingly and exhaustingly kept him company after their meeting with Madame Oublier. He’d brought him food, offered to bend bars for his entertainment and even tried to impress him with banana-induced flatulence.
Ned opened up his backpack, lifted out the carefully wrapped Christmas presents he’d taken from his home and placed them under his bunk.
To Ned they were more than presents, they were a doorway to his mum and dad, a promise – a false one perhaps – of a normal life. A life where the ones you loved weren’t taken from you, where Christmas was still Christmas no matter who you were.
Now, in a single day, he’d lost his parents and said goodbye to two of his closest friends. It was as if his entire life on the josser side of the Veil had been erased and all because of the thief at his letterbox.
Ned sighed, and lay down on the bunk. He closed his eyes for a moment.
His mum had told him that in their long years of separation, the one thing that had consoled her was the sky at night. Hidden away at the convent of St Clotilde’s, she had watched it every evening, knowing that Ned and his dad were under the very same sky and that, even unwittingly, they would from time to time look at the stars with her.
Ned smiled. He wondered if the stars were out tonight. He could go and see but it was warm and comfortable on the bunk. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow, he thought.
It was a nice thought, a lulling thought, and Ned felt his mind begin to drift …
… and then his dream took him into its arms, the very same dream that always turned to a nightmare.
Ned’s hand was trailing along hot metal walls, as it had a hundred times before. He was lost, frightened and completely alone but for the urgency of his mission. Then, as always, the walls buckled and ripped as he found himself looking at the blackness of space. The world before him was broken and burnt and his ears rang with the sound of trumpets and grinding rock.
“YesSs,” said the voice.
And as always, he whimpered back, “No.”
But it was no good. The dream had him. The voice had him. And once it had him, it never let go.
“Oh, so you’re back, are you?” he said,
