The ogress wraps her arm around her, almost entirely shielding her from view. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
“If Kit’s your mate, can’t you tell where he is?” Jack asks.
Reva pops her head up. “No,” she mutters, tapping her fingertips just above her breast. “It doesn’t seem to work like that. I can feel him and tell he’s still alive, but that’s about it.” She pauses, brow furrowing. “Although it would explain the weird feeling I’ve had since we left, like something isn’t right.”
“Maybe he’s hiding out somewhere if he had a visit from the sorcerers,” the ogress suggests, striding to the window and peering out. “Someone must have seen him after we left. These buildings are close enough to know everyone’s business.”
They don’t spare either me or Jack a glance as they hasten out the door. We share a bemused look before lumbering off in their wake.
By the time we’ve made our way downstairs and out the door, one is already speaking to Kit’s neighbour across the street while the other is talking to whoever lives next door. Jack and I scout around the perimeter of the shop. My nose does a lot of the heavy lifting, and after scouring every inch of space outside, it pays off.
There’s another droplet of blood on the ground outside Kit’s window and a thin piece of patterned material in a heap in the dirt.
Reva and the ogress return from their questioning, and as soon as Reva sees the dirtied material in my hand, her face pales even further. “It’s from his robe,” she murmurs. “He was wearing it all yesterday.”
“It stinks of blood and sorcery.” I growl. “Did the neighbours see or hearanything?”
The ogress rubs at her brow, frowning. “The one I spoke to spent most of the time moaning about being woken up last night, but it had nothing to do with Kit. Some kid has a flying sofa, and he’s a menace with it.”
“Clive... Horton, I think it was.” Reva nods. “We saw him yesterday, nearly took our heads off. The people I spoke to didn’t see a thing, and they haven’t seen Kit.”
“Ree, can you ask Aster how the sorcerers travel? Is it via a magic air bubble or like a four-wheeled vehicle that’s fueled entirely by thoughts?”
Reva pauses for a moment and reaches out to the silent guy. The two of them have another silent conversation before she turns back to the rest of us. “He says they scurry about like rats in the night, taking whatever means are available to them.”
“Some kind of private transport then. I suppose that leaves the road or sea.”
“Kit’s terrible on boats, especially small ones,” Jack says.
“Should we check the harbour, anyway? See if anyone had their boat stolen?”
“There is one more alternative,” Reva says before pointing upwards. “Sky.” She sets off down the street, calling over her shoulder, “I know where Clive’s garage is.”
She leads the way at a fast clip, with the rest of us following. There’s someone yelling and the sound of smashing and clattering. I’m hit once again with the smell of rot and blood that’s now horribly familiar. It’s stronger here than even in Kit’s bedroom.
The garage door is wide open, and there’s a young lad tearing the place apart, throwing cans and tools against the wall.
Reva pulls to a halt, and I step in front of her. “That’s Clive,” she mutters.
“He looks unstable. What’s he saying?”
“Jealous. Poisonous. Oafs. Wouldn’t understand innovation if it smacked them in the face,” she repeats, meeting my eye. The strangest sensation jolts me, and I have to jerk my head away.
“Someone stole his flying sofa,” Reva adds.
There’s another thin trail of blood on the hard floor. Blood that smells just like the tattered and dirty tie from Kit’s robe that’s still clutched in my hand.
“They were here.”
“And now he’s gone. On a flying sofa, by the sounds of things.”
The words land like iron stakes in the ground.
“He can’t have gone far, right? Not on a damn flying sofa that crashed on the street yesterday.”
Jack lets out a strangled sound from the back of his throat, shrinking right in front of us in the middle of the pavement. His clothes go floppy, landing in a heap. The pile twitches slightly, and the black head of a raven pops out of the pile of clothing, leaping into the air where it hovers in front of me.
“I’ll see what I can find,” the raven says in Jack’s voice right as he flutters away.
