“Look, maybe this was a mistake. Sorry to take your time.” I stood up. If I pretended to leave, maybe he would protest. “I’ll find help somewhere else.” I had no idea where that would be. Rose knew people who knew people. If Rose said Harold Dawkins was the only one in San Francisco who might be able to help me, he was likely at the end of that road. But I’d figured tons of stuff out on my own since Mom had died; I could figure this out too. I walked to the door, but when I glanced back, he was still watching me.
His hand dropped off his chin, and he pushed back from the desk. Given the size of his head, I’d expected him to be taller, but he was shorter than me. His ankle-length green coat swept around the corner of the desk, revealing black and white shoes.
I stepped back, and he walked around me, opening the door and walking into the hall. There was an odd smell about him, chalky and almond-vanilla. It didn’t seem natural but didn’t stink like a synthetic perfume.
“Where are you going?” I asked. He held up a hand, wiggling his fingers in a suggestion that I follow.
“Be careful, Sorrel,” Ranth whispered in my head. Chills crawled over my neck, but I trailed after Harold, keeping an eye on the hall. His coat rustled at his ankles, and the back of his haircurled into pinwheels the way I used to swirl peanut butter and honey on toast. He nimbly descended the stairs, and I panted to keep up with him as we went down maybe nine landings before I lost count.
Most old buildings in the Marina district didn’t have basements because the land was filled and could be flooded in a second. By my calculations, we were the height of the building below the street and still descending. I peered over the railing, and my chest tightened at the blue haze below. I paused, but I didn’t sense magic.
“Harold, where are we going?” I called over the banister.
“Blue is a color of time magic. Maybe we should leave?” Ranth asked in my head.
Harold didn’t stop and leaving wouldn’t get us answers. I continued down. The haze dissipated as I approached. The blue glow was from the caged light over what appeared to be a bank vault door, with a big round wheel on it.
Harold turned the wheel with one hand, and it spun around like a fun-house vortex spiraling in glowy blue. I couldn’t look away even as I was compelled forward.
Then, the door disappeared—at least I think that’s what happened.
I stumbled through the haze, the blue mist dissipating into an azure sky, which reflected on the surface of a water-filled canal. Three- and four-story brick houses lined both sides of the deserted streets. Harold stood a ways down the street as if waiting for me.
“You should come out now,Chestnut,” I hissed.
Ranth’s voice boomed in my head. “I can’t. I’ve tried. There’s something about this place. It’s not quite here.”
“But I need you!” I snapped, stiffening. This wasn’t like planar walking,but I could see the glassiness around the edges. Ranth was right. Wherever we were, it wasn’t quite here.
The shimmering water was a slate blue with white, puffy clouds above it, like a painting. My mother had always said I should follow my instincts—the weird thing was I didn’t feel in danger, and since the door had disappeared, following Harold was my best option. Harold continued to walk, and I slipped my lavender glasses down to filter the sunlight.
Ranth hadn’t stopped talking, but it was like he was veiled. He was trying to figure out where we were and what Harold was. If this was his “planar” magic, maybe it would help us fix the curse.
Harold stopped at an arch covered in copper plaques. He began to read in languages that maybe Ori could decipher. As he read aloud, his eyes drifted from the wall as if he’d committed the words to memory. Maybe I was reading his mind, but somehow, I knew there were other plaques that weren’t here, and I shouldn’t have been able to understand him, but I did. The story on them, about a Garden of Trees lost to time, was older than the buildings and even the language. Were they the same trees from Ranth’s story? They had to be because it was too much of a coincidence, but I also couldn’t tell if this whole place was real or a projection of my thoughts. I turned to Harold. “Where are the other plaques? And how can you read them without looking at them?”
His reply was in my head, mixing with Ranth’s patter. “I know them by heart.” Harold’s voice was gruff, with a crackle on the end as if he were growing into his deep voice. “The rest are around here somewhere.” At least he was talking to me. I touched the plaque closest to me, and a jolt of electricity ribboned up my arm. Suddenly, Ranth was standing beside me.
“What happened?” I asked, reeling from the shock.
“I don’t know. Maybe you connected with the magic of this place? Whatever it was, it removed the block on me,” he said.But before I could answer, Harold turned and moved up the street like he was on wheels.
“Come on, we can’t lose him,” I said to Ranth, jogging to catch him but making sure Ranth was right behind me. His long strides made it easy for him to keep up.
Harold stopped in front of a red brick building with a step-shaped top—similar to old Belgian houses I’d seen pictures of. He opened the door, and the frame glimmered with blue symbols as he disappeared inside.
My pulse quickened. What if we lost sight of him? How would we get out of here? A few seconds later, we were in front of it. I rubbed the doorframe, but the symbols didn’t flicker long enough to memorize them before they were gone. To my relief, the door opened.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Inside the building, my eyes adjusted to the dimness caused by the voluminous blue curtains covering the front windows. There were displays with cards but no prices. It wasn’t a shop, perhaps a museum?
Harold was crouched down, rummaging around in piles under counters, searching for something. He pulled things out, then pushed them back: a hammer, a trunk of top hats, and a pile of scrolled paper. Under the last table, he pulled out a copper bin punched with decorative holes like a sieve about the size of a twenty-pound bag of rice. The copper alone would be valuable, but the thing glowed with a white light. It surprised the hellebore out of me. Harold turned it over and clambered on top of it to reach a higher shelf of leather-bound books.
The volume he selected also glowed with a white light, far more magical than the copper bin. I itched to touch the aged brown binding.
Ranth stilled beside me as Harold hopped down from the bin and took the tome to the table. He patted it three times and then laid his hand flat on the cover. The book shone blindingly bright gold, and then wisps of violet smoke seeped out from all sides. He opened it, blinking as if he were reading at an accelerated rate, and quickly flipped pages. Then he settled on a page, scanning the text with an index finger tipped with a dot of forest-green nail polish.
The pages were fragile and brittle, with pieces missing on the edges. Trails of gold and purple drew me forward. I held my breath and reached out. My fingers hovered?—
