Rémy fled from the stairwell on the first floor of the Victoria and Albert Museum when he heard footsteps coming fast behind him. He cut through a long hallway, ducking among the statues to avoid the clusters of anxious visitors jostling their way to the emergency exits. The alarm was loud, the flashing lights bright, and both were making his eyes water. The golden tablet bounced against his breastbone, its vibrations thrumming.
Run, Rémy. Run!
He skidded into an empty lift and hit the button for the top floor. He gripped his harmonica and waited.
The doors opened on two people: male and female around his own age. Rémy flattened himself to the back of the lift with a gasp and reached for the button again.
‘Out you come,’ said the boy, grabbing Rémy by the scruff of his T-shirt.
Rémy pivoted in panic and threw a punch. The guy ducked, but Rémy’s fist caught him on his chin, sending his shades flying. The girl raised her hand and effortlessly caught the shades mid-air, tossing them back to her partner.
‘Chill, dude,’ said the boy, rubbing his chin and repositioning his shades. ‘We’re here to help.’
Rémy hit out again, but this time the girl twisted his arm in a hold he couldn’t shake. ‘Who the hell are you? Let me go. Let me go…’
‘Let’s just say, my brother and I are a lot like you, and we want to help,’ she said. ‘And unless you want to be arrested and locked up, or forced to answer a lot of questions about how you disappeared into that statue, I’d suggest you stop fighting us.’
The girl was striking in an intense kind of way, pale skin with brilliant green eyes.
She projected an aura that screamed ‘I could kill you with a look’. Her brother needed to cut his hair, shave and maybe ditch the shades. Oddly, Rémy didn’t feel threatened by either of them. Instead, he felt a wave of calm emanating from them both.
‘The Professor does that,’ he said cautiously. ‘In my head, he does the same thing. Are you like him?’
Em turned to her brother. ‘You heard of a Professor?’
‘Nope.’
She turned back to Rémy. ‘Tell us about him later. I’m Em, he’s Matt. And right now, we’d like to rescue you.’
Shouting and stomping feet could be heard in the stairwell and a swarm of cackling, cracking radios.
‘Rémy Dupree Rush,’ said Rémy. ‘Whatever you plan to do, now would be a good time.’
Matt grabbed Em and Em grabbed Rémy, pulling him across the gallery to a shadowy corner to stand inexplicably in front of a seventeeth-century painting of a girl at a desk.
‘Don’t we need a door?’ Rémy asked, looking over his shoulder.
‘Where we’re going,’ quipped the boy, ‘we don’t need doors.’
Rémy could hear the mob crashing into the room behind them. His decision to trust these guys suddenly felt like the worst decision he’d ever made. He dimly registered the fingers of the boy – Matt? – flying across a sketchpad, bringing to life the picture hanging on the wall.
Rémy’s skin tingled, his limbs turned to rubber, his heart flipped and his gut rolled. He thought his bones were dissolving and his head exploded with flashes of colour and light. It was like the guy was conjuring with a pencil.
Ah.