Chapter Six

Tolver

Tolver knew he shouldn’t try to use the prospectors’ gift. The only reason he’d kept it was to sell it at the Depository, as soon as he and Nana went there with the words they’d gathered for safekeeping.

With the money from a good sale, he’d have enough to fix the compressor, and then maybe he and Nana could make everything all right again.

Besides, the last time he’d even thought about the compass, terrible things had happened, including the prospectors coming. And now his grandmother was on the other side of the worlds and Tolver was here, without even a good switch, not to mention any magic. Plus, Starflake was still gone. And in their places, he had only a human boy. One worth more to Tolver on the other side of the worlds, as far away from the prospectors as possible.

He had to get Nana back and fast. And send the boy— Sam—home.

There’s only one thing I can do. He took out the compass. The metal gleamed in the sunlight.

Sam’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the inscriptions and gears inside the compass. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Tolver said, turning slightly away. The boy had taken so much of what was Tolver’s already.

But the compass wasn’t glowing. Tolver tapped it. Then he shook it. “Aperture,” he said carefully, as Nana had. Just in case that would wake the thing up. Nothing happened. So he pried at Nana’s safe box, whispering “unprotect,” as he’d seen her do many times. The box clicked open.

Tolver pushed a few scraps around in Nana’s safe, searching, trying not to think about what he’d done. Finally, he lifted up a piece of paper, torn from a book on the other side.

“I can do this,” Tolver muttered again. He didn’t feel too certain. Then he tilted the compass into the sun and held up the paper. “Throughway,” he said.

Nothing happened.

“Throughway!” Tolver said, louder this time. A seagull cackled nearby.

“What’s supposed to happen?” Sam asked. “Maybe I can help?”

“My nan says a word, and her lens uses it to open a portal. But this compass doesn’t work like that.” Tolver frowned.

“If it’s a compass, why not tell it where you want to go? Say ‘Little Fre—’”

Tolver clapped a hand over Sam’s mouth. “Write it down instead.”

He handed Sam a pen from his tool belt and a piece of paper from Nana’s box, and Sam wrote LITTLE FREE LIBRARY in neat block letters. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to take it from you forever. Written ones? They’re not as magic, but you can keep using them.” Tolver explained as he placed the strip of paper on top of the compass and held it up to the sun. “Little Free Library!”

The sun caught the lens of the compass and the rays bounced off the clouds above Tolver’s head. A hole formed, tiny and dark, through the very sky. Sam pointed. “Are those books? It worked! It’s working!”

Tolver pulled his binoculars off his tool belt and studied the portal. Sure enough, he could see the books in the Little Free Library and the Mount Cloud Hardware stencil. He’d done it! But he couldn’t see his grandmother anywhere.

And when he lowered the binoculars, he caught Sam trying to climb up the cottage roof to reach the portal. “Get down!” The boy needed a pookah to get through such a small hole. Sam tumbled into the mud once again and jostled Tolver so much that the compass fell from his hands and landed on the ground.

The portal shimmered and closed up, leaving only clouds and sky. It had almost worked. Tolver sat down hard on the cottage stoop. Cautiously, he raised his eyes to the sky, looking for prospectors. The sky was clear.

“I thought you said you didn’t have any magic,” Sam said from the mud puddle.

“I don’t. Pretty much only this one thing.” Tolver pushed at the mud until he found the compass. He lifted it to the sun. The glass was intact, but something rattled deep inside. “And now it’s broken.” The last time he’d taken apart one of Julius’s inventions, he’d never gotten it back together.

“Maybe I can help fix it?” Sam offered.

Tolver looked up at the boy and rubbed his eyes. Then he laughed a little. “Why not. What else could go wrong? How much do you want?”

Sam hesitated. “Like payment?”

Tolver nodded. “Boglin ethics. You do work, you get paid.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. “I want my sister’s word.”

Tolver opened Nana’s safe box again. Inside, he saw Sam’s words, the curses, and the amazings his Nana had picked up lately. He slipped Sam’s “sorry,” “regret,” and “apologize” into his pocket. My first words, Tolver thought. He couldn’t afford to lose those.

The other “sorry”—the one from the boy’s sister—felt far too light to be of any use anyway. He lifted that from the box. The ribbon gleamed silver in the daylight.

Sam stretched his hand out to touch his sister’s word.

Tolver pushed his hand away. “First, show me you can fix the compass. Then this one’s yours. If you can’t fix the compass, I’ll take the words and you to the Depository tomorrow. The city can decide what to do with you. And we’ll store these with your other words, which are already in the Depository, of course.” Tolver bit his lip, hoping Sam would believe him.

Sam held his hand out again, but this time for the magical compass. “Okay. Let me try.” He put the compass on the stoop and very carefully lifted its lid, then smiled. “It’s just a loose gear,” he said.

Tolver gave him the tools from his belt and listened to Sam tinkering for a few moments. Then Sam looked up, satisfied. “I think that’s it.” He handed back the compass.

“Thanks.” Tolver bit his lip.

“What’s wrong?” Sam was already standing, holding out his hand for his sister’s word. “I’m ready to go home.”

“It’s just—everything I’ve tried to do has worked out so badly. What if this also goes wrong?” Tolver’s faith in himself hardly ever wavered, but the past few days had been a test of it. And now his confidence was buckling.

“Hey, I know what you mean,” Sam said, sitting back down next to him. “I keep trying to fix things and they keep getting worse too. I’m probably missing the first baseball game of the season right now.”

Tolver nodded. “You’re in trouble also?”

Sam kicked the dirt. “Yeah. My teacher’s mad at me, because I couldn’t say ______.” Sam gestured. Then he frowned. “Because you took my words. I don’t want my sister to get in trouble like that.”

Tolver handed him the girl’s ribbon. “It wouldn’t have made much hot air, I don’t think. She really meant it every time she said it. But tell her to be careful. Words can be taken more than once, and it weakens them.”

“Do you ever wonder what happens if you take the wrong words from the wrong people?” Sam asked quietly. “Or words someone really needs?”

“They’re not easy to take if they’re used carefully. Words are only easy to gather when they’re overused or taken for granted. What’s wrong with that?”

“I think . . .” Sam looked like he was mulling his next words carefully. “I think if you’re taking words from people—kids—who are just learning how to use them, that might be a mistake.”

Tolver remembered Nana saying she’d made a mistake long ago. Had she taken the wrong word? No, he couldn’t think like that. “We know what we’re doing.”

“Maybe. But maybe not. I think you should let me earn back my words too, and a word you took from my teacher a long time ago.”

Tolver tensed. He didn’t want to give the boy any more words. He very carefully didn’t look at the broken converter by the cottage. “We don’t need anything more from you, thank you. And your words are in the Depository. Far away.”

“What’s that?” Sam asked. “You mentioned it earlier.”

“The Depository? It’s storage, kind of. Part of an old system that used to hold words, from before your world wars. We borrowed some of it when we crossed from your world to ours. And in the marshbogs, it went magical, all boxes and locks and tubes, a perfect place to keep things. It’s over there.” Tolver passed over the binoculars so Sam could see Felicity.

In the distance, a slim train circled the cloud, slipping between glass and brass towers connected by gardens and tunnels. Above all of it, thin walls arched like a book splayed on its spine. More ships passed beside the walls. “Wow,” Sam breathed.

Tolver chuckled. “Felicity’s the first of the floating cities. The Depository’s that arched bit at the center. Too bad you won’t get to see it up close since you’re leaving, before the prospectors catch wind you’re here.” Tolver ran his fingers through his silver hair, then smoothed them against his jacket.

Sam squinted at him. “That really bothers you? The idea that the prospectors might get me?”

No, Tolver thought, it bothers me that they might get me. “Of course. No one should be taken against their will. You should get back to your baseball games.”

Sam stood slowly. “You’re right. The white pig probably needs food. The pookah, I mean.”

Tolver froze. The nerve of this human boy. “You didn’t just help Starflake? You kept her? You weren’t telling me the whole truth!” Tolver gestured at Gilfillan and the piglets. “They need their family.”

Sam frowned at that but crossed his arms, keeping his grip tight around his sister’s word. “When you give me the rest of my words back and get me home, I’ll give you the pookah.”

Tolver’s mind spun. “Is Starflake all right?” he asked in a small voice.

“She was fine when I left. Tiny.”

“That won’t last. Pookahs are a bit unpredictable, but she’ll be back to full size soon. We’d best get her home before that happens. You do that, and I’ll give you all your words once I get them from the Depository.” He lied to buy time, until he could get Nana’s help. “But I need you to do something more too,” he finally admitted to Sam.

“Anything. What do you need?”

He held up one of the paper scraps. “When you get back home, you have to bring me more words, for fuel and for magic.” Tolver knew that he’d used too many words in Nana’s book, and she’d already needed more from the other side. “Dictionary pages, for one. From a really good dictionary. Lots of them, and not wet or moldy ones. Quality words, for all the trouble I’m going through getting you back to the other side. And also Starflake.”

Sam considered this. “And you swear you’ll give me my words back?”

Tolver wanted to growl. He’d said so, hadn’t he? He caught himself baring his teeth, and goblin teeth are sharp. If Sam helped him, then maybe Tolver could avoid getting conscripted by or losing the island to the prospectors. He forced himself to nod.

Sam took a deep breath. “I’ll get what you need. You’ll give me my words. And maybe Ms. Malloy’s too. And then you’ll leave Mount Cloud alone.”

Tolver had to smile. It was the kind of thing he might say himself. “Deal.”

“What if the pig grows before I can get it back through the library—the pookah?” Sam asked. “A full-size pig in my house will be a disaster.”

“Then you’ll have to hurry, won’t you,” Tolver said, very seriously.

And then Sam held out a pale hand. “Deal.”

Tolver had Sam write where they wanted to go on a scrap of paper. He held the repaired compass up to the sunlight. “Little Free Library,” he whispered.

The portal opened and stayed that way. After a moment, Nana’s silver head appeared close to the edge. She was too big to pass through. “Tolver! You did it!”

Groaning, Tolver and Sam lifted the pookah up as high as they could. Gilfillan scrambled and climbed into the portal. There was a scuffling sound, and several books fluttered from the library into the sea. Then the pookah’s snout reappeared, pushing the old woman forward.

Sam tried to jump for the pookah’s dangling leash at the same time Nana fell into the water. Splash! The wooden bat she carried and her basket landed in the marsh, loud in the quiet morning. And Sam fell back to the ground. The portal was too high.

“Hey! You have to help me!” the boy said. “You said you would.”

Tolver gave him a boost so that Sam could grasp the leash. “Thanks,” Sam said. “You’re not terrible for a goblin.”

“You’re not bad for a human,” Tolver agreed. He waved. “Remember your promise.” He waved to Gilfillan. “One more time, friend.”

“I will.” Sam climbed on the pookah’s back even as the portal began to close. He took one more long look at the marshbog, finally focusing on Nana, who was fishing her things from the water. “That’s my bat!”

“Jump, Gilfillan!” Tolver shouted. “Now!”

The pookah jumped. A few long moments later, Gilfillan reappeared, without Sam.

The portal snapped shut as Nana pulled herself out of the shallows. “What a mess! What a bother. Really, Gilfillan, if you’re going to leave me behind, do it when I’m not carrying a bag of words.”

Tolver stuffed the prospectors’ compass in his pocket before she could see.

Nana huffed after she’d pulled herself to shore, then hugged him tight. “My goodness, you are a sight for sore eyes. And what a surprise too! Magic! All on your own!”

Tolver bore Nana’s praise cheerfully because he was glad to have her back. But he arranged his face as if to say, Like I’d had any choice in the whole mess, so Nana wouldn’t wonder why he looked so nervous.