The memory was there and gone in seconds. The agony of the tease jolted Alistair’s eyes open. Above him, sitting cross-legged on a small cloud, was Charlie Dwyer.
His thumbs tapped his toes, as if he was excited to see Alistair, or as if he was nervous. It was hard to tell. “Did you enjoy that moment?” Charlie asked.
Alistair lunged, thrusting a hand at Charlie, hoping to grab something, anything. But Charlie was too quick and he flapped his arms twice, causing the cloud he was sitting on to move higher in the sky. Alistair did the same—flapped his arms—but his cloud didn’t move.
“I wish I could give you more memories, but I don’t have control of that,” Charlie said. “It’s Aquavania that gives you that. You call it Aquavania, don’t you?”
“Is that really you?” Alistair asked, reaching again, trying to touch him, even though he knew he was too far away. Charlie’s skin seemed even saggier than before. In the sunlight, it hardly looked real.
“You know what?” Charlie said. “The figments don’t seem to notice when I put this skin on, but a swimmer like you will spot it every time. I guess I don’t need it around you.”
Grabbing a handful of his own hair, Charlie tugged. One, two, three. Then his skin slipped from his body like a sock from a foot. The body beneath the skin was still shaped liked Charlie, but it was both colorless and faceless. Fiona had described the Riverman as a creature who looked like the spaces between the stars in the night sky, and that’s exactly what Charlie looked like. A wraith, a specter. Terrible and wonderful and infinite.
He held the skin up, then tossed it into the breeze, and it flapped away as if it were newspaper. Thin beams of sunlight suddenly became solid and clung to Charlie’s body. Tiny luminescent worms undulated on his skin.
“You’re…”
“This is who I am here,” Charlie said. “This is how I look. I often have to wear my Charlie skin so I don’t spook the figments. But I’m still Charlie. I’m also the Maestro. And I’m the Riverman. I’m the Whisper.”
“So is this it?” Alistair asked.
“What?”
“Is this the Ambit of Ciphers?”
Charlie laughed. “Now that’s a silly name. No, this is yet another world. Created by a kid named Boaz. Fiona knew him, actually. Odd boy. Funny hat. He was quite hard to capture. He and a kid named Rodrigo tried to trick me, and while Rodrigo was an easy one to bag, Boaz was wily. But I always win in the end.”
There were many clouds in this world, but otherwise, it was empty. Alistair didn’t have to wonder. He knew a cipher must have swept through and done away with whatever lived here.
“How did you find me?” Alistair asked.
Charlie laughed. “I never lost you. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The forest in Mahaloo is thick, and you slipped my gaze there for a bit. But when the Mandrake met you, he told me where you were.”
There had been that moment when Potoweet had flown away and left Alistair alone on the platform in the Hutch. Alistair figured it was to hide for a few minutes before hitching a ride in his throat, but perhaps there was more to it. Perhaps the monster was checking in with his master. “Was everything he told me a lie?” Alistair asked.
“Who?”
“Potoweet … I mean, the Mandrake.”
“They’re one and the same. I don’t remember what he told you, but I can say that his life is a complicated one. When I improved him, he was … conflicted.”
“Improved him?”
“Undoubtedly,” Charlie said. “Swimmers like you are so foolish. These ciphers, as you call them, aren’t things I create. They’re things that I mold.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When daydreamers create their worlds, they always create the same thing first. A friend. A guide. Some call it a familiar, some call it a daemon. Doesn’t matter. It’s an animal that assists them. I take those animals and I help them … evolve.”
“So … Potoweet…?”
“Was once the faithful servant of a boy named Oric, and when Oric left the picture, I molded Potoweet into something better. It’s what the bird deserved. Abandoned like that. Living a pointless life. Except for the point on his beak, of course.”
Charlie laughed at his own joke.
“Baxter?” Alistair asked.
And Charlie laughed even louder. “Flawless work, don’t you think? And fast too. You really believed he was Kyle, didn’t you?”
“Why would you do that?”
“To remind you.”
“Of what?”
“Of what you did. Of where you are. Of what’s back home.”
“Is he okay?” Alistair asked. “Kyle? Back home?”
“He was alive when the ambulance picked him up, if that’s what you mean. What happens after that, well, is to be determined. The ambulance drove off, then I came to Aquavania, and I called you to Aquavania. While we’ve been here, not even a millisecond has passed at home. Kyle is still on an operating table, I’m sure.”
It was the best news Alistair had heard in forever. He pulled in a glorious breath, but the relief would only last for a moment. “I didn’t shoot him on purpose,” he said.
“I know,” Charlie said. “You meant to shoot me.”
Denial was pointless. They both knew this was true. “I may be chasing after you,” Alistair said, “but all I care about is Fiona. I don’t need to hurt you—”
“Hurt me! That’s funny. That’s really funny.” Charlie flapped his arms and effortlessly, tauntingly, he made his cloud spin and move through the sky. He was on a magic carpet, a flying saucer. He had complete control.
“All I want to know is where she is,” Alistair said.
“Why?”
“Really?”
“Yes. Why?” Charlie began picking at his cloud with his thumb and pinkie, pulling away wispy bits like cotton candy.
“Because you took her,” Alistair said.
“And you need her back? She’s yours?” Charlie asked as he moved his hands over one of the wispy bits and molded it into the shape of a noose.
“No. She’s not mine. But she’s also not yours.”
“Own up and admit the real reason,” Charlie said as he molded another piece of cloud. This time, he made it into the shape of an arrow. “Say what she is to you.”
“She’s a friend,” Alistair replied.
“Say that you—”
“What?”
“Love her.”
Alistair paused. He’d said the words before. To himself. At night. Alone. In his room. In his head. But never to her. Never to anyone.
“I…”
“Say it,” Charlie teased as he molded another wisp of cloud into the shape of a small creature, a beast that looked like a monkey with big eyes.
“I … love … her,” Alistair whispered.
“Horse crap.”
Alistair lunged again. Not even close, but he had to try. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” Charlie replied calmly. “Because you don’t know anything about her.”
“That’s a lie. I know her. I love her. I love her!”
Charlie blew on the three little clouds he had molded. The noose, the arrow, and the big-eyed monkey floated down and hung in the air above Alistair. “Tell me,” Charlie said. “Do you recognize these things?”
“I … I…”
“Above Hadrian’s head, there were ropes, right? Different colors? There was a purple one with neon green stripes. Fiona’s favorite colors.”
“So?”
“So, if you’d known that, you would have pulled the purple and neon green one.”
“I was … It was … Choosing which rope to pull wasn’t really an option. The Mandrake saw to that.”
“The ice huts, then,” Charlie said. “There was an arrow hanging in one. Did you know how much Fiona liked archery? Did you ever bother to find out that she has a bow and arrow in her closet?”
“I don’t … What? Why would I be in her closet?”
“The control panel?” Charlie barked. “In the Easter egg? With all the buttons and pictures? In Quadrant 43? Did you actually look at that? Did you see the picture of the bush baby? Her friend, her familiar, her guide in Aquavania? Could I have gotten more obvious?”
“You’re making no sense,” Alistair said.
“Even beyond that. In the school. In Macrotopia. In the desert. Everywhere, I gave you chances to get to Fiona. Symbols that anyone who knew her could figure out. Obvious gateways. Shortcuts to find her.”
“That’s bull,” Alistair said. “I asked people about Fiona. Besides Baxter, no one knew who she was. There was nothing about her in the atlas. There were no shortcuts.”
Charlie sprang from his cloud with astonishing speed. Fifteen feet in the air, maybe twenty. And he grabbed two clouds that were floating by and sliced them open with his mangled hands. Rain poured out of them. Purple and green rain from one. Silver and gold rain from the other.
“There were no shortcuts?” Charlie howled as he landed back on his cloud. “I make the shortcuts, you moron.”
The rain fell on both sides of Alistair. It was so close that he could reach out and touch it if he wanted. But he resisted. “So I didn’t find your shortcuts,” Alistair said. “So what?”
Charlie’s voice softened. “You don’t have many memories of her, do you? But you have plenty of me. There’s a reason for that. It’s not her that you’re really after. It’s me. It’s me that you care about.”
“I care about getting her home. That’s all.”
“When you make a choice, you reveal the person you really are. Over and over, you’ve chosen me, Alistair. Admit it.”
“I’ve chased you! To find her!”
“I’m giving you one more choice. Touch the purple and green rain, and you’ll go to Fiona’s world. And I won’t bother you there. You can see what she created. You can stay as long as you’d like.”
“Is Fiona there? Will I see her there?”
“Have you met any of the creators in any of the worlds you’ve visited? Do you really think Fiona would still be in her world?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Alistair said. “Maybe you’re tricking me, making me believe one thing while the opposite thing is true. Maybe everything I need to bring Fiona back is there in her world. Dot seemed to think so.”
Charlie raised his shoulders and cocked his chin: Could be. Then he said, “Touch the silver and gold rain and you get to go to the place you really want to go. The Ambit of Ciphers, as you called it. I’ll be there. Polly, remember her? She’ll be there too. She tricked you, didn’t she? Well, you can have your revenge. And we can have fun, me and you. Together. Like we’ve had fun in the past.”
“What about Fiona? Is she there?”
“You can choose me. You can choose her. It shouldn’t be a hard choice.”
“No, it shouldn’t,” Alistair said, and he reached out and touched the rain.