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It feels surreal to be sitting in a room with Hugo, Inez, Cal, Ghita and Cindy — a king, a camel, a bodyguard, a princess and whatever Cindy is. I want to ask what brought them here, but Inez has questions of her own, and pumps me for information about my run-in with Orlan and Argate.
I tell them about the lock in Seven Dials, being surprised by the killers, running, slipping through the borehole from London to Diamond, and how the voice directed me from there to here.
“I can’t believe how lucky I was that the boreholes led me to you guys,” I smile.
Cindy claps with delight. “He’s so adorably ignorant!”
That’s not the response I was expecting. “Hang on,” I growl.
“Is he always this dense?” she asks Inez.
“What?” I gasp.
“Most of the time,” Inez grins.
“Will you please just tell me what’s going on?” I groan, looking at Inez with a pleading expression.
“I’d like to know too,” Cal says. “How did Archie find us? Do you have one of those mobile phones that I’ve heard about?”
“No,” Inez says. “He crosshaired and zizzed me.”
Cal chuckles. “That’s my Archibald, always full of surprises.”
“What are you talking about?” I snap. “I’ve had a hard day. Don’t tease me with gobbledygook. Just tell me straight up what’s going on.”
Inez sighs. “The problem is, I’m not sure. But tell me this. Do you really think it’s coincidence that you wound up in Moscow, and that Hugo just happened to be passing when you stepped through the borehole?”
As soon as she says that, I realise how ridiculous a notion it was.
“So what drew me here?” I ask quietly. “And how did you know I was in trouble, and where to send Hugo?”
“It was your doing,” Inez says. “First you crosshaired me. That means you found out where I was. The Merged don’t belong in the Born, and create ripples like radio waves when we cross. Friends of that person can receive those transmissions and zoom in on them.”
“Something in the Merge muffles the transmissions for anyone who might mean you harm,” Hugo says.
“That’s why Orlan and Argate weren’t able to crosshair you,” Cal notes.
“But how does it know?” I ask, confused.
“Forget about that,” Inez sniffs, and clicks her fingers in front of my nose to get me to focus. “When I wanted to find Hugo, having first travelled to Cornan to pick up Ghita and Cal, I came to the Born and thought about him — Family members transmit here too. Since we’re friends, the Merge allowed me to sense his position – get him in my crosshairs, so to speak – and I was able to follow that trail to Moscow.”
“I’d been getting ready to explore the Great Steppes,” Hugo says.
“OK,” I mutter. “I don’t understand all the ins and outs, but I can just about get my head around the concept. But I can’t crosshair. I’m...”
I glance at Cindy, not sure how much to reveal.
“It’s OK,” Inez says. “I told her all about you while we were waiting.”
“I’m Born,” I bleat.
“Tell me about it,” Inez grunts. “That’s what’s confusing me. Well, that and the fact that you were able to identify the boreholes that would lead you here.”
“You can’t do that?” I ask.
“Nobody I’ve ever met can do that,” she says.
I tell her how I’ve identified boreholes before. “I’ve seen some in London which I instinctively knew linked to places in the Merge that I’d visited, but I’ve never been to Moscow, so I’ve no idea how I recognised the linking borehole in Diamond.”
There’s a long silence while we think about the impossibility of my being here. Everyone looks confused, except Cal, who treats it as if it’s the most natural thing in the spheres.
“What baffles me even more than that,” Cindy finally says, “is the way he zizzed you. Zizzing’s complicated, and you can only send simple distress signals. I’ve never heard of anyone who can provide coordinates like this kid did. That was truly beyond.”
I look to Inez with my eyebrows raised and she sighs. “Zizzing’s a way of using the transmissions we create to let a friend know if we need help. I’ve been taught how to do it, so if I’d wanted to zizz Hugo when I came to the Born, I’d have directed a cry for help towards him and an alarm would have pinged inside his head.”
“The message would have reached me even if I’d been in the Merge,” Hugo says. “I’d have known that Inez was in trouble, and since we can’t zizz in the Merge, she had to be in the Born, so I’d have come here and crosshaired her.”
“Zizzing’s extremely limited,” Inez says, “but you not only let me know you were in trouble, but informed me that you’d be popping out of a borehole, and where exactly that would be.”
I stare at Inez, trying to process what she’s telling me.
“How did I do it?” I wheeze.
She shrugs. “If you can’t explain it, nobody can.”
“It’s beyond,” Cindy coos.
“It’s perplexing,” Hugo nods.
“It’s intriguing,” Ghita purrs.
“It’s just an Archibald thing,” Cal says. Then he slaps his head. “All this talk of crosshairing and zizzing has made us forget our manners. Forgive me, Archibald, I didn’t mean to be rude.” He gets to his feet and rubs his hands together. “I’ll put the kettle on. There’s milk and sugar, of course, but do you want to be really daring and have caviar with your tea?”
Cal busies himself in the kitchen for several minutes, before returning with a tray laden with a teapot, cups, milk, sugar and a bowl of caviar. As he sets it carefully down on a table, I notice that two fingers are missing from his right hand. He lost them in a fight with Orlan and Argate last year.
“How come you haven’t restored your fingers?” I ask.
“I’ve been in the Born most of the time since I last saw you,” he says.
Ghita tuts. “I told him to let my healers replace the fingers before we left the Merge, but he insisted they fix his moustache instead.”
“That takes priority,” Cal says, proudly stroking his thick, ginger tash. “I was mortified when those rascals ripped off half of it.” I think Cal’s the only person who could describe Orlan Stiletto and Argate Axe as rascals.
“That stupid moustache,” Ghita scowls. “What good are you to me when you can’t even make a fist?”
“I have one good fist,” Cal says mildly, “and I can still do a lot with the other three fingers.” He wriggles them at her.
Ghita shakes her head with exasperation, then laughs.
Cal passes round the rest of the cups and pours for everyone, adding milk and sugar as requested. The crockery looks tiny in his massive hands.
“How about the caviar?” he asks, picking up the bowl. It has a strong, salty smell.
“How do I eat it?” I ask, dubiously eyeing the mound of black fish eggs.
“You can use a spoon or spread it on a cracker,” Cal says, “or if you want to try something different, might I suggest adding a couple of spoonfuls to your tea?”
“Caviar in tea?” The others all turn their heads aside to hide their smiles, but Cal is beaming hopefully, so I have to say yes. I watch nervously as he adds a couple of heaped spoons of caviar to my cup and stirs.
I sniff the tea – pretty bad – then take a sip. My tongue almost revolts, and I want to spit out the foul liquid, but Cal’s smiling questioningly.
“Delicious,” I gasp, forcing myself to take another sip.
“There!” he booms. “I knew you’d like it. You have good taste, Archibald. King Lloyd loved caviar in his tea as well.”
“He really didn’t,” Ghita murmurs, leaning forward in her chair so that Cal can’t hear. (He’s piling several spoons of fish eggs into his own cup.) “Lloyd said it once as a joke, but Cal thought he was being serious.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t gag,” Inez whispers. “Swallowing a second mouthful was probably the bravest thing you’ll ever do.”
“My hero,” Ghita simpers, squeezing my knee.
The contact makes me tingle. The last time we met, Ghita joked that she’d bear me in mind if she was ever looking for a boyfriend. At least I thought she was joking, but maybe...
I imagine what it would be like to have a princess for a girlfriend. I flash on an image of the two of us standing somewhere romantic, and trying to find the courage to ask her for a kiss. The mere thought of it makes me shudder, and I spill some of the caviar-laced tea.
“Careful, Archibald,” Cal tuts. “Let me make up for that.” Before I can stop him, he adds another dash of tea to the cup, along with two more spoonfuls of caviar.
“Bottoms up,” he toasts me.
“Cheers,” I wheeze, tipping the rim of my cup towards my mouth, eyes watering from the salty smell. And as the liquid slips between my lips and touches my tongue, I can’t help wondering if I’d have suffered less if I’d stuck with Orlan and Argate.