Page 100 of Search for the Lost

Crispin tried to imagine it: living in this whirling house with his mother and Leo for all eternity. Or until Leo aged and died… or would he? He was Chaos Incarnate, wasn’t he? “Hey, were the Red Dukes also agents of Chaos?”

Cerillia frowned. “I suppose so. But what are you getting at?”

He shuddered. It was a horrible idea. It would probably get them all killed. But maybe, just maybe, there was a way. “Leo, what if you… unmade us?”

Both Leo and his mother stared at him in shock.

“Have you gone mad?” His mother’s regal attitude returned in full force.

“It’s better than being stuck here forever.”

“Are you crazy? I would never unmake you. Not again.” Leo looked sincerely pained.

Crispin got up and went to the window, leaving Mink on the chair. His feelings were in turmoil. He didn’t want to be unmade. What if that turned out to be the end? But staying here….

The storm outside continued unabated, the tornado whirling the house around like a die in a ginormous cup made of hurricane-strength winds. Watching the perspective shift made him sick.

He pulled the curtains shut and turned away from the window. “I know it’s crazy. But they made this trap for you and me, Mother. To hold Order. What if Leo could slip us free?”

Cerillia frowned but said nothing.

Leo clutched his stomach. “Something’s not right.” He looked a little green at the gills. In fact, he had gills. Or… something?

“Chaos Man hurt?” Minkis sniffed in Leo’s direction.

Crispin rushed to Leo’s side. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Leo was shivering, and his whole body was a blur.

The lines of his face shifted and flowed, and he flickered like the storm outside.

“Leo, what’s going on?” Crispin put a hand to Leo’s forehead. He was burning up.

Leo shivered. “It hurts, Crispy. It hurrrrts—” His voice cut off, and Crispin watched, horrified, as Leo began to tear himself in two.

Crispin tried to push him back together. “Leo, stop it. Stop it right now!” Something was terribly wrong. “Leo!”

But Leo continued to rip himself apart.

“Crispin, stand back.” His mother’s voice was calm; what Crispin was feeling most definitely was not. He stumbled backward. “What’s happening to him?”

“Just wait. Leo will be all right.” She sounded so certain.

“What the hell, Mother?” Crispin’s own voice sounded so Leo-like that he almost forgot, just for an instant, what was happening. He stared at his mother, wondering how she could be so composed in the face of what was happening.

Cerillia smiled and her face softened, looking younger. “Hello, Obie. So good to see you again.”

Crispin’s gaze snapped back to where Leo had been sitting.

There were two Leos now. Well, one recognizable Leo, who was looking as though he’d been out on an all-night Celerian prune juice drinking binge on a Feryken dung farm.

The other…. Crispin had met this being before.

“Hello, Cerillia. You’re looking old.” The man grinned.

Crispin stared at Oberon, one of his mother’s former lovers and the King of Chaos. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Leo, but this incarnation was dressed much more regally, even if his silver hair popped out in odd places around the edges of his askew silver crown. He looked ancient too, with wrinkles lining his slightly pudgy face. The perfect match for Crispin’s mother.

And he’d just called her old.