Page 13 of Search for the Lost

That had been a weird place.

But now he’d landed somewhere extra super-duper weird, where he shivered with cold and wiped sweat from his eyes, and Crispin looked as if he was about to panic. That was a startling enough sight normally, when Crispin wore his own skin, but viewing a Crispin freak-out in Leo’s own body was incredibly disconcerting.

“Crispin? What’s going on?”

Crispin took a few deep breaths. “I’m not certain. Thea says we are not on a Connected World.”

“Yeah, I heard that, but what does it mean?”

“We’re disconnected.” Crispin looked grave.

“Okay, but what⁠—”

“Why did you call him Crispin?” The faun—Cypher Something—was now standing very close, hands on hips and eyes squinted suspiciously.

Oh, crap. In the midst of everything else, Leo had forgotten who he was pretending to be. He shot a look at Crispin, who was busily pinching himself. He was going to give himself a nasty bruise if he kept that up.

“Because,” Crispin said, his dignity nearly as visible as a cloak around his shoulders, “I am he. Him? I am Crispin. And”—he pointed—“that is Leo. There has been a… mishap.”

Cypher goggled. “That’s not— I can’t— This is unprecedented. The chain of command is disrupted, and our schedule for today is already ruined….” He pulled out a scroll and stared at it mournfully. It was impressive how much he could do with those eyebrows of his.

Leo felt a little sorry for the guy. He’d started his day with an agenda, probably a list with a bunch of nice little boxes to check off, and now everything had gone to hell. Literally, judging by the flames lurking along the horizon and the sulfury clouds wafting overhead.

Cypher was owed an explanation at least. “We’re trying to get switched back,” Leo explained. “And take care of some other stuff. We’re sorry you got sucked into the mess, but if you’ll just⁠—”

“I don’t take orders from you. I serve Director Moss’caladin. Directly. I am his right-hand faun.” Cypher’s hooves made little clattery sounds on the soft yet hard ground as he stepped closer to Crispin.

Much closer, in fact. Which reminded Leo of the way that Cypher had been blatantly flirting with him, back when Cypher thought that Leo was Crispin. At the time, Leo had thought it was simply a little awkward and sort of funny, but now it occurred to him that he was pissed off. He had exclusive flirting rights with Crispin.

He was going to say so, but Crispin took matters into his own hands, moving away from Cypher and snuggling up against Leo. Which was interesting, because PDA wasn’t usually his style. But Leo quite liked it, so he put his arm around Crispin and glared at Cypher.

Surprisingly, Aspin intervened. “While you are squabbling, we’re not getting any closer to escaping this place and finding Mother. Also, I think… Ambassador Minkis has become, er, intoxicated.”

Now Leo felt guilty, especially when he looked over and saw Minkis staggering around with a dopey grin on his furry face. “Quercus!” he shouted in his tiny little voice. “Quercus quercus quercus.” Then he toppled over in slow-motion, landing on his back and remaining quite still.

Crispin ran over, knelt beside him, and poked at him for a few seconds. “Ah. He’ll be all right. He’s passed out, I think. Perhaps the rest of us should take this as a warning not to eat anything unless we’re absolutely positive that it’s safe.”

Leo thought that there was little risk of that, in his case anyway, but he didn’t say so. He watched with a small smile as Crispin carefully tucked Minkis into the front pocket of the hoodie he wore. It was Leo’s hoodie, of course. The hems were baggy and thread-worn, the fabric had permanent stains from at least five different cuisines, and the hood drawstring was long gone. But it was comfy and warm, and that pocket was damned useful for lots of things. In this case, for transporting inebriated rodents. Also, Crispin looked sort of cute in it right now, which meant that Leo looked cute in it normally, and that was a bonus.

Crispin returned to where the rest of them stood. “He can sleep it off.”

“Okay,” said Leo. “I think we need a plan before something else bad happens. We can start with an explanation of what it means that we’re disconnected.” Taking charge like that, even in a small way, felt comfortable. Huh.

Aspin stomped a foot. “I don’t want a plan. I want to go home.”

“Maybe try clicking your heels together,” Leo grumbled. Which wasn’t very nice, because he understood why Aspin felt that way, but the idiot had got them into this predicament to begin with.

Of course, Aspin missed the movie reference and actually tried clicking his heels, which sent Crispin into a gale of laughter. He’d watched The Wizard of Oz with Leo three times so far. Although he’d said that he rarely watched human entertainment before meeting Leo, he was now kind of into it, and Oz was one of his favorites. Aspin looked deeply offended and slightly confused, Cypher glared indignantly at Leo, Minkis remained hidden in the hoodie, and Leo felt an incipient headache.

“Can we get on with it?” he asked loudly. “Please?” He was beginning to have an inkling of how hard it was for Crispin to be patient with him when they were in their normal bodies. Honestly, he was kind of surprised Crispin put up with him at all. What if their current experience made Crispin realize that Leo was just too much for him? Breathe, Leo. Breathe.

Apparently unaware of Leo’s slightly panicky musings, Crispin grew more serious. “It’s your fault we’re here, dear brother. And anyway, none of us has the means to send you home right now. So hush.” He turned to Leo. “There are a multitude of worlds in the universe. You’ve seen a few of them yourself. Most of them are connected via a central hub, and that hub is the Office of the Lost. There are a great number of theories about how this came to be. I especially like the tale of a powerful fae queen—well, they’re all powerful, aren’t they—who decided that the world was too disorderly for her taste. Her name was Bloom’a’ki Woodrock. Or was it Woodstone? No, I believe Bloom’a’ki Woodstone was the fae who ran that lovely little restaurant with the famous daberbeast casserole, except the last time I went there the food quality had definitely gone downhill, and I told my date⁠—”

“Crispin,” Leo interrupted calmly. “Unconnected worlds?”

Crispin shot him a grateful look. “Yes. Sorry. As I was saying, most worlds are connected to one another via the Office. This makes it much easier to travel between them. Often it can be done directly with the aid of a device like Thea, and it can always be done via the Office.”

“I get it. OotL is O’Hare, so even if you can’t fly directly from Pittsburgh to Vegas, you can make a connection in Chicago.”