Page 70 of Search for the Lost

“Leopold,” said the imposter, “this is dumb. How about you tell your peeps to chill out, and you and I can have a little convo?”

Now Leo added indignant to his previous fury. “Are you trying to sound like me? That’s not how I talk. I’ve never in my life used the word ‘convo.’ Or ‘peeps’—except when I was referring to the marshmallow treats.”

“Whatevs, dude. Look, cool your jets ’cause you and me need a confab, no cap. And your homies here? So mid. No rizz. You and me, though, we’re totally sigma, right? So let’s go hang.”

“Is that… person speaking English?” Crispin asked. “I can’t understand him.”

Leo shook his head. “I can’t either. I mean, some of it I do, but the rest? Fake-Leo sounds like a middle-schooler who’s gotten into his parents’ liquor cabinet.”

“Well, who is he? And what does he want?”

It seemed reasonable enough for Crispin to believe that Leo could answer these questions, considering that Leo was the one being impersonated. But he was clueless, and when his doppelganger came even closer, Leo found himself fighting the urge to back away. This guy creeped him out way worse than those vines. There was just something a little too skewed about the crooked grin, the spinach caught between his teeth, the unzipped jeans fly, and the badly chewed fingernails. He was like a particularly unflattering parody of Leo, like that whole uncanny valley thing they talked about with robots. OMG, is he a robot?

And his eyes… they were gray and swirly, like tiny tornadoes. Oh, crap. “I know who you are,” Leo said confidently, even though his stomach felt heavy with dread. “You’re the deposed king.”

The former King of Chaos bared his teeth in a bad approximation of a smile. “Le roi et mort. Vive le roi. Oui?”

“That’s definitely not English,” said Crispin.

But the ex-king, ignoring Crispin and everyone else, shot out a hand and gripped Leo’s wrist tightly enough to hurt. “Let’s talk, kid.” His eyes did something alarming, somehow seeming to grow bigger and bigger, until the roiling gray threatened to swallow Leo completely. He tried to shout, but his mouth filled with the gray too, and he tumbled head-first into it, with the ex-king still clamped onto his wrist and something wrapped tightly around his neck so that he could barely breathe.

Static filled his ears, his tongue felt thick and sticky, and he smelled gasoline, lemonade, popcorn, old garbage, and wet dog. He couldn’t feel anything at all under his feet and, like Alice, suspected he was falling down an endless hole. All he could see was cloud. He shivered violently even though his face burned.

Bright light blinded him and he landed on his ass with a thunk, accompanied by two yelps. One of which didn’t sound human.

Mercifully, his vision quickly cleared. He was sitting on ancient shag carpet in… in the ratty Sacramento apartment where he’d first met Crispin. There was his lumpy old brown couch, waiting like a good friend, and the teetering stack of pizza boxes beside it. Clothes were strewn here and there, including a sock that hung over the top of the TV, obscuring part of the screen. Two of the kitchen cabinet doors were ajar, all of the window blinds hung crookedly, and near the front door was a pile of bills and sales circulars strewn over the floor.

“Home sweet home,” said the ex-king smugly as he sat on one end of the couch.

But he didn’t look entirely pleased, and Leo soon realized why: Crispin was slightly behind him—him, the real Leo—sitting on the floor and looking bewildered as he poked at a torn shirt sleeve. And right next to Crispin was Spike the WOLF. She seemed about two seconds away from leaping across the room and tearing out the ex-king’s throat.

Leo patted her. “Don’t bother. I bet he tastes bad.”

He stood up and brushed possibly imaginary dirt from his pants. He took a longer look around the room and noticed a few more details. A bottle of beer that tilted at the very edge of the kitchen counter but, impossibly, didn’t fall. The badly hung posters on the wall, of rock bands he’d never heard of: The Thrifty Lizards and Fifteen Thumbtacks and Why She Chose Yellow. The television screen, showing a middle-aged man in a vintage bathing suit who appeared to be pointing to something on a giant map of Kansas City.

“It’s like a bad AI version of my old place,” said Leo. Just like the ex-king was sort of a bad AI version of Leo.

Crispin stood and clutched Leo’s hand, and although he obviously had no idea what Leo was talking about or what was going on, he lifted his chin and glared at the ex-king. “I demand an explanation,” he said regally.

Faux-Leo rolled his eyes and leaned back against the couch cushion. He was manspreading. “Fine, fine. But only because I want to. And ’cause things have gotta change.”

25

Crispin

Crispin blinked.

And blinked again.

It didn’t help. He was still back in Leo’s apartment in Sacramento, on Earth One, despite just having been in the Black Forest standing in front of a house on chicken legs that they’d recently chased though the dark woods.

Leo was speaking with the other King of Chaos, a being whose slothfulness made Leo’s own lazy ways seem positively manic. And those swirly gray eyes… a fae could get lost in those eyes, and not in a good way.

“…can’t be the King. I’m the King. Right, Crispy?” Leo looked back to him for support, his eyes pleading.

Crispin nodded. He would take Leo’s side against anyone, without hesitation, even if he didn’t know exactly what he was agreeing to. “A hundred percent.”

Leo frowned but didn’t say whatever he was thinking. “Thank you.” He spun back to the other King. “So who are you, really?”