Page 78 of Search for the Lost

Leo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, half of it is. The less interesting half. But it’s a short walk across a river from one to the other. Mostly. Sometimes it’s a street. I went there once with my mother on a Museums of America road trip⁠—”

“But I thought you said you’ve never been to Kansas.” Now it was Aspin’s turn to frown.

“Nope. We flew in on the Missouri side and never left it.” Leo made a show of flapping his arms.

“You can fly?” Cypher appraised the Earth human with new interest. “Where do you keep your wings?”

Leo laughed again, this time wholeheartedly. “No. We fly in planes. You’ll see when we get there.” He squeezed Crispin’s hand. “So… disguises?”

Crispin nodded. They’d practiced melding their magick like this a few times. “You guide me. I don’t know Earth One fashion.”

Leo nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Crispin felt the rush as his Order Magick rushed out to meet Leo’s Chaos Magick in a shower of rainbow sparks. Their forces merged and then washed over their companions in a sparkling wave.

“Hey!” Cypher waved his arms around, his over-sized gray sweatshirt—with KC in red letters within a white arrowhead—barely managing to encompass his meaty form. Pink fingers reached up to touch his large bulbous nose, which threw off his features and apparently made it hard to see, because he went suddenly cross-eyed as he stared down its length.

Aspin didn’t fare much better. Crispin’s brother lost his pointy ears and became thin as a pipe, dressed in a strange black suit and a round black hat with a broad brim. In contrast to Cypher, he was skinny as a bean pole, with gaunt cheeks and a straggly black beard.

Only Crispin and Leo were mostly unchanged. As were the WOLFs, who were still oversized furballs of fear.

“Bad Leo.” Crispin stared at poor Cypher. “And you’re going to have to do something about your furry friends back there, too.” He pointed at the WOLF crew.

Leo sighed. “All right.” He took Crispin’s hand, and once again, their combined magick flowed from them, twisting reality into a new shape with a pop.

Cypher turned recognizably back into himself, minus the extra weight and big nose—a human version, of course, without his hooves and antlers. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, a sharp gray-pinstriped vest and pants with a cerulean-blue bowtie. He seemed quite pleased with the result.

Aspin fleshed out, too and was once again himself, minus the ears. His suit became jeans and a tight-fitting white T-shirt, which even Crispin had to admit looked really good on him.

Crispin’s own clothing had been transformed into black jeans that matched Leo’s, and they both had on black T-shirts. Leo’s said Death to Metal, with a winking skull, while his own…. “Awww.”

It said Squirrel Rock, with an adorable bushy-tailed rodent behind a drum set.

Speaking of squirrels…. “Where’s Minkis?”

“Right here, boss man.”

Crispin looked down to find an adorable chestnut-haired—or was it acorn-haired?—boy, maybe eight years old and with big brown eyes. He wore jeans, black shoes with laces, and a shirt with a large yellow character whose name was apparently Pokémon.

“Minkis human now. With human grabby hands.” One of those hands reached up to snag an acorn out of Crispin’s pocket and pop it into his mouth. Then he raced over to the mirror. “Is very small human.” He sounded disappointed.

Leo muttered something about conservation of mass. Crispin groaned. Minkis as a small boy was going to be a handful.

“You stay with me.” He took Minkis by the hand and pulled him away from the mirror. “Hey, what happened to the WOLFs?”

An annoyed series of squeaks brought his attention to the floor. Four mice stared at him, one mangier than the rest. Then one opened its mouth and tried to howl. “Squeeeeeeeek.”

Leo grinned. “Oh my god, you guys are adorable.” He put his hand down, and one of them tried to bite it. “None of that, Dave. Get up here and you can ride in my pocket.”

“Dave?” Crispin had wondered when Leo would name the last one.

Leo shrugged. “He reminds me of a guy named Dave I… um… dated in high school.” The mice obediently climbed onto Leo’s hand, and he slipped them into a roomy shirt pocket that Crispin hadn’t noticed before, just above the leering left eye of the skull. “Dweezil, Spike, Hindie, and Dave, you guys all snug in there?”

Satisfied squeaks were heard all around.

“I magicked some cheese for you too.”

Crispin laughed. “You thought of everything.” He looked around at his team. “All right, it’s time to go. Thea, want to do the honors?”