“Hello, Lucy! Are you a wizard?”
Lucy was about to laugh when Ned kicked her ankle. Despite his amusing condition, he was still Ned’s friend.
“Err, no, Arch. I’d probably be more of a witch than anything else, or at least something like that.”
Whilst the two of them spoke, an increasingly concerned Ned turned to Abigail. “Are they going to be all right?” he asked.
“Course they are, dear. Seen this lots of times. The Tinker’s sent over a de-rememberer. I think you should do the honours, Ned, they’re your pals after all.”
She handed him a long thin silver device that looked a lot like a flute, which of course it wasn’t.
“Me?! Can’t Tinks do it?”
“He’s in a bit of a state, love, what with all the trouble we’ve been having. Besides, it’s you they need to forget.”
Ned swallowed. Of course it was. The less they remembered of Ned, the safer they would be back amongst the jossers. By now there was probably a squad of pinstripes doing the exact same thing to Gummy’s parents. He looked at the Tinker’s device. He’d never actually used one before; on its side was a series of numbers from one to ten.
“How does it work?”
“Well, dear, you blow through it, and they fall asleep for just a little while, and when they wake up they’ve forgotten you, and anything that happened with you. Like, say, encountering a bargeist and the Circus of Marvels. A ten’s a total wipe. They’d never even recognise you, not never. After that it gets a bit muddy. If you set it to seven, say, they’d probably only forget you for a year, maybe longer. Just till everything quietens down.”
“But they’re … they’re my friends.”
Abigail put her arm round his shoulders.
“Yes, dear, I know they are, and you need to love them right now, enough to keep ’em safe.”
Archie was still prattling on manically and Gummy was looking more and more like a goldfish by the minute. They were the two best things about his life as a josser. And now, like his mum and dad, he was going to lose them, if only for a year or so. What if they found a new Ned? New Ned or not, though, there were more important things at stake.
“A real friend would want them safe forever,” he said. “Maybe I should just set it to ten and be done with it?”
Ned clicked the dial. He did love them enough to keep them safe, but far too much, he realised, to let them go forever.
“Seven will have to do.” He gently pulled Lucy to one side and got down on his knees in front of Archie. “Arch?”
“Yes, my wizard friend?” answered Archie proudly.
“Arch, I’m going to say goodbye now. This machine is going to make you forget me, but I’m never going to forget you. When all this is over, I’ll come and find you and we’ll start over, OK?”
“Whatever you say, wizard. I think you’re magic!” saluted his excitable friend.
“I think you’re magic too,” said Ned sadly, and blew very softly through the de-rememberer.
Archie closed his eyes and began to snore.
Heart heavy, Ned turned to his other friend and made ready to say goodbye.
“You two need to tell me what’s going on, right now.”
Lucy and George gave each other a look, as though they weren’t entirely sure what to say.
“Mum and Dad are missing, I’ve just said goodbye to my two best friends, quite possibly forever, and everyone here looks like they’ve either been beaten senseless or scared out of their wits. So you two had better start talking. For starters, what was all that about with Jonny Magik? I thought he was going to be sick when he met me.”
George cleared his throat.
“Our new arrival often takes to his bed with ‘ailments’. Unfortunate considering he’s our new head of security. He’s a funny chap, keeps to himself mostly, and the troupe are still a bit wary of him, as am I.”
“You just haven’t got to know him yet, George. He’s a sin-eater, Ned,” cut in Lucy. “Benissimo brought him in from Jamaica to help us deal with the Darklings. He gets rid of the bad ones for us – sin-eating’s heavy magic.”
“The bad ones? I thought they were all bad.”
“Well, the boss’ll explain things properly,” said George. “But we’re in a bind, old bean. Something’s going on, only we’re not exactly sure who’s behind it. The Tinker hasn’t had a word from any of his relatives in weeks, and no one knows why. It’s as if Gearnish, the entire city and all its inhabitants, has simply fallen off the grid. But that’s not the worst of it. There has been an uncommonly large number of Darklings getting out and we’ve been stretched to capacity trying to contain them all. Things got really out of hand a few weeks ago, which is when Bene sent for Jonny Magik. So far he’s been very ‘effective’ at getting rid of them.”
“How does he do it?”
“We don’t know, he just takes whatever needs removing and the next day it’s gone,” explained Lucy.
“Probably feeds them to Finn’s lions,” grinned the ape.
“Oh, George, that’s disgusting! Jonny’s far too nice for that, and Left and Right have been vegetarian for ages,” scolded Lucy. “Besides, you heard Bene, they’re old friends. I’m sure whatever Jonny does and how he does it is above board.”
“You always look to the good in Folk, Lucy, and I commend you for it. If I’m honest, I think you spend too much time with him.”
“George, you know why, he’s been helping me with …” and for a moment Lucy’s voice trailed off.
“Lucy? Helping you with what?” asked Ned.
“Her gifts, old bean.” And at that George went a little misty-eyed. “She’ll never replace old Kitty – forgive me, dear. But she’s now not only running our infirmary and serving as just about everyone’s favourite agony aunt, she’s also becoming quite the promising Farseer. It’s Lucy who had the mirror moved from the safe house to the Glimmerman’s tent – she sensed you might be in trouble, long before we heard from the Olswangs.”
Ned looked at Lucy. The two of them were bonded through their rings in ways that neither of them truly understood. They both wore Amplification Engines – he was an Engineer and she a Medic – but to hear that she’d taken on the gift of “sight” was a genuine shock. And that’s when he noticed it, just