*
Van wants us to go through the cut to Germany, as it appears to come out near Basle where the next Alliance meeting is. That cut is in a room down one of the corridors off the great hall. We all go there. It’s a small room, bare except for a thick rug.
“But where exactly is the cut?” Annalise asks.
Gabriel moves to the middle of the rug, saying, “Only one way to find it. I think she’d land on the rug when she came through so . . .” He takes a step nearer to the back wall and slides his hand into the air, feeling for the cut. He moves his hand just a centimeter or two along for each try, working his way sideways. He finds nothing. He repeats the process, this time lower, still moving along slowly. Then he repeats it again and then one more time before he snaps his hand back, saying, “It’s there.”
Van claps her hands. “Excellent!”
Annalise says, “I’ve been thinking about Mercury having visitors. She wouldn’t want them coming through and wandering around her home without her knowing. Would she have a trespass spell in here like the one on the roof of the cottage in Switzerland? Would you need her to help you across the boundary when you get back?”
“She never allowed anyone she didn’t trust here,” Van says. “Her diaries only show Rose and Pilot gaining entry. She believed no one would find the cuts. I don’t think there’s a trespass spell.”
“So let’s test it out,” Nesbitt says, eager to get on.
“Yes,” Van agrees and looks at me and Gabriel. “All you have to do is go through. Find out where in Germany you come out: nearest roads, towns, transport. Check for Hunters, of course. And report back.”
So that’s us told.
Gabriel grabs my hand in his and interlocks our fingers, puts his sunglasses on, and says to the others, “We’ll be back.” He slides his left hand into the cut and we’re sucked through.
I breathe out slowly as I twirl through the darkness: a tip from Nesbitt. I suspect it’s a trick and will really make me feel worse. There’s dim light ahead, which brightens briefly as we land on grassy ground. I’m surprised that I don’t feel anywhere near as dizzy and ill as previous trips through cuts have left me.
We’re in a forest by a ruined stone building. The air is still and quiet. The trees are full of summer’s green richness. It’s hot too. There is birdsong and I can hear distant traffic.
I say to Gabriel, “Cars. That way,” and indicate to my left with a nod.
He’s already feeling around for the cut. “Gotcha,” he says, and smiles.
“So that was easy,” I say. “Now what?”
“Let’s head to the road, see if we can work out where we are.”
*
That evening we’re back round the table. Things are going well. We’ve been through two cuts. The one in the small, bare room leads to the place we went to in Germany, which is 150 kilometers from Basle according to the road signs. The cut in Mercury’s bedroom goes to a place in Spain in the mountains. We went through that cut and walked to the nearest village and found it on an atlas when we got back. It’s a couple of hours’ walk from Pilot’s home.
Van is meeting with the White rebels tomorrow morning and she wants me and Nesbitt to go but I want Gabriel with me and I can’t leave Annalise.
“We’re all in the Alliance. We all go,” I say.
Die Rote Kürbisflasche
We all came through the cut last night. Nesbitt got a car and drove us to the outskirts of Basle. Now Nesbitt, Gabriel, and me are in the center of the city. We’re the advance party, on the lookout for Hunters. Van and Annalise are following us in.
Basle is a city of young people, it seems, on the border of Germany, France, and Switzerland, but I hear English spoken too. There are tourists, families, and people going to work. We try to blend in with them but we don’t look like tourists or a family, though I suppose we are going to work. Nesbitt knows the way to the meeting place at Die Rote Kürbisflasche—the Red Gourd—and he’s taking us the long route.
Nesbitt says that the Red Gourd is a bar in the oldest part of town. We cross the wide, fast-flowing river and make a circuit of the hill on which the old town is built. We see no Hunters. We take it slow and work our way in spirals up the hill, the cobbled streets getting narrower and older as we go. There are fewer and fewer people until we reach an alley with only a cat walking down it and an old woman cleaning her windows. We don’t go down the alley but walk away and wait and return half an hour later. The old woman has disappeared and so has the cat. We haven’t seen any Hunters.