The Lighthouse between the Worlds by Melanie Crowder

Author:Melanie Crowder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

15

AN INTRODUCTION

As Fi veered off the main path to the servants’ quarters, she had to shake the feeling that the guards were still watching her. That they knew. That they were hanging back, out of sight, and waiting for her to lead them directly to her contacts in the resistance. She made three wrong turns, just in case, then checked over her shoulder one last time before she rounded the corner and strode toward what was, for now, home.

“Almost there,” she whispered.

Griffin’s feet dragged along the path, his shoulders hunched in defeat. “Where’s there?”

But Fi only faced forward, scowling.

“And when are we going back for my dad? I was right, wasn’t I? He’s in that room? Behind that locked door.”

Fi grabbed the skin above his elbow and pinched, hard. “Not here.”

Griffin wrenched his arm away. “Where are you taking me? And how can I even understand what you’re saying right now? Or the soldiers? We can’t be all from different worlds and speaking the same language. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Fi sighed. Apparently the ban on questions was up. “We think it has something to do with the portal—it doesn’t just move you from one world to the next. It changes you, prepares you for the world you’re about to enter.”

Griffin dragged his hands down his face in frustration. “And when are you going to tell me who ‘we’ is?”

Fi grimaced, starting up the walk of a small house with a tile roof. She pushed the front door open and turned back, tossing a look over her shoulder like a challenge. Here’s your answer, it said. She didn’t shove him through the doorway ahead of her, but she wasn’t going to let him run away, either. Griffin hesitated, and when he finally stepped inside, he looked like he was half expecting to walk into a trap.

Eb and Liv immediately stopped what they were doing. Liv drew in a hissing breath as she leaped to her feet. She had big brown eyes and thick hair framing her face like a pair of yellow leaves. She was a small woman, wiry as a juniper branch. But that was where her strength lay, in the invisibility that comes with constantly being overlooked. Beside her, Eb had gone completely still. Scary still. He was a quiet man, and he’d been kind to Fi from the beginning. Eb was an ideal spy—no one would suspect how quickly those hands could turn into weapons.

After all, he and Liv were fighters, and this was a war. They looked Griffin up and down—the baggy stola that clearly had been made for someone else, the face that, when you got a good look, wasn’t Vinean and wasn’t Somnite. And then they saw his shoes.

Liv raised an eyebrow in Fi’s direction. Then it was back to the shoes again.

“Yeah,” Fi said. “He’s from Earth, and I’m not sure how yet, but he’s connected to that lady you’re looking for.”

“For the last time,” Griffin protested, “I’m not here with Dr. Hibbert. And Fergus and Sykes are chasing me.

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