sudden heaviness in the air. Gilla heard a faint “pop” and turned, the rest of
her words dying in her throat.
Above the kitchen table hovered a sphere of darkness, scintillating with
flickers of cobalt blue. As she stared, it quivered and began to drift, still
expanding, toward the studio. The floor shook as Gilla started toward it.
“Mother, no!” Wedemir’s chair crashed behind him as he tried to get around the
table, but Gilla was already standing between the Sphere and the studio door.
“Get out of my kitchen, you demon’s fart!” She jabbed at the Darkness with her
broom and it recoiled. “Think you’ll get my Lalo, do you? I’ll show you!” The
Sphere stilled as she spoke Lalo’s name, then suddenly enlarged. Gilla blinked
as colors swirled dizzyingly across its slick surface.
“By Siveni’s spear, get you gone!” Gilla recovered herself and struck the Sphere
with her broom. The stiff straw faded as if she had shoved it into a murky pool,
then the shaft started to disappear too. Her screech of outrage was swallowed as
the Darkness engulfed her. She heard the second “pop” of displaced air, and all
sense of direction and dimension disappeared.
“Papa, are we going to stay here long?” Latilla looked around the courtyard of
the Palace, whose usual splendor was muted by the rain, and pressed closer to
Lalo.
“I hope not, sweetheart,” he answered, scanning the arches of the cloister
anxiously.
“I don’ like it,” Alfi said decidedly. “I want Mama. I want to go home. Papa,
will Mama be back soon?”
“I hope so….” whispered Lalo. His eyes blurred with something more than rain