Page 82 of Imaginary Numbers

“Well, the cuckoos did say they wanted Sarah to rip a hole in the fabric of the world. I guess this was just a test run. We have a bigger problem, though.”

There was something about her tone that put my teeth on edge. I eyed her warily as I pushed myself to my feet and brushed the gravel off my knees. “What’s that?”

“We fell into the rift a week ago.”

Oh. “Um,” I said. “Yeah, that does . . . that does sound like a bigger problem.”

Annie looked at me solemnly. “You think? Our family thought we were dead, so that’s fun. Apparently, they summoned Aunt Rose—Mary’s busy keeping an eye on Shelby, since the baby’s due soon—and had her searching the twilight for us. I think the fact that she couldn’t find us may be the only reason nothing’s currently on fire.”

“Where’s James?” I hesitated before asking the question I really wanted to have answered. “Where’s Sarah?”

“James is taking a quick turn around the block while I try to wake you up,” said Annie. “Sarah is . . . Sarah’s with the rest of the hive.”

My heart sank.

Sarah had attacked us; Sarah had ripped the rift in the air that had led to us losing a week and winding up stranded nearly two thousand miles away from the rest of the family, with no backup and only the weapons we happened to be carrying when we fell through. And yet, somehow, I’d still been hoping that we’d be able to talk her down.

“The Calculating Priestess conducts the Rites and Rituals of her Kind,” squeaked a voice next to my ear. I glanced to the side. The Aeslin mouse standing on my shoulder was wearing a scrap of one of my old flannel shirts as a cloak, and a necklace made from a small USB drive. One of my clergy, then. It was nice to know that if I died out here, I’d have at least one of my own mice with me.

“What did you call her?” asked Annie.

“She has been Named and Acknowledged as a Priestess,” said the mouse, wiping its forepaws across its whiskers to emphasize the statement. “We are sorry to have taken so long.”

“Okay, that’s . . . new.” Annie looked down at the pocket of her coat, a thoughtful frown on her lips. “You could have said something.”

“You didn’t ask,” squeaked her pocket.

“Fair enough.” She turned her attention back to the mouse on my shoulder. “Do you know anything about cuckoo rites or rituals?”

“Only that they Must Be,” said the mouse gravely. “What fragments we know pre-date the Faith.”

Meaning that at some point before they came to our family, ancestors of the current colony had encountered a cuckoo. I exchanged a startled look with Antimony. It can be easy to forget that the mice had an existence before us. They’re some of the last Aeslin mice left in the world. We have to protect them. That can limit the way we look at them, like we think of them as accessories and not individuals.

“Fragments?” asked Annie carefully.

Aeslin mice have utterly flawless recall. If a mouse hears or sees something once, they’ll be able to repeat or describe it perfectly for the rest of their lives. Unlike the cuckoos, with their implanted histories, the history of the Aeslin mice is learned, handed down without alteration or editing, for as long as a faith endures.

The mouse scrubbed at its whiskers, looking embarrassed. “The faith came before the faith which pre-dated our discovery by the Kindly Priestess,” it said. “We have failed you by remembering any piece of it. It is Heresy, and should long have been Forgotten.”

“It may save our asses now, so whatever it is, I declare it part of my catechism,” said Annie bluntly. “It’s a Lost Mystery. Now tell me what you know.”

“When the Heartless Ones choose to do a great ritual, they will gather together, one unto the next, until their numbers are terrible to behold,” said the mouse. “When this happens, the wisest thing is to Run Very Far, and Not Look Back. Those who fail to Run will not be seen again.”

I looked around. “I don’t see any cuckoos.”

“I haven’t seen any since we got here,” said Annie. “Assuming Sarah couldn’t control the rift well enough to put us somewhere different—which is a big assumption, but it’s one that maybe leads to us having a world tomorrow, so I’m going to make it—she must be somewhere nearby.”

“A week would give the other cuckoos time to come and find her, if they knew this was where she was going to wind up,” I said. “And we have no way of knowing she came out the same time as we did. Maybe she’s been here the whole time, getting ready. What’s so special about Ames?”

“I don’t know, but they’re all definitely here.”

I turned. James was jogging down the street toward us. He didn’t look at all bothered by the chill in the morning air, despite his lack of a jacket. Stupid sorcerers, with their stupid elemental alignments.

“The people are here, but they’re not moving,” he said. “The shops are full. The restaurants, too. I saw a woman walk through a diner, filling all the water glasses, then go back to standing perfectly still behind the counter. I think the cuckoos have put them into a sort of sleep mode. They’ll do what they must to stay alive, but that’s their limit.”

“So we know the cuckoos are here,” said Annie. “That’s a start.”

“Where is harder,” said James.