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Keeping the stick firmly grasped in his left hand, John cautiously turned and moved to his right, around the arch, where he found himself looking directly …

… at Jack.

“Jack,” said John.

“John,” said Jack.

“I don’t think it worked. Why isn’t it working?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re holding on to the stick,” Jack suggested. “It’s keeping you anchored here, to this side.”

John made a noise of frustration, and then more on impulse than out of reason, let go of the stick. He leaned sideways and saw Jack leaning on the stick opposite the door.

He walked around to Jack, touching his shoulder to make sure it was not some sort of illusion, then went back through the doorway. Still nothing. Whatever it was that had happened to Hugo was not happening to John.

They tried reversing the process, this time with Jack playing the part of the canary, but with the same result.

Hugo was gone, and they were helpless to do anything about it.

* * *

The two Caretakers sat under a poplar about twenty feet from the door and stared at it, trying to decide what had just happened.

“This is bad,” said John.

“I know,” said Jack.

“This is very, very bad,” John said again.

“I know!” Jack shot back. “We’ve just lost a colleague!”

“More like we misplaced him, really,” said John. “After all, we do know where he is—it’s when that’s the problem.”

Jack scrambled to his feet. “Regardless, we haven’t the time to sit here moaning about it. We need to get to the Compass Rose and summon some help.”

“Who should we call?” asked John, standing and brushing the dry grass from his trousers. “Bert? Or perhaps Artus?”

“Whoever can get here the fastest—probably Stephen, with one of his new airships.”

“That’s right,” said John. “The magic feathers. Perhaps there’s even a ship not too far from England. It could ferry us to the Cartographer, and we can get to the bottom of all this.”

“You make it sound like getting some help is as easy as snapping your fingers,” said Jack, snapping his fingers. “If only—”

As if on cue, a ferocious rattling and roaring sound echoed across the fields, and a curious shape appeared on the other side of the Magdalen Bridge. In seconds it had moved swiftly into view.

It was a metallic conflagration of wheels, gears, levers, and belching smoke. It moved with the lurching fluidity of a caterpillar fleeing a swallow, and with the same urgency. It had a vague resemblance to the vehicle driven by their friend, the badger Tummeler, but only in the same way that an elephant and a goat were both mammals.

“Dear Lord,” declared John. “That contraption looks as if it was built by some fiend with his own three hands in the basement of a third-rate workhouse.”

“It probably was,” Jack said, “but it’s a welcome sight all the same.”

As the vehicle came closer, they could better see its makeup. It was essentially a truck, but it seemed to have unfulfilled aspirations of becoming a train. Or a fire engine. Or both. And hanging from every available surface were badgers.

In a cloud of dust and smoke, the motorized monstrosity screeched to a halt on the path above John and Jack, and a dozen badgers in emergency gear leaped to the ground. They moved into a loose formation, then saluted. After a moment (and suppressing grins), John and Jack saluted back.

The tallest of the badgers (and the one who had been driving) stepped forward and offered its paw.

John shook the animal’s paw. “I’m guessing you’re looking for us.”

“We are,” said the badger. “The Royal Animal Rescue Squad, at y’r service. Have I th’ honor of addressing Scowler Charles?”

“No, I’m John.”

“Ah,” the badger said, turning to Jack. “Then you must be …”

“I’m Jack.”

“Oh,” said the badger, craning his neck to look around the clearing. “Then Scowler Charles is …”

“In France,” said John.

As one, all the animals immediately slumped in disappointment and began fidgeting.

“Oh,” the apparent leader of the Squad said again. “We’re happy to meet you, too, but if Scowler Charles isn’t here, then p