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If she was having trouble talking now, thatconnected to The Evil had happened next door

“What is it?” asked Jack urgently

“They’ve found so in to whisper

“What kind of so?” asked Jaide

“That’s why I want you to co both their arms “I don’t remember what it’s called, but I’ve seen one of them before”

Reluctance turned to intense curiosity, and the three of theotten, followed closely by the two cats

Parked diagonally across the entrance to the house next door was a white van emblazoned with the name MMM HOLDINGS That was Tara’s father’s, but he was nowhere to be seen They ran past the massive truck into which the rock fro loaded, past the inert front-end loader, past allidle There was no sign of anyone on the ground level of the construction site

An earthy ra rooht next door to the location of Grandma X’s secret blue room, where she maintained the wards that protected Portland froical lessons It was a repository of old things,proximity with Wardens It was also a kind of arh the twins suspected even Grandma X didn’t know half of as in there, particularly as their father and other Wardens delivered new old things there all the tiated and redistributed to other Wardens who ht need whatever powers had ended up in the antiques

The house next door seemed to have no such space

“Dad?” called Tara

“Down here, darling,” floated back a faotten to”

Tara waved for the twins to follow her as she descended the ramp It looked dark down there to Jaide’s eyes, but Jack’s soon adjusted There were four hly hewn space, where the asn’t yet fully dug They all had on hard hats, and one of the ht danced across so Jack couldn’t quite make out until he was closer

It was a long, brass tube, not unlike a cannon in size and proportions One end poked out of the wall The other was still buried It was covered in dirt, apart fro the ht hit that patch, it shone

“Hello, kids,” said Martin McAndrew, Tara’s father He was a short man with a personality as broad as his too-white smile “This is a construction site You really shouldn’t be down here without proper headgear”

“We won’t be long,” said Jaide, peering past hiet a better look at the object in the earth Tara was right: It did indeed look like so they had seen before But what? “We just wanted to check out what you found”

“Well, sure, I guess” He blinked in surprise at the cats co the dusty air “Everyone’s curious, eh? Not surprising We think itleft behind after an old battle Or part of a broken ht even be valuable Does Portland have a museum?”

As Martin and the workers discussed this, Tara and the twins jostled closer Jaide’s Gift was tingling, so she knew the object had so to do with the Wardens Perhaps it was an artifact they had read about in the Register of Lost and/or Forgotten Things There ht even be a reward!

Jack’s ent Their father was an expert at finding lost objects once i at this thing Perhaps they should give him a call …?

“It looks just like one of those things … you know … that your friend the professor built…” Tara ed to force out

“Of course,” said Jaide, kicking herself for not seeing it sooner It was still ht have been caused by one of the digging machines, but it did look very much like a cross-continuuhtaway because it had a slightly randmother’s new car It wasn’t brand-new, but it wasn’t three hundred years old, either

“I didn’t know there was another one,” breathed Jack

Jaide wasn’t worried about that “How did it get down here?”

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Tara

“I’randmother,” said Kleo

By then the three kids were ear to ear, just inches fro, brass tube Jack leaned in for a closer look at the end of the tube, and a coil of bright white light whipped between hih hi, and jolted Jaide in turn She gasped in surprise

Suddenly her Gift was aust of wind kicked up around her feet, raising a thick cloud of dust Jack staggered back, coughing and struggling to contain his own Gift The flashlight went out, and the light coh a cloud had passed across the sun

“A cave-in!” Tara’s dad tried to pull all three of them away from the wall But the twins resisted They knew that this was no ordinary event, and the dust was just dust Their Gifts had been woken by so — or was it the other way around?

There was a whooshing noise Flickering golden light danced through the shadows and clouds of dust So papery fluttered in Jack’s face, and he brushed it aith one hand, only to find that it stuck to hiled up his sleeve to his elbohere it clung on tight Trying to dislodge it with his other hand only repeated the process up that arm

Jaide,had dropped to the ground right in front of her There was a chittering noise that sounded like insects Lots of insects, all rustling and clicking at once The hair on the back of her neck stood up as dozens of tiny white dots winked into life through the gloom

She knehat they were They were eyes But not ordinary eyes

++We have found you, troubletwisters,++ said a terrible voice directly into her mind ++We have found you!++

Jaide raised a fist above her head and swung it about in a tight circle Her Gift responded to her sudden urgency, sweeping the dust away in a tight circle around the the creature that crouched before her It was as big as a s and antennae of each bug gripped each of its neighbor’s, creating a rippling, ever-changing mass that, even as she watched, raised up in front of her and unfolded four spindly tendrils to clutch at her face

Ari flashed past her, a ginger cat enraged, fur on end and claws unsheathed The Evil scattered and fell back as Jaide gathered her Gift around her before it could regroup

Jack wasn’t oblivious to his sister’s predica parchment that had worked its way up to his shoulder and was threatening to envelop his face Keeping i

t at bay with one hand, he took all the shadows around him and wove a protective cloak around the workers and Tara’s father so that they couldn’t see The Evil and it couldn’t see theth of tiht as a club

The Evil raised itself up and confronted two troubletwisters, one girl, and a cat united against it Hundreds of tiny white eyes glared with unflinching malevolence

++Join us,++ The Evil said ++It is your destiny!++

“You don’t frighten us,” said Jaide, telling herself to believe it The Evil couldn’t have been at full strength, or she would have felt its terrible presence battering at her mind

“Four against one,” added Jack, who had the living parchled and squiret free

++We are one,++ said The Evil, ++and we are many++

With a terrible ripping noise, The Evil split into quarters and leaped in four directions at once

Jaide whipped up the wind to blow her quarter away, but it broke down even further into individual insects, and each unfurled two pairs of tiny gossa loudly, the sas buffeted by the wind but not greatly slowed Jaide covered her face as hundreds of buzzing, stinging bugs converged on her at once

Tara swung the plank of wood like a baseball bat It sailed right through her bug creature, squashingno effect on the rest She nearly tripped backward over Ari, as doing his best to swipe at his portion of The Evil, and finding it difficult to do more than punch holes that quickly healed over

Jack tried so he had never attempted before, which was to send shadows into the white eyes of The Evil insects If he could put out that awful glow, ht was unquenchable Noat hi only set free the parchment, which renewed its quest to s leaps it reached his neck, and with a third it clapped tightly over his eyes, blinding him

The bugs saw their chance and took it Feathery wings and prickly legs tickled his face and neck, buzzing and biting