Free Spellfall by Katherine Roberts

way along deserted lanes with no white lines or catseyes to guide them. Mr Marlins drove with intense concentration, both hands gripping the steering wheel. Tim stayed silent for as long as he could but when they turned off the lane and headed down an unmade track into the woods, he couldn’t keep quiet a moment longer.
    “Where does this lead?”
    “To where I used to work.”
    Tim took his eyes off the trees to glance at his watch, then shook it in frustration. The stupid thing had stopped. “Aren’t offices usually shut at this time of night?” he said, frowning because he was sure his watch had been working earlier.
    “The people I work for don’t have offices.”
    “But what about Nat? I thought we were going to get her back?”
    “We are.”
    Mr Marlins spun the wheel and an impressive spray of mud splattered the windscreen. The fog was thicker under the trees. Tim thought he saw a pair of amber eyes caught in the headlights but before he could open his mouth to yell a warning, the eyes had gone.
    “Are we nearly there?” he ventured.
    Mr Marlins grunted. “Don’t distract me. I’m trying to remember the way.”
    Tim turned up his jacket collar. For all its looks, it was cold in the car. He thrust his hands into his pockets and hunched lower in his seat. He was beginning to see the disadvantages of having a shaved head. Hair had been a lot warmer.
    He was still trying to work out what Mr Marlins’ old employers could possibly have to do with Nat, when without warning his stepfather jammed on the brakes.
    The car skidded to a stop and Tim sat up. They were in a clearing surrounded by dense, drifting fog. An articulated truck, no less, was parked in the middle, being unloaded by ghostly figures in long cloaks. Silver dogs the size of Alsatians padded around as if on guard. One came to investigate the car, put its nose to the passenger window and stared at Tim with bright amber eyes. He shuddered.
    “Scared?” Mr Marlins said.
    “Not me!”
    “Perhaps you should be.”
    Tim peered at the truck, trying to see what they were taking out of it. Sacks? The harder he looked, the less he could make out. The cloaked people kept walking into the fog at one side of the clearing and vanishing. So did the dogs. He wiped his window and squinted after them. Was that a standing stone over there? He pulled his jacket closer.
    “Something wrong with your eyes, is there?” Mr Marlins said.
    Tim scowled. “It’s dark,” he said, fed up with all the mystery. “No one can see in the dark.”
    There was a tense silence.
    “All right,” his stepfather said at last. “I owe you an explanation. This is how it is. We’re at one of the gateways in the Boundary between worlds. Over there, on the other side of that stone, is a place called Earthaven, which is where I think they’ve taken Nat. My employers control the gate and those hounds you can see guard it. It’s not open all the time, of course, only when they need to make a transfer. Took me a few days to find out when they’d be here, but I still have my contacts.”
    “Who are your employers?” Tim asked, not sure he wanted to know.
    “We call them Spell Lords. Nat’s mother came from Earthaven and that’s why they’re so interested in her. They think she’s inherited her mother’s power, which is nonsense of course.”
    Tim shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “What power? I thought Nat’s mother was blind.”
    “Only in our world. In Earthaven, she could see better than you can now.”
    Which wouldn’t be difficult, Tim thought, squinting at the ghostly shapes around the truck. If it hadn’t been for Nat’s disappearance, he’d have thought Mr Marlins was playing a huge joke on him. Except, Mr Marlins and jokes didn’t go together. “What does that make you, then?” he mumbled, wondering if he could hitch a ride home in the truck.
    His stepfather gave him a dark smile. “I’m a Thrall.”
    The very word made Tim shiver all over. He stared at