"Is this move really necessary?" she asked Coyster, but he was absorbed in watching the mobile and didn't answer.

Theo shook her head. Something was wrong – really wrong – and whatever it was, the adults weren't talking to her about it.

"Pack up, Theo, we're moving to the Wall," she said, in a wicked – and deadly accurate – imitation of Kamele in her I-am-the-mother voice.

And Father – Theo sniffed. She'd been sure he would understand her position. But he was just as bad as Kamele – Don't be late for your mother! Treating her like she was a kid –

And that was wrong on a whole 'nother level, Theo thought, as she leaned over the ambiset again, turning off the aromatics, white noise and breeze. Father never treated her like a kid – even when she acted like one. Especially when she acted like one.

She chewed her lip, staring down into the blank floor. Kamele wasn't stupid – and neither was Housefather Kiladi, despite his frequent claims to the contrary. If whatever was going on was so twisty that they couldn't untwist it...

"Maybe we ought to take it to Delm Korval, after all," she said over her shoulder in Coyster's general direction. He sneezed, and she grinned, reluctantly.

Behind her came the snap of the closet's magnetic locks meeting and sealing. At that instant, her mumu thweeped its reminder – her mother would be waiting downstairs, with new keys in hand, and a determination to leave the house on Leafydale Place, where Theo had lived her whole life. 'Til now.

"Chaos!" Theo muttered. She grabbed the closet's handle and dashed back to the cube, sealing it with one hand while she dragged her bag over a shoulder with the other.

One last look then around the blank, bleak room. Then she took a firm grip on closet and cube and hurried out. Behind her, in the empty room, the left-behind storybooks trembled on their shelf, and one tumbled to the featureless floor.

Chapter Two

University of Delgado