The Door to the Lost Read online

  The Mark of the Dragonfly

  The Secrets of Solace

  The Quest to the Uncharted Lands

  The Door to the Lost

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Jaleigh Johnson

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Hannah Christenson

  Map illustrations copyright © 2018 by Kayley LeFaiver

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Johnson, Jaleigh, author.

  Title: The door to the lost / Jaleigh Johnson.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2018] | Summary: “After a mysterious accident that closes a portal to another world, magic is banned in Talhaven. But there are those like Rook who are stranded in Talhaven and still have the power to wield magic. Living in exile, a stranger offers Rook and her friend safety, but appearances can be deceiving and the pair soon find themselves in serious danger” —Provided by publisher

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017038305 | ISBN 978-1-101-93316-9 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-101-93317-6 (el)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.J63214 Doo 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC

  Ebook ISBN 9781101933176

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Jaleigh Johnson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Maps

  World of Talhaven

  City of Regara

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Door to Skeleton Yard

  Chapter 2: The Door to Frenzy

  Chapter 3: The Door to Snow

  Chapter 4: The Door to Gray Town

  Chapter 5: The Unplanned Door

  Chapter 6: The Door to Shadows

  Chapter 7: The Door Out

  Chapter 8: The Door to Rook’s Roost

  Chapter 9: The Door to a Lullaby

  Chapter 10: The Door in the Dark

  Chapter 11: The Door to Fish Side

  Chapter 12: The Door to Red Watchers

  Chapter 13: The Door to Birds

  Chapter 14: The Door in the Tree

  Chapter 15: The Locked Door

  Chapter 16: The Wrong Door

  Chapter 17: The Door to the Sky

  Chapter 18: The Door to the Past

  Chapter 19: The Door to Power

  Chapter 20: The Door to Disaster

  Chapter 21: The Door to a Spider’s Web

  Chapter 22: The Possible Door

  Chapter 23: The Impossible Door

  Chapter 24: The Door to Fog

  Chapter 25: The Door to the Manor

  Chapter 26: The Door to Rook’s Heart

  Chapter 27: The White Door

  Chapter 28: The Door to Messages

  Chapter 29: The Door to Truth

  Chapter 30: The Door to Friendship

  Chapter 31: The Door to Fox’s Heart

  Chapter 32: The Door to Ruin

  Chapter 33: The Doors to Everywhere

  Chapter 34: The Door Home

  Epilogue: The Permanent Door

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Tim, for always having my back and for reminding me every day what’s most important. Love you so much.

  PROLOGUE

  IN THE WORLD OF TALHAVEN, magic is dying.

  The people of Talhaven had no warning this was going to happen, just as they’d had no warning of the Great Catastrophe. They believed magic was a safe, wondrous force that would always be there to light their homes, fly their skyships, and make their lives easier.

  They were wrong.

  The magic that remains in the world is unstable, dangerous—never more so than in the city of Regara, where the Great Catastrophe struck. Now the people of Talhaven fear magic. They have outlawed its use, and blame those who first brought it into their world for all their misfortune.

  The wizards from Vora were responsible. Long ago, they opened a magical doorway between their own world and Talhaven, and brought their magic with them. They called it animus, spirit energy, and traded it in exchange for natural resources Vora lacked. All was well for many years, and the peoples of both worlds thrived.

  Until the day of the Great Catastrophe, when the magical doorway connecting the two worlds exploded.

  Every building within four miles of the portal was destroyed. Hundreds of people in the city of Regara were killed or injured. In the aftermath of the destruction, the magical door was gone, never to appear again.

  No one could explain how the disaster had happened or why the remnants of magic were suddenly unstable. Perhaps the greatest mystery of all, however, was that minutes before the explosion, hundreds of Vorans came through the magical doorway. Three hundred twenty-seven of them, to be exact.

  They were all children.

  The people of Talhaven didn’t know what to do with these strange survivors, for the rest of the Vorans were gone, and the children claimed to have no memory of the world they’d come from. They didn’t even know their own names.

  And just like everyone else from their world, they all had magic.

  The people of Talhaven named them exiles, and some even blamed the children for the disaster that had destroyed the portal between worlds and corrupted the remaining magic. Others wanted to use the children’s magic for their own ends. So the exiles did the only thing they could think of to protect themselves: they used their magic to escape and went into hiding.

  But no one can hide forever.

  “YOU CAN’T RUN FROM US, EXILE!”

  That’s what you think. Rook pelted down the backstreets of Regara’s merchant district and docks, her lips twisted in a grim smile. For as long as she could remember, Rook had been running, and she was getting very good at it.

  She reached out and snatched the rail of the nearest building’s fire escape, using her momentum to swing around the corner into a dark alley. Her foot splashed down in a deep, fishy-smelling puddle that had swallowed a portion of the cobblestoned street. Mud and icy water soaked her socks and pant legs. Rook ground her teeth in irritation.

  It was time to get out of here. Obviously, the Night Market wasn’t taking place in Fish Side tonight, but that hadn’t stopped the constables from laying a trap for anyone who came looking for it here.

  The problem with holding a secret, movable market once a month was that, well, it had to be secret, and it had to keep moving. It wasn’t exactly something you could advertise. Come one! Come all! Get your black-market magic here! We’ve got the goods that can—
literally—blow away the competition!

  “Cut off the alley! We’ve got her!”

  The voices echoed from two streets behind her, and were closing in fast. Rook barreled toward the brick wall that dead-ended the alley, her piece of yellow chalk already clutched in one sweaty hand. She skidded to a stop and drew a rectangle as tall and wide as her body on the uneven surface of the bricks. Her thoughts centered on her next destination, repeating it in every beat of her pounding heart.

  Skeleton Yard.

  Skeleton Yard.

  Oh please oh please let the market be at Skeleton Yard.

  Fear and magic flooded Rook’s veins. Both sensations were as familiar as breathing, but still, she faltered. Would her power take her where she asked this time? Lately, it had been failing her more and more often.

  The yellow scrawl on the bricks snapped into rigid lines with a crack, as if an invisible hand had picked up one end of each and tugged it into place. A puff of chalk dust sparkled in the air, and the lines began to glow. Brightly they shone, until the chalk could no longer contain the light, shooting golden rays out from the wall.

  There came the deep rumble of stone scraping stone, and one by one, the bricks in the wall popped free of their mortar and pushed outward with a loud kachunk kachunk kachunk sound. Dust choked the air, blurring the scene before Rook’s eyes. The stone scraping changed to the cadence of wood creaking and warping, a shrill sound that rang in her ears.

  Then, as quickly as the noises began, they stopped. When the mortar dust settled, it revealed a startling sight—a cherrywood door nested within the surrounding bricks, as naturally as if it had always been part of the builder’s plan.

  But the transformation didn’t end there. Tendrils of gold light sprang from two points along the left side of the door, coiling in the shape of leaves and ropey vines that melted into the wood and solidified into polished brass hinges. Rook shifted her attention to the right side of the door, where a small mushroom of light sprouted into a shiny doorknob. She could just make out her distorted reflection on its surface.

  The instant the knob became solid, Rook seized it and yanked the door open. Behind her, uniformed constables poured into the alley, shouting and blowing shrill whistles. Rook ignored them and focused on the open field beyond the door’s threshold, lit by silvery moonlight and smelling of wild mint and wet grass.

  Anywhere is better than here. Rook dove through, slamming the magical door in the faces of the constables.

  WITH A FLICK OF POWER inside her, Rook severed her connection to the door. The cherrywood blurred and ran like smeared paint before vanishing, leaving behind the scarred white planks of a supply shed.

  She was safe.

  Rook leaned against the wall to catch her breath and calm her thundering heart. That had been too close. At least her power hadn’t failed her. As near as she could tell, it had taken her to the edge of the old railyards, which really was nothing more than a cluster of abandoned flatcars and rusted track bordering an empty, weed-choked field.

  Well, not entirely empty.

  Mist and moonlight curled around the rusted white skins of four train cars arranged haphazardly in the field, like a bone that had been broken in four pieces. Warm lantern light shone from within the cars, which told Rook she’d chosen the right place this time.

  The Night Market was in Skeleton Yard.

  Rook pushed off the shed and made her way as quietly and cautiously as possible across the field toward the train cars. She kept an eye out for constables, even though she knew the ones that had been chasing her were halfway across the city, cursing at how they’d lost the exile with the wild black hair yet again.

  But that was Rook’s gift, to create doors that led anywhere in the world. A talent that had saved her more than once, even if the magic didn’t always work the way she wanted it to.

  Rook climbed a set of rusted metal steps to the nearest train car. Tethered to a post alongside it were half a dozen horses belonging to patrons of the market. Most of the horses were alive, but a couple of them were still-functioning mechanicals that stomped the ground with metal hooves while clouds of steamy, false breath escaped from their sculpted nostrils. There was just enough animus left inside them to keep them moving, but not for much longer. The blue lights in their eye sockets flickered constantly, a reminder that their magic was failing, no longer reliable.

  Rook opened the metal door at the top of the stairs and stepped inside. The market was already in full swing, and there were at least a dozen people browsing. The train’s passenger seats had long ago been ripped out, replaced by hastily constructed market stalls or, more often, rugs spread out on the floor and stacked with wares. Most of the merchants were local or came in from the neighboring kingdom of Yalen. Everything they brought was as colorful and temporary as possible, so the Night Market could come and go quickly if the constables—or worse, the Red Watchers—found them.

  But Rook’s purpose here wasn’t magic. She couldn’t have afforded it even if she wanted to buy a trinket. Luckily, the market attracted a wide variety of vendors. The smell of roasted Yalish chickens, hot spices, and cinnamon bread filled the air in the cramped car. Rook’s stomach reacted with such raw longing that for a moment she was light-headed.

  She made a beeline for the source of the scents—Gert Truevale’s stall. She was a middle-aged woman with skin not unlike the consistency of a yeast roll and eyes the color of dried cherries.

  Gert looked up from a basket of bread as Rook approached. Her lips pressed tightly together, fashioning an expression that, while not exactly welcoming, respected a paying customer.

  “Look at you, out of breath and covered in muck,” she said, eyeing Rook’s sweaty face and drenched pants. But she stopped what she was doing and began wrapping up three loaves of bread in brown paper. “You want the usual, little mouse?”

  Rook nodded. “Yes, please.” While she waited, she combed her fingers through her wild hair. It was impossible to tame it, but at least she could make sure none of the natural white strands at the base of her neck were visible beneath the dye that covered the rest.

  One of the first things she’d learned upon her arrival in this world was that the children of Talhaven didn’t have white hair. If she wanted to blend in, she needed to change hers. The color she’d chosen—black with just that hint of white—reminded her of a rook, a common crow. That was how she’d come up with her name, since she didn’t remember her real one.

  Rook cast a furtive glance up and down the car to see if she was attracting any other attention. Most of the patrons of the market kept to themselves and didn’t ask questions, but you could never be too careful. It didn’t take much to make people suspicious of children out alone at night. Gert knew her secret, and for a few extra coins, she kept quiet, but Rook wasn’t made of money, and the last thing she wanted was for anyone else to find out she was an exile.

  “Don’t suppose I can interest you in some baubles?” Gert casually gestured with her free hand to an assortment of random objects arranged in neat rows on a small table. There were Targrell gems, a Contis Island shark tooth charm, and even some forever violets from the kingdom of Izfel. Those were especially hard to come by. They looked odd sitting side by side with the fresh-baked scones, but this was the Night Market, after all, and it seemed every merchant, baker, tailor, and fishmonger dabbled in illegal magic remnants, weak trinkets left over from a time when animus was everywhere and its power wasn’t feared.

  Her curiosity getting the better of her, Rook picked up a pair of spectacles with opaque black lenses. “What do these do?” she asked skeptically. As many trinkets turned out to be fakes as not, even in the Night Market, but Gert was usually reliable.

  The older woman put the three loaves in a sack and handed it to Rook. “Careful!” she said. “Don’t smudge the lenses! Picked those up from a Meddler in Gray Town. Pu
t them on and you can see through other people’s eyes. Works up to a mile away, he promised me.”

  Rook quickly put the glasses back on the table and wiped her hands on her pants as if they’d left a stain. “You shouldn’t be dealing in Meddlers’ goods,” she admonished Gert. “Half of them don’t know what they’re doing.”

  And the other half did, which made them even more dangerous, in Rook’s mind. Meddlers were people who’d learned through experimentation—and the occasional loss of limb—how to shape the bits of leftover animus, creating their own magical trinkets. Sometimes these trinkets worked, but most often they didn’t. Other times they worked—with side effects. Ever since the Great Catastrophe, it was illegal to create or trade in this volatile magic, and that was how the Night Market had been born.

  Gert sniffed derisively. “Well, we can’t all flick our fingers and make the magic dance for us, can we?” She held out her open palm to Rook. “That’ll be ten, little mouse. No more credit. You’re already too much in debt to this market.”

  Rook bit back an angry retort and sighed. She’d meant to warn Gert, not offend her, but somehow she’d done both. And she couldn’t afford to lose the woman’s favor. Not when this was the safest place to buy food in the city. So Rook threw in an extra coin when she paid for the bread, though it hurt her gut to do it.

  She glanced at a pocket watch on Gert’s trinket table to check the time. It was getting late. She needed to leave soon. Drift would be waiting for her at the meeting spot, and she’d worry if Rook was late. She tucked the precious bag of bread under one arm and moved off quickly down the train car. Hands thrust more magical trinkets under her nose as she went.