Hero Rising. Shane Hegarty

      Finn sat over his bowl of Chocky-Flakes, spoon halfway to his mouth, the crazy request from the Infested Side running around his brain like a hamster on a wheel, and watched the business of the household. He surveyed the boxes of ornaments, clothes, books, stuff brought from their old home, still scattered about the small house. Two families living together, neither really wanting to believe they’d need to stay here for ever.

      “Please think about Smoofyland some more,” Clara said to Finn. “Slotterton isn’t that far away, really. And it’s better than sitting around here. We haven’t been anywhere in so long.”

      Finn looked at her, brown milk dribbling from his spoon. If only she knew how far away he had just been. “No Smoofyland. Anywhere but Smoofyland,” he groaned.

      Clara turned the tap, which spluttered and spat out sludgy, undrinkable water into her glass. She grimaced as she held it up to the light from the window. “That keeps happening,” she said. “I went to rinse Mrs Walsh’s teeth yesterday and almost made them blacker than when she came in. They were black enough to begin with.”

      Emmie arrived down the stairs. Finn remembered when she had first arrived in Darkmouth: she had hardly been able to contain her excitement at being in the infamous Blighted Village, fizzing like the human version of a mint dropped into a bottle of cola. She’d been so eager for the life he led, even when he hadn’t wanted it. She would talk at one hundred kilometres an hour, and rush into trouble twice as fast.

      She wasn’t like that so much any more. Instead, she was more often subdued, cautious and, he felt, suspicious.

      Finn tried to shake off the idea that she was suspicious of him. They’d been through so much together, he wanted her to trust him. Even when he was lying to her. Even when he was holding on to a secret so big he could still smell it despite showering for so long last night his mother had banged on the door fearing he’d slipped and knocked himself out.

      In his schoolbag, he had a half-living device that would open gateways to the Legends.

      Of course Emmie should doubt him. He was beginning to doubt himself.

      “Hey,” he said, Chocky-Flakes milk dribbling down his chin.

      “Hey,” she replied, and popped two slices of bread into the toaster.

      “Tell him Smoofyland will be great,” Clara asked her.

      “That place in Slotterton with the sparkliest rollercoaster in the world?” asked Emmie.

      “You’d think he doesn’t want to go on a holiday,” Clara said. “That he just wants to sit here waiting for whatever disaster lurks around the next corner.”

      Finn felt a rush of panic, a tightening of his chest, an implosion. He caught his breath, blew out, drew in air steadily, calmed himself.

      “You OK?” Emmie asked him.

      He nodded and kept eating, watching the goldfish picking at the stones in its bowl, the silence broken only by the sound of toast springing up.

      “Gotta go,” he said. “See you at school.”

      He didn’t go straight to school, though. Instead he went to find his dad, who was already at work at Woofy Wash. Finn hurried, propelled by a rush of honesty. It was wrong to keep this secret. No matter the consequences, it would all have to come out. He should tell his dad everything. About the kidnapping. About going to the Infested Side. About the assistants being up to something strange in the remnants of the cave and what the Legends had said about people on this side trying to open gateways. About how dangerous it could be. About the flashes of light. About the Legends. About the request that he steal Gantrua. About the Orthrus. About everything.

      “Dad—” he started as he walked into the shop.

      “Good morning,” said Lucien, standing by the counter.

      Hugo was behind it, apparently deeply unimpressed by Lucien’s mere presence.

      Through the back, they could hear the sounds of cats, dogs, possibly a parrot, plus something that sounded like it was coughing up a squeaky toy.

      Finn felt himself clam up again, the lid slamming shut on his honesty. He did his best to give Lucien a look that said he hated every single molecule in his body. Lucien, though, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction and instead addressed Hugo.

      “I don’t want to delay you from whatever sort of emergency dog-washing scenario you might have going on,” he said, as if he meant it sincerely. He didn’t.

      Finn fervently wanted to grab a bottle of Shampoodle off the shelf and make him drink it down until foam began to pour from his ears.

      “Then make it quick, Lucien,” Hugo said, framed by wall posters of a cat having its teeth brushed and a gerbil being taken for a walk.

      “It is clear that things are getting a little … how best to put it? Chaotic. Yes, chaotic.”

      “Gateways?” guessed Hugo.

      “Two of them. Only yesterday. One outside here, as it happens.” He looked at Finn, who instinctively looked away.

      Finn didn’t want to reveal what he knew: that he had been pulled through one of those gateways, and pushed back home through the other.

      “Not my place to interfere, right, Lucien?” said Hugo.

      “Nothing came through that we could find,” Lucien continued, “but we have to believe the Legends are poised to return. Maybe your old enemy Mr Glad isn’t quite gone yet. These are great and mysterious worlds we deal with.”

      Finn’s secret screamed in his head. He kept his mouth shut in case it escaped. In the back room, an animal squealed, so like a child that Finn wondered if it actually was a child.

      “We may have stirred a viper’s nest,” Lucien continued. “Just because we have captured one of their leaders—”

      “Just because Finn captured one of their leaders,” interjected Hugo.

      Lucien