Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

instead of solid. “In fact, an argument could be made it’s better that way.
Still … you’re a curiosity. And that means you have my attention.”
“Did you do this to them?” Wallace demanded. “If you’re hurting them,
I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” the boy asked.
Wallace said nothing.
The boy nodded. “I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you or them. They’re
sleeping, in a way. When we’re finished, they’ll awaken and things will be
as they always were and always will be. Do you like it here?”
“Yes.”
The boy looked around, the movement strangely stiff as if the bones in his
neck were fused together. “It doesn’t seem like much from the outside, does
it? A queer house made up of many different ideas. They should clash. They
should crumble to the foundation. It shouldn’t stand as it does, and yet you
don’t fear the ceiling collapsing onto your head.” Then, “Why did you step in
to protect them? The Wallace Price of the living world wouldn’t have raised
a finger unless it benefited himself.”
“They’re my friends,” Wallace said, awash in unreality. The room around
him felt hazy and muted, only the Manager crystal clear, a focal point, the
center of everything.
“They are?” the boy asked. “You didn’t have many of those.” He frowned.
“Any of those.”
Wallace looked away. “I know.”
“Then you died,” the boy said. “And came here. To this place. To this …
way station. A stop on a much larger journey. And you did just that, didn’t
you? You stopped.”
“I don’t want to go through the door,” Wallace said, voice raising and
cracking right down the middle. “You can’t make me.”
“I could,” the boy said. “It would be easy. No effort on my part at all.
Would you like me to show you?”
Fear, bright and glassy. It wrapped its hands around Wallace’s ribs,
fingers digging in.
“I won’t,” the boy said. “Because that’s not what you need.” He glanced at
Hugo, expression softening. “He’s a good ferryman, Hugo, though his heart
often gets in the way. When I found him, he was angry and confused. Adrift.
He didn’t understand the way of things, and yet he had this light in him, fierce