“You really are a sorcerer,” Emrys said.

“One of the best,” Van Stavern puffed. “Or I was. But like my fellow members, I was being hunted. An assassin tracked us down, murdering my friends and colleagues one by one. And tonight, cloaked in the storm, that killer finally found me.”

“The Whistler …” Hazel supplied.

“We heard them coming up the stairs,” Emrys said gravely. “I’m sorry, we … we didn’t know.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Van Stavern’s voice said sadly. “And if you had interfered, you’d be dead. This ‘Whistler,’ as you call them, is part of a very dangerous organization. By the time I sensed the threat, it was already at my doorstep. In my desperation, I cast a rash but fruitful spell, fleeing into the pages of this grimoire. It is the Atlas of the End: a spell book, index, and my Order’s guiding text. Now, I appear to be … stuck.”

“Stuck?” Hazel repeated, squinting at the book. “Like, you’re possessing it? But where’s your body?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Van Stavern snapped. “I’m in here. All of me. And if there’s a way to extricate myself, then even I haven’t discovered it. Yet.”

“This is not happening,” Serena said. “You all realize this is impossible, right?”

“It is happening,” Van Stavern answered darkly. “And your disbelief will not protect you from the powers at work. You’re a part of this now—all of you.”

“Are you saying we’re in danger?” Hazel asked.

Van Stavern sighed again, a weary sound that rang a bit sadly to Emrys. “I wish I could tell you no,” the book said. “But living in New Rotterdam, you must have guessed by now that danger always lurks close at hand. The young are especially vulnerable.”

The eyelid at the center of the book hooded thoughtfully. “Beside our world there are … other places. Dimensions so unlike our own that they contort the very laws of nature where they press close, defying physics and biology. And there are places where the barriers that separate us from these forces are especially delicate. Places like New Rotterdam. Very ancient, very powerful beings are pushing against the other side of the door, hoping to break into your town. To call them monsters is an understatement. These are the gods monsters worship.”

The eye rose, gazing at each of the three in turn. When it settled on him, Emrys felt the hairs rising along his arms.

“The proximity of these beings means that tendrils of their influence can leak into our world, imbuing even mundane items with supernatural qualities. These objects become what the Order calls relics. On their own, the relics are dangerous enough, but it’s in the hands of people that they become truly potent—and potentially catastrophic. And so, the Order of the Azure Eye was created to hunt the relics down, keeping them safely contained within this reliquary.”

“The Doomsday Archives …” Emrys breathed.

“The what?” Serena asked, at the same moment the Atlas said, “Pardon me?”

“It’s an article from the New Rotterdam Wiki,” Emrys continued. “One of the oldest, actually. Every year, some new admin threatens to delete it, because there’s not a shred of evidence to back it up. But it always survives. No one knows who the original author was, but they claimed mysterious figures sometimes appear around the sites where weird stuff happens in town. Supposedly these figures take objects from the sites and disappear. It’s the name they gave you—or gave this place.”

“Not entirely inaccurate,” Van Stavern murmured thoughtfully. “Any number of relics could result in a doomsday scenario if left in the wrong hands. But it’s possible that this wiki”—Van Stavern pronounced the word like we key—“refers to the group who sent my rather musical assassin after me. They are a dark counterpart to the Order: the Yellow Court.”

Emrys frowned. He tried to remember if he’d ever encountered that name on the wiki, but nothing sprang to mind. It was amazing how even the combined knowledge of hundreds amounted to so little.

“Who are they?” he asked. “Another secret society? The cult of an evil god? Ooh—are they relic hunters, too?”

“Who they are … is hard to say at the moment,” Van Stavern admitted, the eye lowering. “The Court have been frustratingly adept at hiding their aims and identities. What I can tell you is that they’re ruthless, they’re insidious, and they appear to have a sizable collection of their own, yes. But rather than just hunting relics, the Court often sets them out in the open, exactly where they’re likely to do the most damage. We’ve tied dozens of supernatural disasters to their activities.”

“Like what?”

The eye widened. “Haunted dolls are a favorite. Can’t tell you why so many dolls end up as relics. A few cursed puzzle boxes.… Oh, several years ago we encountered a relic that’s a kind of murderous poem. No containing that one, I’m afraid.”

“No way!” Emrys gasped. “The Laughing Man is real?”

“That’s the one! And yes, so I’d avoid reading it aloud after dark. Nasty bit of work. The Yellow Court was responsible for the poem being published widely.”

“It almost sounds like the Yellow Court is conducting experiments,” Hazel said thoughtfully. “Watching how people use the relics—or how the relics use them.”

“An interesting—and disturbing—idea,” the book muttered. “But whatever their goals, as the newest members of the Order of the Azure Eye, it is your duty to oppose them.”

“Like, fight them?” Hazel asked. “How? We’re not wizards or monster hunters. We’re just kids.”

“I’m not fighting anyone!” Serena cried. “Certainly not on the word of some creepy talking book. How do we know anything he’s saying is even true?”

“Serena, how can you deny what’s happening?” Emrys waved his arms wildly. “We’re standing in a room that couldn’t fit into our whole building, much less a single apartment. This is real! And so are the bad things hurting people in New Rotterdam.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Serena shot back. “I get it, we like horror—movies. Urban legends. Fiction. The whole point is getting scared in a way that’s safe. But this is really, truly dangerous! Even he said so!” She pointed toward the Atlas on the floor. “Who knows if that Whistler is coming back?”

Emrys felt himself vibrating with frustration. Serena was the most fearless person he knew, and now she was balking? Hadn’t she just been scoffing at the very idea of living in fear? Emrys was the anxious one of the group—the downer. But now that they were on the precipice of something incredible, it was like they’d switched places.

“The danger is already here!” he said. “It’s just that nobody wants to look at it! We’re being given the chance to do more than sit around worrying about the world, waiting for grown-ups to care.”

Serena groaned. “How do we know that’s really Alyx Van Stavern in there? We aren’t even sure he’s one of the good guys!” Her expression softened a touch. “I get why you want this, Emrys. I do. But there’s so much we don’t know yet. We need to think before we agree to be a part of some supernatural war.”

Emrys glanced pleadingly to Hazel, hoping she’d back him up.

But his friend hesitated, biting her lip.

Emrys’s heart skipped a beat. While it was true that he and Hazel had been close for years, she and Serena had history, too—history that he wasn’t a part of. Emrys was the newcomer: to New Rotterdam, to their building, and to this strange, teetering friendship triangle. Where Hazel and Emrys connected through shared passions, Serena called to Hazel’s sense of logic. He honestly couldn’t tell which was winning.

But then Hazel’s mouth stretched into a thin, determined line. “I’m with Emrys,” she said. “Now that we’re here—how can we turn back?”

“You can’t,” Van Stavern’s voice sounded from the book. “What is seen cannot be unseen. The Atlas has already chosen you.” The blue orb at the center of the Atlas narrowed. “You’ve all been marked by the Azure Eye.”

This article is protected.

The Laughing Man

From the New Rotterdam Wiki Project

The Laughing Man refers both to a popular children’s poem and the figure described by the poem itself. First printed in the New Rotterdam Watcher in 1973, “The Laughing Man” was submitted to the paper’s first (and only) Children’s Poetry Contest by eleven-year-old Cecilia Pike.

Grinning ’neath the moonlit sky,

the laughing man has caught your eye.

Dancing, racing, writhing game!

He’s seen your face. He knows your name!

Laughing. Screaming! Whooping cheer.