A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull Page A

fetch our other guest.”
    Dorsio snapped his fingers, turned, and exited the room, closing the door silently. From the moment he had entered, the attendant had never looked Jason in the eye.
    “Please, have a seat,” the Blind King invited.
    Jason sat down. “Dorsio seemed really businesslike.”
    “Forgive his reticence. He cannot speak. In my role as the Blind King I must balance various public and private responsibilities. With my public face as the ridiculous veneer, I privately work to undermine the emperor. Dorsio is part of my private circle. He is quite adept at handling sensitive matters. We have developed a system where he traces messages on my palm, or uses snapping for simple acknowledgments.”
    “I’m curious about our other guest,” Jason confessed.
    “Satisfaction will soon replace curiosity,” the Blind King said. “Not many of my associates have met her. She arrived here two nights ago. I believe your destinies are linked.”
    The door opened, and Dorsio escorted a girl into the room. She was almost a head shorter than Jason, and didn’t look much older than he was. Her short brown hair had a stylish cut, and she had dark brown eyes and a faint spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her clothes seemed homemade and didn’t fit right: The dark yellow shirt sagged in the shoulders, and the coarse brown pants were too loose in the waist, cinched into place with a wide belt. The Blind King rose politely, and Jason awkwardly followed his lead.
    Dorsio exited quietly as the girl approached the table.
    “Thank you for joining us,” the Blind King said with a smile, gesturing toward her seat.
    The girl sat down, eyes regarding Jason with interest. “So you’re the mysterious visitor.”
    “You stole my line,” Jason said, trying to recover from the shock that the visitor was a cute girl around his age.
    “They haven’t changed your wardrobe yet,” she commented, looking him up and down.
    “Those aren’t your clothes?” Jason asked.
    She smirked, plucking at the yellow top. “Not exactly my style. But my other outfit makes me look too much like a Beyonder.”
    “You’re a Beyonder too?” Jason exclaimed.
    The Blind King sat down.
    The girl grinned. “They warned me in advance that you’re from my world. Totally ruined the surprise.”
    Jason glanced at the Blind King. Their host waited in silence, a small smile on his lips, listening with his hands folded on the edge of the table. Jason realized he was the only person still standing, and sat down. “How long have you been here?”
    “This will be my fifth night,” she replied.
    “Mine, too!”
    “Pardon me,” the Blind King interjected. “Would the two of you mind verifying that you both truly come from the Beyond? I do not believe either of you is an imposter, but it never hurts to be certain.”
    “Ooh,” the girl said with delight. “Cross-examination.”
    “Where are you from?” Jason asked.
    “Olympia, Washington,” the girl responded. “You?”
    “Vista, Colorado.”
    She nodded vaguely. “What’s the capital of Pennsylvania?”
    “I don’t know. Philadelphia?”
    “No. But that’s the kind of wrong answer somebody from America would give. Let me guess, you’re not a very serious student?”
    “Just because I’m not a trivia expert doesn’t make me a bad student,” Jason complained. “I’m in eighth grade. I take honors classes. What’s the actual capital of Pennsylvania?”
    “Harrisburg,” she replied smugly.
    “I’ll believe you. Who won the 2004 World Series?”
    She shrugged. “The Yankees?”
    “The Yankees? And you claim to be an American?” He enjoyed rubbing it in after her attitude about Harrisburg. “It was the Red Sox. The year they broke the curse.”
    “But the Yankees win the series a lot, right?”
    “They’ve won the most,” he conceded.
    “Do you play baseball or just watch it?” she asked.
    “I pitch for school and on a club team. And I’m a pretty good