The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(68)

“What’s an oyster?”

Nurd, who didn’t know either, but had seen the phrase “The world is your oyster” in the car showroom and had rather liked the sound of it, began to reconsider his decision not to hit Wormwood quite so often.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He took a paper bag from his pocket. The bag contained the last of the jelly beans that Samuel had given to him. Nurd had been saving them, but now he offered one to Wormwood and took the final sweetie for himself.

“To Samuel,” he said, and Wormwood, who had heard so much about the boy from Nurd, echoed his master.

“To Samuel.”

The multiverse was unfathomably huge, thought Nurd, but it was still small enough to allow two strangers like Samuel and himself to find each other and become friends.

Together, Nurd and Wormwood drove off, the car growing smaller and smaller, disappearing into the distance, until all that was left to indicate that anyone had ever been there was a throne, a scepter, and an old, rusty crown . . .