They reached an old sign between two warehouses and Ralph stopped, then pointed up. Oliver drew up beside him and looked up. The sign was made of wood and iron, the type youd see in a historic village outside the drinking tavern. Oliver noticed a symbol embossed into the rusted iron. It looked like a ring, or a hoop. At three evenly spaced intervals around the hoop was the same image of an eye.

What is that? Oliver asked.

That is the symbol for the School for Seers, Ralph said. A loop to signify that time isnt linear, and the eyes to signify seeing in all directions; present, future, and past. Only Seers can see the symbol. For the rest of the world, this is just an ordinary sign. Whenever you see the symbol, it will guide you back to the school. Right this way.

He bounded off. Oliver thought Ralph seemed far too nonchalant about everything. His laid-back attitude was in stark contrast to how Oliver felt. Oliver felt like the ground was barely solid beneath his feet, like his whole life had been tipped upside down and shaken around. Hed hardly had time to come to grips with his new status as a Seer before Armandos death, his sudden propulsion back in time, and the meeting with Ralph. His head was still spinning from it all.

Oliver followed Ralph into the shadowy back alley. He shivered. It was much colder in the darkness. He was only wearing his thin workmans overalls. He felt very underprepared for whatever was about to happen.

There were many other passageways coming off the alley, and Oliver followed Ralph down a very narrow one. It reminded him of the mazelike corridors of Armandos factory, and the strangely narrow one that led to his secret room. The walls on either side of him were very high; there was only a sliver of sky above his head. At points the alleyway became so narrow his shoulders brushed the walls either side.

At last they stopped and Ralph crouched down beside a shrub growing beneath another three-eyed hoop symbol. He parted the leaves and Oliver saw there was a switch hidden within it. Ralph pressed the switch. The wall suddenly disappeared, revealing instead a door-sized gap within the brickwork.

Oliver gasped. It was just like his invisibility coat but in reverse. Instead of hiding something real, it was creating something not real.

Its visual trickery, Ralph explained, as he studied Olivers expression. The illusion of something solid.

Oliver thought about the technology needed to make it work. There were no lights to project an image. It wasnt a holograph. Though his invisibility coat had been a theoretical possibility before hed made it a reality, there was no theory to explain this.

Amazing, Oliver said. Id love to study the mechanisms. Im something of an inventor myself, you see.