At the end of the last story, "Lost in the Moment and Found", Antsy had been thrown out of the home she'd come to love and found her way to Eleanor's home for wayward children.  Which felt a little like a coming-home.  But Antsy continued to fret that if she couldn't find a way to return to the Shop Where Lost Things Go, then she wouldn't be able to make sure Vineta would keep her promise: to tell all the children who became her assistant the cost of doing so. 

Antsy drifted through days in the Miss Eleanor's school, never really fitting in, never really finding friends; until the day Emily asked her if she could really find anything.  And it wasn't Emily's fault that the mean girl of the school, Seraphina (the name is significant), heard the answer.  Unbeknownst to Antsy, some of the kids at the school really did have her best interests in their hearts; enough to know when she needed to be rescued from Seraphina.  But it was Antsy who really saved them.  She, unique in all the students who'd ever been at the school, was able to find and open the Doors. Even more amazing, she usually knew exactly where each Door went.  But only she knew the true price for doing so.  And that was her secret; something she hadn't even been able to tell Miss Eleanor.

Antsy was able to find a Door that allowed the group of friends gathered about her to escape the predations of the horrible Seraphina.  The Door took them to Kade's world; a place he loved but that he knew he couldn't return to.  The danger in that world pushed Antsy to find another Door that led them directly back to her Shop; a temptation that she could not resist.  Once back in the Shop, Antsy's first priority was to see Vineta and Hudson and insure they were being honest with any new children that came there.  As soon as she saw the new child manning the front counter and discovered that Vineta had tricked Hudson and forced him through a Door, she knew they were not.  Well, just Vineta really; who, knowing she was at the end of her days, saw no reason to be honest with the children and used them for her own purposes.  Angered, Antsy decided her first step was to rescue Hudson.

Finding the Door where Hudson had gone was fairly easy.  Discovering they were in a dinosaur world where one of their former classmates had gone, was actually an astonishing coincidence.  By this time, I was understanding that McGuire was taking her characters into worlds where they had unfinished business; but that fact also meant that at least one of their group had some understanding of each world they ended up in.  This plot device actually enabled McGuire to keep the story spare and concise; nobody had to wander around in an unknown world trying to figure out how to stay alive.

But McGuire doesn't meander in her stories; she always has a firm point to make in her plot.  So once Hudson was rescued, it was back to the Shop for a resolution.  And this was a very important thing to do in order to continue these stories.  Antsy had to set things right as the Shop was a Nexus point where many people came through on their way elsewhere; and the person who had established the Shop had always intended that everyone be told the cost of passage through a Door.  Vineta had strayed from that path for her own desires and the true owners of the Shop finally had something to say about it.

I haven't yet gone back to read all the stories published before I discovered this series so I can't know that the little Easter eggs plastered all over this story are references that other readers would recognize or if they are references to a future story.  But I'm on fire to know.  And I'm almost desperate for the next story to see if my guess as to who the main protagonist will be is correct or not.  I'm betting on Seraphina.

McGuire is a consummate artist with the written word.  Everything I've read of hers is masterfully done.  Fortunately, for this reader, that means a whole bunch of books that I'll have to be reading.   ~~ Catherine Book

For more titles in this series click here
For more titles by Seanan McGuire click here