“Are you saying she was…kidnapped?” Charlene said, a little too concerned with her hair to have stayed with the discussion.

“If humans take you, you’re kidnapped,” Maybeck answered. “I doubt there’s a name for it when it’s a band of Disney villains. But yeah. She’s missing.”

“But why?” Charlene asked Maybeck. “Why kidnap Jez?”

The three kids stared at Amanda, waiting for an answer. She pursed her lips as if she’d swallowed something bitter. “If I told you—which I can’t—you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try us,” Maybeck said.

“You’d be surprised at what we can handle,” said Willa.

“The Overtakers?” Maybeck asked, winning Amanda’s attention.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Amanda said.

“Try us,” Maybeck repeated.

“Please tell us,” Willa pleaded. She wiped the rain from her eyes. “We want to help, but we need to know what’s going on, what we’re involved in.”

Charlene proved she’d been paying attention after all. “This has to do with Finn, doesn’t it? When Finn got tangled up with Jez, and you said some kind of spell had been removed. Maleficent’s spell.”

That incident had happened months ago, though the kids remembered it as if it were yesterday. Maleficent had kept Jez under her control to prevent Jez’s own powers from interfering with Maleficent’s plan. The DHIs had managed to trap Maleficent, and Finn had helped free Jez from the spell—though her powers had yet to be explained to any of them. Maybe this was why the sisters had vanished recently: to keep from having to explain themselves.

“We have to hurry,” Willa said. “For one thing, those kids are blowing our cover. For another, every second counts. She can’t be far.”

“Since when are you a detective? You’ve been reading too many American Girl books,” snapped Charlene.

“No, she’s right,” Maybeck said. “Time is in our favor, but not for long. Amanda and I will retrace her route, looking for her. Willa, you and Charlene get Finn and Philby out of the castle and meet up with us.”

Amanda jerked her head toward Cinderella Castle. “He’s in there?” she gasped, and then mumbled, “I’d nearly forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” Maybeck asked.

Amanda looked back and forth from the sputtering and sparking DHI of her sister to the colorful lights illuminating the castle.

“Something horrible’s going to happen,” Amanda whispered. “Jezebel dreamed about it. We came here to warn all of you.” She met eyes with Maybeck and then Willa. “He’s actually in there?”

“She dreamed about it?” Charlene said, distrustful and sarcastic. “Your sister can dream the future, I suppose? Is that what you’re trying to tell us?”

“Fairlies have abilities you wouldn’t believe.”

“What’s a Fairlie?” Willa blurted out.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

8

FINN FOLLOWED PHILBY up the tightly wound spiral staircase in complete darkness, his lungs and legs burning, his head pounding. Transforming himself into a DHI—twice in a matter of minutes—had taxed him. He climbed, half in, half out of consciousness, sliding his hand along the cool steel handrail, faint of head but not of heart. Someone was trying to attract lightning to Cinderella Castle. He envisioned the penthouse apartment converted into a Frankenstein laboratory, some Disney monster strapped to a stainless-steel table with wires attached to his head and heart. He didn’t know what to think—except that the Overtakers had sent the Dapper Dan to stop them. That had to mean something big was going down.

Thunder cracked outside, sending a rumble up his legs. Climbing higher in a lightning storm was not the smartest move. He felt another tremor in his chest.

Speaking in a breathless whisper as they climbed, Finn said, “What if it’s all a trap? An elaborate trap? What if this guy is supposed to drive us to the top of the castle? What if the weather balloon and lightning are intended for us? To kill us?”

Philby stopped, and Finn bumped into him. He had trouble catching his breath. His heart was about to explode.

The staircase vibrated: the man was climbing toward them.

“But if that’s the case, then this guy’s suicidal,” Philby said, “because he’s right behind us.”

“But if he’s an Overtaker, how do we even know he’s real?”

“How do we know if any of this is real?” Philby quipped. “Not one of us has ever told our parents about what happens to us at night. Why do you think that is?” He answered his own question. “Because they wouldn’t believe it.”

Shadows flickered on the wall. A flashlight. The guy!

“Climb!” Finn hissed.

They started climbing higher, running up the stairs as fast as they could. Their pursuer wasn’t nearly as light on his feet as they were. The beam from his flashlight and the strange, shifting shadows it cast propelled them hurriedly up, up, up. At last, they faced a door.

It was bolted shut; there was no doorknob or handle.

In the dim light, Finn caught sight of a handwritten sign taped to the wall:

OPEN ONLY IN EMERGENCY

“Do we dare?” Finn asked.

“It has to lead into the apartment,” said Philby.

“Agreed.”

The light from the flashlight rose more quickly now. “And we’re trying to get into the apartment.”

Finn moved the bolt, and the door popped open.

Together they entered into another dark space. Finn reached out. It was narrow and tight. The sound of bells…no…Finn knew that sound. It wasn’t bells. It was…hangers.

“We’re in a closet,” Finn said softly. “A closet inside the apartment, I’ll bet.”

“The stairs are the apartment’s fire escape,” said Philby. “Makes sense.” But why lock a fire escape from the outside? Finn wondered silently.

He groped in the dark and touched another door in front of them and opened it a crack. The closet led into the apartment’s small bedroom, the shiny bedspread a hideous shade of grass green. The air smelled stale and dusty. The boys slipped into the bedroom. It felt unbearably warm.

Heavy footsteps clomped up the stairs.

“Hurry!” Finn hissed. He and Philby rushed out of the closet, shut its door and, working together, slid the bed to block it. At the very least they had bought themselves a few seconds.

They hurried to the bedroom door, and Finn put his ear to it.

“Anything?” Philby asked, one eye nervously on the blocked closet behind them.

“It sounds like someone mumbling.” Finn opened the door carefully and then quietly stepped through. Philby followed. They were in a small hallway with a view into a larger living room. The decor might have once been called modern. Now it looked slightly cheesy.

Finn angled his head around the corner to get a better view into the living room. Then he jerked back.

Maleficent—the most powerful of the Disney fairies and Finn’s greatest enemy—stood by the apartment window. Amanda had somehow known! Maleficent had enormous evil powers, including the ability to conjure spells with nothing more than incantations. Finn had once seen her transfigure a trash bag into a rat. She had demonstrated powers of fire and electricity, conjuring a cage of glowing “wires” around him. Her one weakness was temperature—she could only conjure when cold, which helped explain her being jailed in an apartment kept so warm. He doubted she was at her full powers, given the warmth of the apartment, but that could change in an instant. She had her back to them, and her dark robe hung to the floor. Now Finn understood what he’d heard: Maleficent was chanting while facing the open window. It was blocked on the outside by a heavy iron grate—like a jail cell.

Casting a spell? Finn wondered.

His legs shook with fear. The last he’d known, she’d been locked in a jail cell in the catacombs beneath Pirates of the Caribbean. What was she doing here?

She stepped away from the window but continued chanting. Through the window, the sky darkened. The storm roared as lightning flashed and thunder cracked. Finn tensed with the next lightning strike: a tremendous flash was followed instantly by a crack and boom. Was she summoning the lightning? Another loud crack. A bolt of electricity struck the iron grate. It glowed red hot, and then sparks flew. The iron grate melted and fell open, the window no longer blocked. The evening’s cool breeze blew through.