“They didn’t come anywhere near her.”

I turned to Owen. “That’s weird. If they managed to get to us through the spy, surely they’d have eventually tracked back to Perdita.”

“Maybe their precautions weren’t about what we’ve done here, but about what we do back home,” Owen suggested. “The Council guys are essentially magical cops, we foiled Sylvester’s last scheme, and Earl is a known rebel. Perdita may have been under their radar.”

“What happened to you two?” Earl asked.

“When you didn’t come back, we figured Perdita would be a contact point,” I said. “How did things go for you?”

“They got to Brad, and I was able to snap him out of it,” Earl said. “We’re on for tonight. We figured sundown in what passes for Central Park, at the spot just before it loops back to Riverside—it’s a lot like Cherry Hill, but not quite. There has to be a lot of magic in that area to form that kind of boundary loop, so maybe our portal won’t be quite so obvious.”

Owen checked his watch. “We’ve got a few more hours to kill, and if the vultures aren’t circling us, we may as well wait here until then.”

We made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the floor behind some shelves, where we weren’t visible from the stairs. I wasn’t aware of drifting off to sleep, but the next thing I was conscious of was feeling a little stiff from sleeping on Owen’s shoulder. I kept my eyes shut, hoping desperately that this whole thing about living in an alternate reality straight out of a bad romantic comedy was nothing more than a dream.

Even Owen nudging me gently didn’t have to ruin things. That could happen if I’d fallen asleep during a movie. “Katie, wake up,” he whispered. “We need to go.”

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and had to accept that my predicament was very real. Nearby noises told me that Earl was also stirring. In the very faint light, I saw Owen crawl to the hatch that led to the sidewalk. He peered out, then said, “I don’t see any gray guys.”

“We should probably split up, so if they catch one group of us, they won’t catch all of us,” I suggested. “Earl, you go with Perdita. We’ll meet you there.”

We climbed the steps and emerged on the sidewalk. It was the evening rush hour, so the sidewalk was busy and crowded, and we didn’t stand out too badly. We melted into the crowd and made our way toward the park.

We’d gone a few blocks when I noticed one of the gray guys on the opposite side of the street. I nudged Owen, but he didn’t seem to respond at all—until we reached the next intersection and he casually turned us down the side street heading toward the park, as though that was where we’d been going all along. I couldn’t tell if the gray guy had seen us, and looking back over my shoulder to see if he’d followed us would be a dead giveaway.

“What do we do?” I whispered to Owen.

“Just keep going.” In the middle of the block, he stopped and knelt to tie his shoe, then stood and reported, “He didn’t follow us.”

“Then let’s go before another one shows up,” I urged.

We didn’t encounter any more of the gray guys. I felt a lot better once we were inside the park even though I knew that we weren’t necessarily safer there. I just felt a lot less exposed surrounded by trees. The others soon joined us at the designated meeting place.

When we were all gathered, Owen said, “This should work better on natural ground, say, over there under those trees.” We trooped over to the place he’d pointed out, then he closed his eyes for a moment. Nodding with satisfaction, he said, “Yeah, this place should work.”

He found a stick and knelt to scratch something in the dirt. As he did so, he directed, “I need you guys to find me some small stones, preferably smooth and round.” The elves and I scrounged around on the ground, picking up rocks. Owen arranged the rocks in a circle around the symbols he’d been drawing in the dirt. “I should probably set up wards to keep this magic from being detected,” he said as he worked, “but I’m afraid we can’t spare the power. We’ll just have to make it quick, get our message out, then dash—and hope it works so they’ll send help in case we get caught.” He gestured for the others to join him and said, “In the absence of wards, Katie, you stand guard. I’d rather not draw on your power unless we have to. Yell if you see anyone coming.”

I wanted to see what they were doing, but I had to admit that keeping watch was more important than observing magic I’d never be able to do. Before I turned away, I saw Owen writing a note. Soon afterward, he started an incantation in a language I didn’t know. It might have been elvish, since the elves soon joined in.