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men waiting in the room jump up and whoop with excitement. I push the cart into the center of the room, then turn around and head back Underground.
    It isn’t hard work; it just gets boring after a while.
    Open doorway, walk through, wait for doorway to open on the other side, push cart through, walk back.
    Repeat.
    People begin unloading the carts as soon as I push them through. After several deliveries, I’m able to start taking empty carts back with me. I lose track of time, but I must have been going for several hours when Asim makes me sit down to eat something. I assure him I’m feeling fine, but he insists.
    I sit on a swing in the playground munching a sandwich he brought me, trying to ignore Jamon pacing around and around a set of climbing bars. Eventually I say, “Hey, Natesa’s going to be fine. Stop worrying.”
    “What?” He stops and looks up at me. “What are you talking about?”
    “I know that’s what you’re worrying about.” Natesa’s younger brother is nine years old, so he had to go on foot to the new location, along with his parents. Natesa refused to let her family go without her.
    “Don’t be silly,” Jamon says. “I’m worrying about everyone out there.”
    I give him a knowing look before turning back to my sandwich. “Whatever you say.”
    I continue working late into the evening. After my third snack break, I’m sure there can’t be that many cartloads left. With the end in sight, I try to speed up, opening doorways as quickly as I can. But just when I think I’m finally finished, Asim says, “Okay, once we get the transporters through we’ll be done.”
    Transporters? “What? I can’t drive those things.”
    He must notice the panic on my face because he laughs as he places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to drive them. We’re busy loading the transporters onto the carts. These last few trips won’t be any different from the other loads you’ve taken through.”
    I look over his shoulder and see a cart with an egg-shaped transporter balanced on top of it. Two men direct the cart carefully toward me. Just as I wrap my hand around the piece of wood at the front of the cart, I hear shouting coming from one of the tunnels. Most people have vanished by now, but I know there are still a few guards hanging around. And the guys who own the transporters, I guess. I peer around the side of the cart to see what’s going on.
    “They’ve found us!” yells the reptiscillan guard who comes running out of the tunnel. “Draven’s faeries! They’ve—” He jerks to a halt, then falls forward onto the ground. Protruding from his back is a sparkling arrow exactly like the one I shot a few days ago. A moment later, faeries spill out of the tunnel into the Circle. They’re wearing the same dark blue uniform I saw on the man and woman who came searching for us in the forest. Glittering arrows fly everywhere, missing their targets as reptiscillas start vanishing. Colored sparks dart and weave, and spears of ice shoot across the Circle. A knife sails toward me and lands with a thwack in the wooden cart just inches from my head. I duck down behind the cart.
    “Get out of here!” Asim yells to me as he dives for cover behind another cart. He could have vanished by now, but as the Leader Supreme I suppose he thinks he should be the last one to leave.
    I kneel down and drag my stylus through the dirt, writing words to open a doorway at my feet. Hands grab my arm, and something sharp slices the bare skin between my neck and shoulder. I roll onto my back and kick as hard as I can. The faerie stumbles backward just as a dark hole melts into existence beside me. I fall into it, feeling a hand grab for my jacket—and lose hold—as I disappear.
    I drop out of the darkness of the faerie paths and land on my feet in the mountain room. Unloaded carts stand forgotten as chaos erupts like a crazed ogre on the loose.
    “Where’s my father?” Jamon demands,