Wood Sprites

21: Knock, Knock, Open The Box

Louise felt like she was going to be sick. She was so nervous her stomach was a queasy roil. At the same time, she couldn’t stop grinning widely. They were going to do it, actually rob a museum like two cat burglars.

Part of her really wished they were going to do a traditional middle-of-the-night entrance through a skylight, but it was far easier and simpler to slip into the museum in broad daylight while it was still open. With the museum closing at 5:45, they could even be home before their parents could deeply question their “working late on the play” alibi.

The American Museum of Natural History had its own entrance from the 81st Street Subway Station. There were beautiful tile mosaics of a coral reef with sharks and fish. The twins stood, pretending to study the art while everyone who arrived with them swept out of the station.

They backtracked to a blind corner and quickly assembled their gear. The spell needed to be printed onto a three-dimensional surface that stayed rigid while the magic was active. After a lot of experimenting, they’d found that wardrobe moving boxes worked best. The forty-eight-inch-tall cardboard boxes covered them head to toe and were sturdy enough for the spell to work while they moved around.

Louise was all fumble-fingered as she carefully taped up her box. It had to be fitted together completely square. Then, seeming impossibly slow, she peeled the protective sheet off the circuit tracings and stuck them to the box. Everything had to match perfectly or the spell wouldn’t work.

When she was done, she glanced to see if Jillian had finished her box.

Jillian was gone.

“Where are you?” Louise called.

Jillian’s muffled voice came from near the tile mosaic. “Over here.”

“I can’t see you,” Louise said without thinking.

“Doh!” Jillian’s voice grew nearer. “Hurry up. We only have a few minutes before they shut the doors!”

“Okay, I’m almost ready.” She lifted up the box and let it slide down over her. In the darkness, she activated the magic generator. She gave it a minute and then spoke the words that triggered the spell. “Did it work?”

Jillian huffed nearby. “Wait a minute, I’ll check.” There was a muffled scuffling noise. “Well, I can’t see you, so I guess it worked. Let’s go.”

The drawback to the spell was that they couldn’t cut eyeholes in the boxes. Nor could they mount cameras to the top of the boxes. They were basically running blind. Keeping the subway wall to their right, they started forward. Or at least Louise assumed they were both walking forward. She couldn’t hear anything but her banging heart, nervous breathing and the soft scuff of her shoes. The scent of cardboard seemed nearly suffocating; why hadn’t she noticed it before?

She went as carefully as possible down the subway hallway, toward the museum. They’d marked the edge of the museum’s surveillance with a piece of tape. Once she crossed it, she turned on her phone and used the back door they’d created in the museum’s surveillance system to watch the flow of people coming and going. They’d discovered if they moved sideways quickly, there was a slight blur in the video. It let them track their own movements with a small risk of discovery counterbalanced by the ability to dodge other people. She wove around a woman with a stroller and a group of Japanese tourists.

Her heart jumped as they passed the threshold into the museum proper. They were almost safe. There were people coming and going from the bathrooms on the right, so she kept to the left. At the end of the hallway, she turned left and went back toward the lunchrooms for school groups on field trips. The doors were shut and locked, but it gave a safe spot to crouch, out of the way, until the museum actually closed. There was a time stamp in the corner of the surveillance video. 5:32:03. They had cut it close.

At 5:35, the second closing announcement was broadcast, echoing through the nearly empty museum. After the English request for visitors to leave the museum, it repeated in Spanish and then Japanese.

Guards went into the bathrooms around the corner, their voices echoing on the tile. “We’re closing. Anyone in here?” They heard the thud of bathroom stall doors being swung open to make sure no one was standing on the toilets.

At 5:45, the recording of “The American Museum of Natural History is now closed” played in three languages as the big metal shutter rattled shut, closing off the subway station.

They’d done it. They were inside the museum after closing! They were now officially cat burglars.

“Meow,” Louise whispered.

The hardest part was going to be waiting another ten minutes before moving to be sure they avoided any last-minute sweeps of guards. There were still cleaning crews and guards and employees working late to dodge, but they should be few and far between.

Louise opened another window and checked on Tesla via a traffic camera. They had bought him the climbing feet attachments and had him scale the forty-foot granite pedestal to hide at the feet of the Chinese astronaut Jin Wong. The bronze statue of the man had odd wing-things spread wide behind him. Even after close study, and an extensive Internet search, Louise and Jillian weren’t sure what they represented. Its location across the street from the museum, its height, and the wings made it a perfect place to hide Tesla. Even on the high traffic camera, the robot dog was invisible.

Reassured that Tesla was still safe, Louise closed the window and waited.

At 5:54:30 something collided with her. She yipped in surprise.

Jillian whispered a curse word. “It’s just me.”

Louise checked her phone. The screen showed the hallway clear. It should be safe to talk, and they needed to keep from running into each other. “You take right. I’ll keep left.”

Jillian’s feet appeared on the screen as her twin lifted up the box to hear better. “What?”

“Stay on the right side of the hallway.” Louise repeated and moved to the left side of the wide hallway. “I’ll go left.”

“Okay.” Jillian’s feet vanished as she dropped down the box.

They needed to get to the third floor from the basement without colliding with anyone. The fastest way would be the elevators, but guards would see and hear the cars moving. They were hoping that the escalators wouldn’t be turned off immediately. They’d found going up stairs in the boxes cumbersome.

The good news was that if they moved slowly, there wasn’t even a blur of motion on the monitors.

The bad news was that if they moved slowly, it was easy to lose track of where they were and run into walls. The hallway did a weird dogleg and they found themselves in a dead end, bouncing off each other.

Jillian was stuttering in frustration. “Ompfh! No! Ah! Don’t.”

“Shh!” Louise hissed.

“Stand still!” Jillian whispered.

So Louise stood still as Jillian moved forward quickly to establish her location on the screen and bounced off another wall with another muffled swear word. Louise used her twin’s voice and the blur on her phone to orient herself. She was facing the exact opposite direction they needed to go. Jillian turned and headed the right way in a quick shuffle. Louise turned around and cautiously followed.

Luckily the escalators were still on. It felt odd riding up inside the box, not able to see where they were going, knowing that they couldn’t be seen.

At the top, she bumped into Jillian again.

“Go right!” Louise whispered.

“Are you sure?”

Louise flipped to the online map. They should be right off the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall on the first floor. They needed to walk around to the next set of up escalators. “Yes.”

Second floor. Akeley Hall of African Mammals. Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda.

Third floor. Reptiles and Amphibians.

Her phone’s screen showed the exhibit area empty of people, but the lights were still on. The glass display cases were full of taxidermied reptiles. A Komodo dragon gleamed in the perpetual dimness. She had been worried that the museum staff would start turning off lights, but now she was starting to wonder why they hadn’t. It was now after 6:00.

The Lost Treasures of Elfhome exhibit was in the hall beyond the reptiles. When the twins had checked earlier, there had been a barrier up, directing the visitors back through the upper level of the African Mammal hall. While they’d been on the train, the barrier had been taken down.

Dufae’s box sat against the west wall, screened on all sides by the taller displays. According to e-mails, the case would receive a glass lid after the elves visited the exhibit. The lighting had been aimed so it gleamed off the gold inlay of the spell-lock glyphs.

Louise had won the flip of the coin earlier. She shimmied the box up and off. She checked her phone’s screen. It was still showing the empty exhibit hall. Wetting her mouth, she spoke the keyword to unlock the spell.

The band of glyphs gleamed and a seam appeared in the wood with a quiet thunk. The lid slid up and off easier than she’d imagined for not having been opened for hundreds of years.

Inside were a dozen spheres nestled in velvet-lined holes. They were much bigger than chicken eggs, but had the same oval shape. A spell had been etched into the surface of the nactka. When she picked one up, it seemed oddly warm and heavier than she expected. It wasn’t made of gold as she had first thought; the material felt more like ivory under her fingers, feeding her impression that it had once been the bone of some magical creature, cut into an egg shape and hollowed out. She shivered and carefully placed it into the snow globe box from the gift shop.

Jillian’s voice came out of nothing on the other side of Dufae’s chest. “Incoming!”

Louise quickly put the lid back on the chest and spoke the locking word. The glyphs gleamed and with another quiet thunk the seam vanished. Back toward the reptiles, the elevator dinged quietly.

“Go,” Louise whispered as certainty filled her. “If we’re both here running blind, we’ll get caught. Take the backup route. Go! I’ll catch up.”

Jillian gave a muffled curse, but she went because she always got caught when she didn’t listen to Louise.

Louise tucked the boxed nactka into her backpack, felt around to find her invisibility box, and lifted it up and shimmied it down over her. There were footsteps coming quickly in her direction.

She was almost to the door out of the exhibition area, into the primates, when the elevator in front of her also dinged and its doors opened. She bit down on a squeak and skittered sideways until she hit a wall and backed into a blind corner.

On her screen, Louise saw that three people had gotten out of the elevator. The first was a man with a museum badge pinned to his shirt pocket. She nearly squeaked in surprise to see that the two people following him were elves. It was the queen’s delegation to inspect the exhibit for culturally important pieces! What were they doing here now? They were supposed to come tomorrow during a big black-tie event.

Despite the grainy texture of the surveillance camera, Louise instantly recognized Sparrow Lifted by Wind. The female elf wore a fairy silk gown, and her gleaming hair spilled down to the floor all braided with beads and jewels and ribbons and flowers. In the center of her forehead was the blue bindi triangle that she alone wore. Most importantly, the female elf was trailed only by Bladebite. Where were the other four sekasha?

“Look out!” Louise frantically texted to Jillian, who was moving somewhere through the museum below. “Elves!”

Bladebite was stating something forcefully as he gestured about them. He was using High Elvish, which Louise couldn’t follow at all.

“It is a treasure house,” Sparrow answered in Low Elvish. She flicked her hand, dismissing him. “The doors are locked. There are dozens of guards. It is safe. Go. Look.”

Bladebite continued to protest even as Sparrow moved away from the elevator.

“Go. Look.” Sparrow walked past Louise without pausing to see if the sekasha followed.

Nor did he. Far below in the stairwell there was a slight noise, like a muffled sneeze, that Louise knew in her heart of hearts had to be Jillian.

The warrior glanced toward Sparrow and then, shaking his head, started down the stairs.

Oh, for once, Jillian, please don’t get caught, Louise thought as hard as she could. Blindly charging after Bladebite, though, seemed like the wrong thing to do. If for no other reason than the fact that the museum staff member was walking in circles, trying to keep both elves in view. Louise was afraid that she’d collide with him.

The man wasn’t sure which person to follow. “Um, I thought we were going to, um, wait, I’m not sure if you can. . Right.” He turned and spotted someone across the room. “Yves? What are you doing here?”

“The EIA asked us to facilitate this since we’re trustees for most of the museums that donated to this exhibit. I brought Ambassador Feng with me. He’s the United Nations’ representative for these negotiations. His translator has taken ill. Parlez-vous Français?”

Ambassador Feng could have been mistaken as an elf even though he wore a dark business suit. He was tall and elegant and handsome, with long black hair and almond-shaped dark eyes. Only his round ears marked him as human. He stirred uncomfortably, looking annoyed at the museum staff person.

The staff person blinked in surprise. “Um. That’s French. No. I took Mandarin in high school. Nǐ hǎo.”

Yves waved the implied offer away. “I doubt very much that the husepavua knows Mandarin, and mine is quite rusty.” He turned in question to Sparrow.

“Oui, je parle Français.” Sparrow answered that she spoke French and proved it by continuing the conversation in that language. “What is this stupidity? I have guard dogs with me.”

“They are distracted.” Yves waved his hand in a circle to take in the museum. His back was to the camera so that Louise couldn’t see his face. “This is the most inconspicuous place we could meet. If I need, I can have your holy dogs killed off.”

“We should not be meeting at all,” Sparrow stated. “And please don’t kill my dogs. Yes, I loathe them with all my heart, but it would make my position tedious.”

“There has been a change in plans,” Yves said. “You must return to Elfhome as soon as possible. Go back to the border and wait.”

Sparrow hissed out what might have been a curse and flicked a glance toward the museum staff member. “We need more privacy than this.”

Yves turned and addressed the staff member in English. “Do you have the insurance paperwork?”

“No. I thought — do we really need them?”

“Yes. Please, go get them.”

No, no, don’t go! Louise didn’t want to be alone with these people. She felt like she was in shark-infested waters; if they found her, they’d kill her instantly.

“Oh! Okay. I’ll be right back.” The man hurried away.

Louise shrank back, putting her hand over her mouth.

Sparrow waited until the elevator dinged closed before growling out, “You demanded I come, and I set all my plans in motion and came, and now you’re telling me I must go back? I will not be able to stop what I have started!”

“Shut up and listen,” Ambassador Feng snapped. “We do not have time for this. Your dogs might return at any moment, and I do not want them sniffing at me.”

“They will not recognize you, especially in those ridiculous clothes.”

“At least I’m not in the same rags I was in four hundred years ago.”

Sparrow glared angrily at the male who seemed more and more an elf.

Yves moved between them. “Dufae has an heir!” His voice was full of annoyance at their petty fighting. “A child by the name of Alexander Graham Bell. We need him.”

It was good that Louise had her hand already over her mouth. She muffled the whimper of fear. Alexander!

Sparrow huffed slightly in exasperation. “What does this have to do with me?”

“He is in Pittsburgh.”

“He is human.” She flipped her hand toward the Chinese ambassador. “He’s the one with the spies within the EIA. I can do nothing with humans without attracting attention.”

“Dufae’s child tested fluent in Elvish, both in oral and written sections of the application, and claimed our gods as his religion. Obviously he’s been raised by an elf. His guardian might turn to the Wind Clan when we take him. We cannot afford to get the sekasha or anyone else involved. You need to be there.”

“Are you sure that he will be useful? Neither Dufae’s sister nor his nephew matched his genius. This child could be an idiot.”

Yves still hadn’t turned to face the camera. It almost seemed as if he knew exactly where it was located and how to avoid it. “Someone in the NSA had the brilliant idea of screening college applicants for prodigies. They came up with test questions on building a gate that weren’t meant to be answerable. For almost three decades, no one has been able to. During the last Shutdown, Dufae’s child applied to Carnegie Mellon University and answered all the questions.”

Yves paced in the camera’s blind spot. “The humans have noticed our activities and have decided to put Bell into protective custody. The NSA has borrowed some operatives from another American agency to go to Pittsburgh and fetch Bell. They’ll be heavily armed and difficult to eliminate. It is possible that the Americans can make Bell disappear so not even we can find him. You two need to reach him first.”

Sparrow huffed again. “This would not be an issue if that idiot cat didn’t keep killing everyone who could build us a gate.”

Ambassador Feng reacted as if struck. “The scientists are not cooperating once they understand the situation. They’re smart enough to know that opening a gate between the worlds will result in full-out war.”

Yves waved aside the male’s comment. “She is right. We cannot afford another dismembered genius. Tell that cat of yours that if he harms Dufae’s child, we’ll have him skinned. Alive. Slowly. I’ll make him into a coat for my little sister.”

Ambassador Feng gave a slight bow. “I’ll have it explained so even he understands.”

What did they mean? Surely they didn’t mean an actual cat with fur? And yet that was what the words seemed to suggest. Was she mistranslating the French? And why were they even speaking French? Why weren’t they speaking Elvish?

“Can this not be delayed?” Sparrow seemed determined to not be involved in the plan. “Was that not the point of infiltrating the EIA? So that we controlled what humans came and went from Pittsburgh?”

“We cannot delay the visas for the two agents,” Yves stated. “The United States is expediting the papers using the fact that Dufae’s child claimed joint United States and Elfhome citizenship. The EIA has to give full cooperation to allow the USA the ability to protect its citizens; it’s part of the United Nations agreement. You must return to Pittsburgh immediately.”

“I can’t be there when Wolf Who Rules is killed.” Sparrow took a step backwards. “Your summons was the perfect excuse to be absent when he was attacked. Everything is set. He’s in Pittsburgh. I’ve brought one of his Hands with me to weaken him. A trap has been set that Yutakajodo says will succeed. I cannot compromise my position by returning until the deed is done.”

“My father commands it,” Yves stated coldly. “You must obey. Finish up here and return immediately to Monroeville and wait for Shutdown. Do what you must to make sure that you arrive in Pittsburgh first.”

“But — But—” Sparrow struggled to refuse.

Yves cut off her protest. “By the time you cross the border, the viceroy will be dead. No one will lay the blame on you.”

Louise realized she was crying. Alexander was an idea of a perfect older sister and a handful of photographs. Windwolf was much more a real person to her. Louise had watched hours of video of the viceroy and pored over all the known facts of his life. She knew him better than most of her teachers. How could they talk so casually about killing him?

Yves turned to Ambassador Feng. “We will need Shoji on this. He is the only one we have clever enough to verify that the work we get out of Dufae is correct. You have him on leash now?”

“Firmly. We’ve got the child caged in an obscuring spell at a secret compound. Shoji will not be able to find him.”

“Be sure to keep him well hidden and unharmed. We’ve missed our chance at taking the other children of the Chosen bloodline. Without the others, we’ll lose our hold on the tengu if the child we have is killed or freed.”

“We have Shoji.”

Yves snorted with contempt. “The male would kill himself before being used that way. It’s the dragon influence on the bloodline. If it comes to that, you’ll have to cage him.”

There was the scrape of boots and they all went silent, turning, clearly frightened.

Stormsong stood in the doorway of the Lost Treasures exhibit. She frowned at the three assembled in the hallway. She asked something in High Elvish.

“Good God, tell me that she doesn’t speak French,” the ambassador murmured, although neither his tone nor his face betrayed the fear of his words.

Louise muffled a whimper, remembering how Yves had so casually mentioned killing off the holy warriors if they learned too much.

Sparrow snorted. “Not a word.” She switched to English to address the warrior. “Not all humans speak English. We are speaking French.”

Stormsong studied Ambassador Feng for a minute and then asked in fluent Mandarin, “Why aren’t you using the Chinese official language? Would not that be more polite?”

Ambassador Feng went white and took a step back. He caught himself and bowed, stuttering out, “I’m — I’m amazed. I did not know that you spoke my language.”

“We’re not speaking Mandarin because I don’t know it.” Yves returned the conversation to English. His tone was bold and fearless. “This is a common problem with humans. Earth has nearly seven thousand distinct languages. We have a legend that at one time we tried to reach the heavens and one of our gods cursed us so we would fail. He made it so not one man spoke the same language as his neighbor. And in a babbling of voices, the people abandoned their great work and fled in confusion.”

“The tower of Babel. I know the story. I’ve read your Bible.”

“Singing Storm of Wind has helped the viceroy study human culture since they were doubles. Wolf Who Rules hired tutors to teach them several of Earth’s languages. Together they have read most of the classic works of human literature.”

“But you didn’t teach them French?” Ambassador Feng asked in French but proved that he had been following the English conversation.

Sparrow locked down on a flash of anger, trying to pass it off as thinking carefully before answering the question in French. “I’d been banished to the farthest corner of hell by his father. I did not join Wolf’s household until after the first Startup.”

The elevator dinged and the staff person tumbled out, shuffling through papers. “Yes. Sorry. I should have had these ready.”

They all turned to face him. Yves, however, was the one who addressed him.

“Yes, we’re going to have to prepare claims on three items. You can ship them tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? We were hoping that the elves would allow us to keep the exhibit together until the end of this show.”

“Tomorrow,” Yves said firmly. “Let me point them out.”

Ambassador Feng frowned as Yves swept the staff person back into the exhibit room. “I know your people still see him as our emperor,” he murmured quietly to Sparrow alone. “But much has changed since the pathways between the worlds were closed. Our goals are no longer strictly the same.”

Sparrow sniffed with disdain. “It seems to me that your people are the ones who lost sight of the truth. Playing with your ugly little monsters. We are meant to be gods with angels serving our every whim.”

“We needed an army to take back our world. Monsters were the only way to build one quickly. Once we have what is ours, we’ll go back to making angels.” The ambassador glanced toward Stormsong. “More obedient ones this time.”

Sparrow and Ambassador Feng followed Yves as Zephyr Blade came trotting upstairs. Stormsong nodded to the male warrior in greeting.

“This is the strangest place I have ever seen.” Zephyr Blade eyed the primates in the glass display cases down the hall. “Those are not real humans mounted downstairs?”

“I doubt it,” Stormsong growled. “I believe they’re cleverly made dolls. Like that mechanical dog at the hotel. Humans are very good at deception.”

Louise huddled inside her invisible box. What should she do? Should she reveal herself and explain what she’d overheard? Would they believe her? Would she even have a chance to explain if she suddenly popped up out of nowhere? The warriors sounded somewhat freaked by the museum.

“Is something wrong?” Zephyr Blade asked Stormsong.

“I’m not used to being surprised.” The female started to pace in a wide circle, nearly brushing up against Louise’s box. “I feel half blind and half dead.”

“It’s because this world has no magic. It’s blinding your ability. All of us are feeling it. It’s like we’ve been coated with lead. How long are we staying?”

“Sparrow will not say. I’m not sure that she knows. It will depend on how cooperative the humans are. It could be months. I’m not sure why she felt the need for us to come; almost everything on Earth, we sold to the humans outright.”

“She is right that something important might have been lost when the war broke out and we pulled down the pathways.”

Assuming that Louise didn’t trigger some automatic “hack first, ask questions later” response, what would she actually say? That Sparrow had laid a trap for Windwolf? Louise didn’t know where or when or how. Nothing but honor would stop Sparrow from denying it, and everything Louise had witnessed indicated that Sparrow would do anything and say anything to keep her secret. Obviously she had lied about why she wanted to be on Earth. According to Stormsong, humans like Louise were “good at deception,” and Sparrow was her trusted leader.

And even if the warriors believed Louise over another elf, could they save Windwolf?

By the time you cross the border, he will be dead.

Obviously the assassination attempt was scheduled to happen before Shutdown. No one could communicate with Elfhome until Pittsburgh returned to Earth on Tuesday.

No matter what Louise did, she couldn’t save Windwolf. Yves said that if the sekasha proved troublesome, he’d have them all killed. By warning the warriors, Louise would merely make them targets when they were most vulnerable. The three people plotting at the museum represented an unknown number of powerful, hidden people. Their organization had obviously infiltrated both the EIA and the Chinese government. Hundreds, maybe thousands, against five warriors stranded on Earth.

How would the warriors even stop the three here? Kill them? Louise shuddered at the sudden image of blood splattering across glass display cases. What else could the elves do? If they tried to follow human laws, the assassins would be free to contact others to carry out their plans. Their massive organization would kill the five sekasha before they could carry the news back to Elfhome.

And every action had a reaction. If Louise acted against Yves, he could act against her. Even if she slipped away without giving her name and address, the security cameras would record her face. A quick check of elementary schools in the area would find her and Jillian. These people that so casually kidnapped and dismembered scientists, murdered elf nobles, and caged children to be used against their family would know where the twins lived.

No, she couldn’t warn the sekasha. She could do nothing to save Windwolf.

Louise could barely breathe as grief and fear formed a huge burning knot in her chest. She felt like she was teetering on a crumbling edge and any moment she was going to go crashing down.

“Why,” Stormsong whispered in Elvish, “do I feel so alive?”

Louise blinked back tears and realized that the female had stopped pacing right in front of her.

Suddenly her box slid upward, exposing Louise.

Stormsong held the box over her head, gazing down at Louise with confusion.

Louise gazed up at her in utter terror.

For an eternity they looked into each other eyes. Louise knew not what the warrior saw within her, but Louise saw grim determination settle on the face of the female.

“Go,” Stormsong whispered in English. “Quietly. Now.”

And she settled the box back over Louise.

Louise gasped, startled back into breathing.

“Now,” the warrior growled lowly and gave the box a slight nudge.

Louise bolted, running blindly to the stairs and then down, and around, and down, and around, flight after flight until she was in the Grand Gallery of the first floor. They’d assumed that they wouldn’t be able to get out the way they’d come in. The backup route took her through the Northwest Coast Indians and the Imax Corridor and then to the glass-walled Weston Pavilion. It wasn’t until she was at the Columbus Avenue Entrance that she realized she had done the entire run completely blind.

Was she really in the museum’s proverbial back door?

She flipped her phone to the GPS screen and checked.

She was.

How had she managed that?

And where was Jillian?

She checked her twin’s coordinates. According to Jillian’s phone, she was just a few feet away.

“Are you okay?” Jillian texted.

Louise had to try three times to type a simple “yes” and then twice to send “here.”

“Me or you?” Jillian texted. They both had an exit kit just in case they were separated and needed to escape quickly.

“You,” Louise tapped in. She was so rattled that she screwed the spelling up, but autocorrect fixed it.

“Okay. Keep watch.”

As far as they could determine, the museum had a maze of office areas and work spaces tucked between the windowless visitor areas and the building’s façade that showed four stories of windows. They had picked their exit point because it was one of the few places where they were sure that the interior wall actually gave direct access to the outdoors and not into “staff only” areas. The sleek modern pavilion was one giant cube of glass.

With muffled thumps and quiet mutters, Jillian got the Hoberman megasphere out of her backpack, shoved it under the bottom of her box, and flicked it to expand the tight bundle of plastic into a bright-colored, four-and-a-half-foot-wide, loosely woven ball. Louise winced slightly as the sphere seemed to appear out of nowhere on the museum security monitors. They had practiced this, but they weren’t totally sure it would work. They hadn’t used it to get in, since they hadn’t figured out a way to keep the sphere invisible while using it to breach a wall.

Jillian reached out from under her box to adjust the megasphere. Her disembodied hand turned the ball so that the loop threaded with wire was lined up with the window. With the soft murmur of Elvish, Jillian activated the spell. Another slight push, and the loop slid into the glass and the glass temporarily vanished. Then came the scary part, actually stepping through the loop, box and all. The spell affected only what it was touching at the moment of activation, but Louise couldn’t help but imagine that they would end up in the quantum space where the glass molecules were suspended.

“I’m through,” Jillian called from outside.

Louise carefully lined her box up with the loop and stepped through. “Okay, I’m out.”

Jillian’s hand appeared and jerked the loop out of the glass and canceled the spell. “It’s out. Let’s go!”

Louise checked the security camera feed. It showed the glass back in place and the multicolor ball bouncing away as it trailed behind Jillian, still connected by the wire. With a quiet thud and a muted “oomph” Jillian hit a tree and bounced off it.

Wincing, Louise checked the other security cameras. There were no guards heading toward the Columbus Street exit, so no one must have noticed the ball for the minute it was inside the museum. Breathing out with relief, Louise followed after Jillian into the wooded safety of Theodore Roosevelt Park.