Lying flat as the carpet rose to the ceiling, Fifer peered over the side. Components were still flying, some of them hitting the bottom of the carpet and falling back down, which thankfully didn’t affect Fifer. “Please hurry,” she urged it.

As they neared their chosen exit, Frieda Stubbs raced up the stairs to the balcony. “I told you all to capture the Stowes and bring them to me!” she hollered. “You messed up with Aaron, and now you’re messing up with Fifer, too!” Before Fifer’s carpet could get through the window, Frieda pulled three heart attack components from her pocket and launched them at the girl. The heart-shaped components sailed through the air. Midway they sprouted white, feathery wings to help them reach their target.

Fifer gasped. “No!” she cried. “What are you—are you serious? Help!” She pulled the corner of the magic carpet and curled it over her head to shield herself as the carpet lurched through the window and rose farther.

Two of the components found their mark. The third smashed into the window frame and fell to the floor, undetonated. Fifer, stricken with a double heart attack, felt an unbearable searing pain pierce through her chest and arms. She fell to one side and began to shake and shudder until she rolled right off the carpet and dropped swiftly toward the lawn, unable to do a thing about it.

The carpet swooped down to collect its rider. At the last second it reached her, catching her convulsing body just in time before she hit the ground. It followed through on its instructions and carried Fifer away from the mansion, racing after the few remaining birds toward the jungle.

Trapped

Samheed, Fox, Ms. Octavia, Clementi, and Aaron woke up from being frozen and found themselves lying haphazardly just outside the tube on the main floor of the library. Aaron sat up and rubbed an egg-size lump on his head. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten it. He tried to figure out what had happened and how he’d ended up in the library, of all places. The last thing he remembered was fighting next to Fifer on the stairs.

But where was she now? He looked around frantically at the other four, then beyond them at the aisles of books. “Fifer?” he called out, getting shakily to his feet. “Where is everybody else?” He began searching the vast room. “Fifer!”

No one answered, but Fox realized that his fighting mate was gone too. “Kitten LaRue is missing!” He began running in a circle and then stopped. “Kitten! LaRuuue!” he howled. There was no answer from her, either, which put Fox into a great depression. “We have to find her! Oh, I just know she’s dead.”

“She still has lives left,” said Clementi distractedly, while testing her aching limbs to see if she was in one piece.

But her words didn’t console Fox, and he began running around in a circle again, this time near the picture-books display, which was Kitten’s favorite section. “Kitten LaRooooooo!”