She stops on the stairs so suddenly that Conrad Linthor runs into her. They both stumble forward, smack into the wall on the twenty-second-floor landing. But they don’t fall.

Conrad Linthor says, “My superpower is money.” The wall props him up. “Only superpower that counts for anything. Better than invisibility. Better than being able to fly. Much better than telekinesis or teleportation or that other one. Telepathy. Knowing what other people are thinking. Why would you ever want to know what other people are thinking? Did you know everyone thinks that one day they might be a millionaire? Like that’s a lot of money. They have no idea. They don’t want to be a superhero. They just want to be like me. They want to be rich.”

Billie has nothing to say to this.

“You know what the difference is between a superhero and a supervillain?” Conrad Linthor asks her.

Billie waits.

“The superhero has a really good agent,” Conrad Linthor says. “Someone like my dad. You have no idea the kind of stuff they get away with. A sixteen-year-old girl is nothing.”

“What about Lightswitch?” Billie says.

“Who? Her? She’s no big deal,” Conrad Linthor says. “Old school.”

“I’m going to go to bed now,” Billie says.

“No,” Conrad Linthor says. “Wait. You have to come with me and see what Ernesto did. It’s just so cool. Everything’s carved out of butter.”

“If I go see, will you let me go to bed?”

“Sure,” Conrad Linthor says.

“Will you be nice to Aliss? If she’s still up at the party when you get back?”

“I’ll try,” Conrad Linthor says.

“Okay,” Billie says. “I’ll go look at Ernesto’s butter. Is he around?”

Conrad Linthor levers himself off the wall. Pats it. “Ernesto? I don’t know where he is. How should I know?”

They go into the forbidden maze. Back to the kitchen, and through it, now empty and dark and somehow like a morgue. A mausoleum.

“Ernesto’s been doing the work in a freezer,” Conrad Linthor says. “You have to keep these guys cold. Wait. Let me get it unlocked. Cool tool, right? Borrowed it from The Empty Jar. He’s one of dad’s clients. They’re making a movie about him. I saw the script. It’s crap.”

The lock comes off. The lights go on. Before I tell you what was inside the freezer, Paul Zell, first let me tell you something about how big the freezer is. It will help you visualize. The freezer is plenty big. Bigger than most New York apartments, Billie thinks, although this is just hearsay. She’s never been in a New York apartment.