Finally, I spotted what I was looking for: a ruined building that had been reduced to a crater by an artillery shell or some other explosion. It was impossible to tell what it had been from what was left, and burned rubble covered the area around it, coating a thick-bodied old oak tree and the tree house on its lower branches in dust, dirt, and debris.

I went past the tree house without stopping or slowing down for several more minutes, and then went evasive. I couldn’t be sure the Corpsetaker didn’t know I had ridden in on her coattails, and if she was following me, or had sent a construct to do so, I didn’t want to lead her to Molly. So the carpet went from forty or fifty miles an hour to more than a hundred, and at the same time I constructed a veil around me so that I surged forward and simply vanished. I flew low, snaking through the streets, and only after I’d crossed my own trail five or six times without spotting anything shadowing me did I finally soar in to the tree house.

It looked like a miniature home, with a door and siding and trim and windows and everything. A rope ladder allowed one to climb up to the porch, but it had been pulled up. I floated up to the door on the flying carpet and knocked politely.

“I have you now,” I said, as much like James Earl Jones as I could. I do a better Yul Brynner.

Molly’s strained face appeared at the window and she blinked. “Harry?”

“What’s with the come-hither, grasshopper?” I asked. “You practically vacuumed me in with the Corpsetaker.”

Molly narrowed her eyes and said, “What was I wearing the first time we met?”

I blinked at her, opened my mouth, closed it, thought about it, and then said, “Oh, come on, Moll. I have no idea. Clothes? You were, like, eight years old and your mom tried to shut the door in my face and I was there to see your dad.”

She nodded once, as if that was the answer she’d been looking for, and opened the door. “Come on.”

I went into the tree house with her.

The inside was bigger than the outside. You can do that sort of thing in your imagination. It’s kind of fun. I’ve got one closet of my castle that looks like a giant disco roller rink. The roller skaters come after you like juggernaut, the music makes heads explode, and the mirror ball distributes a killer laser beam.

Molly’s headquarters looked like the bridge of, I kid you not, the U.S.S. Enterprise. The old one. The one that was full of dials that obviously didn’t do anything and that had a high-pitched, echoing cricket chirp going off every five or six seconds.

There was an upside to that setting, though: Molly was wearing one of the old sixties miniskirt uniforms.

Look, I’m not interested in a relationship with the kid. I do love her tremendously. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t look fantastic. Anyone with eyes can see that, and I’ve always been the kind of person who can appreciate gorgeous scenery without feeling a need to go camping in it.