“Neither is this place,” Tara comments. She’s been exceptionally quiet up until now.

We’re standing in a massive room filled with mirrors, each one showing something happening Enchantasia. There’s a live feed of a royal court meeting with village officials, a fight in the mountains between dragons and the royal infantry that makes me worry about Father’s whereabouts, a scene from a magic carpet race at Fairy Tale Reform School, and a live view of Royal Academy where Olivina is stepping into a giant pumpkin carriage. Some mirrors are dark, while others spring to life suddenly with ogres reporting in from around the kingdom. There is a radish shortage in the upper foothills, a fight between ogres and trolls evolving in the Snowcap Mountains, and a charity event at Jack of All Trades School. They’re collecting gently used hats to sell at the Mad Hatter to raise money for someone called the Queen of Hearts.

Below the mirrors are long tables filled with ogres writing so intently that they don’t even notice our arrival. Ogres walk around collecting finished scrolls and place them on a conveyor belt that moves them toward a long tube. The scrolls ride along until they get sucked up the tube and sent through a large glowing mirror near the roof. I wonder if that’s the printing press.

“It is the printing press,” Kira whispers in my ear. “Nice you noticed that without me telling you.”

“How did you know what I was thinking?” I ask, surprised anyone other than an animal could do that.

“Kobolds are known for being intuitive,” Kira says. “Besides, it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? If the ogres write the stories, and the stories appear on mini magical scrolls throughout the kingdom, they have to be uploaded magically somehow. Now if only they’d shrink them down to my size so they’d be easier to read…”

A shrill bell rings, and the mirrors go dark. The conveyor belt stops, the large printing-press mirror stops glowing, and the ogres look up, seeing us for the first time.

I feel my palms begin to sweat. I glance quickly at Heath. Or is that Logan? In our ogre getups, I can’t remember what anyone is wearing. Did he have on the top hat or the beret?

The ogres spring up, knocking over chairs, laughing and talking loudly. I tense up, waiting for someone to approach us, but they file past. Only one stops and stares at us strangely. “What’s wrong with you lot. Aren’t you coming?”

“Uh, we, uh, need to, uh…”

Logan. For sure.

“What he means is the file server needs to finish uploading that story about Troll Wars Boot Camp or their advertisement won’t run in this week’s scroll, and then we’ll fail to fulfill our contract.”

That must be Sasha.

Sasha smiles at the other ogre. “And you know how the president of Troll Wars gets when his ads don’t run on time.”

The other ogre blanches. “Okay, but make it quick. And only turn on one or two mirrors at most. We have to be done with lunch early to get to Gangia’s birthday bash at twelve forty-five. I don’t want to be late and get a small piece of cake.”