I roll Tara and myself out of the dumbwaiter, and seconds later, the dumbwaiter rockets back down. I hear it rattling upward just as fast, and to my relief, Heath comes tumbling out. “Close the opening!” he sputters. “They’re in the hallway!”

“Stand back.” Logan pushes us all out of the way. There is a red button next to our exit. Logan does the reverse of what he did below—spinning the knob in the opposite direction and the shaft looks like a wall again. Logan sighs with relief. “I miss having a dumbwaiter. I hid so many soufflés from my hungry nanny in those.”

“No time for stories!” Kira says. “You need to get out of the village Prue says Olivina is calling for barricades.”

“Which way do we go?” Heath asks, looking from the dark alley to our left to the busy street filled with carriages and magic carpets on our right.

“One wrong move, and we’re done for,” Tara says grimly.

I ignore Tara and look for a clue about which way we should go. I spot a small rat and lean down to his level. “Excuse me? Can you give us directions on the quickest way out of here?” I ask, speaking in squeaks and tongue clicks.

The rat looks at me, and his whiskers twitch slightly. “Do not head into the village square. You’ll get trampled. Go toward the dark alley. It leads to a residential street of extra-large boot homes. You can get lost in there.”

“Thank you, sir!” I wish I had some of that energy bar left to give him. “Into the dark alley!”

Tara looks from the rat to me. “Into the dark alley? That can’t be right!”

I hold my chin up high. “This rat knows the village better than anyone, and if he says go toward the alley, I think we should go toward the alley.”

“Prue says Olivina is sending more reinforcements, and they’re looking for ogres,” Kira adds. “Plus, the harpies have entered the village square! You need to get out of your costumes immediately. No one knows your faces as well as they do your disguises. Ditch them.”

“Costumes off now,” I tell the others. “Kira, tell Prue we’ll be heading into the village residential area. We can wait there till the coast is clear, then make our way back to the forest.”

“Wait?” Tara repeats. “Out in the open? No. There has to be quicker way! Maybe we can reach Robin Hood with our kobolds.” Tara holds her right earlobe. “Tinky? What?” Tara looks at the rest of us. “She can’t reach Prue. We’ve lost contact.”

In the distance, I hear another siren and more shouting. This is bad.

“Olivina must have scrambled the signal,” Kira tells me. “You need to de-ogre and get out of here!”

We shed our costumes quickly, then rush to the end of the alley, emerging onto a quiet street with boots, houses, and teacups. A few children are playing tag on a lawn, and a magic carpet stand with children selling patty cakes is set up near the street. There’s no sign of the Dwarf Police Squad. Tara makes her way to the kids playing tag and snatches one of their cloaks lying on the ground.