From nowhere, a disembodied hand grasped her wrist, sending her shrieking. She managed to shake it off, backing away, while Ahmad won the bag back from the monkey, which darted up into the tree. Winnie tried to follow but made it only one branch upward before she gasped, losing her grip and falling out.

“Winnie, are you okay?” he asked.

Winnie only clapped the dirt off her pants while shaking her head.

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.”

“What happened?” Ahmad demanded.

Winnie gestured with her head without looking up. “There’s a . . . ugh, I can’t say it.”

“What?”

Ahmad followed her gaze. Staring back at him, with nearly human annoyance, was a bird of paradise, its outlandishly long tail feathering back and forth just beyond the branch. He groaned.

“Oh, come on, Winnie. I thought it was a wild tiger or maybe a dragon waiting to roast us for breakfast.”

“Come on yourself,” Winnie snapped back. “I guess you haven’t had a proper encounter with a rat with wings.”

Ahmad’s brow furrowed. She sighed heavily. “Pigeons, Ahmad! Keep up!” She tapped each of her points onto a tip of her finger.

“They are filthy. They probably carry disease. They eat whatever they can get.” She looked properly annoyed—and disgusted. “Humans included.”

“I always thought they were kind of cute,” Ahmad reasoned. “And they know how to cross the street, which some adults can’t even do.”

Winnie stared at him. “They are literally called flying rats, Ahmad. Do you think rats are cute when they know how to use the crosswalk?”

Ahmad bit his tongue and shook his head again. “Well, at least we shook off that monkey. I think I can take on a bird if it decides to swoop at us. This isn’t even a pigeon. Let’s keep going.”

Winnie stomped after him as he continued on, but not before muttering, “So they can get rid of the entire dream district, but they have to keep birds in the code? I hate this place.”

The bird wasn’t the half of it. They sidestepped pockets of quicksand and shouldered through bushes that seemed to grab at them from every angle.

“I am never going to complain about the Bronx Zoo again,” Winnie wheezed, pausing to run her fingers through the twigs tangled in her curls. “How far have we even gotten?”

Ahmad stared around him at the trees. “I really can’t tell. I hope we’re not going in circles. Wait, Winnie!”

He reached out and snagged her collar, dragging her behind the nearest tree trunk.

“What is it?” Winnie hissed wildly. “What’s going on now?”

Ahmad pressed a finger to his lips and gestured toward the path. They watched as a lumbering figure slouched past. It could have been human, almost, if it wasn’t for the creepy twist to its head—as though it were sitting on a broken neck—and the shuffling of its footsteps.