“Fog patterns and mapping Sophie’s movements were my job,” said Dot. “And Ani’s job was . . . well . . . show him, Ani.”

Ani drew a black rat from her pocket, paws up and whimpering on its back, with a small black helmet fitted over its head. “This is how you’re getting to Sophie,” she said, plunking the rat in Tedros’ palm.

“This?” Tedros goggled at the rodent. “This is how I’m supposed to fly halfway across the school?”

“Rat #1 got you through the gates, didn’t it?” said Anadil, stroking the still-pooped pet in her pocket. “Rat #2 gets you to the tower.”

“And Rat #3 negotiates world peace?” Tedros bellowed, glaring at the shaking, shivering rat in his palm. “Last time I checked, villain talents have limits, Anadil. Maybe you have the talent to make a rat small or white or dance the rhumba, but rats don’t fly, that’s for sure, especially ‘Rat #2,’ who’s acting as if I’m about to chuck it off this tower!”

“Smart rat,” Anadil grinned.

“Huh?” said Tedros—

Dot stabbed out her glowing fingertip and a tuft of green fog floating over his head froze to ice, before turning a dark toast brown. Tedros looked up and a single drop of condensation dripped onto his lips.

Chocolate.

Like flames racing up dynamite, the green fog around him started to freeze and spread to cocoa brown, morphing into frozen fractals and swirls—some flat, some loopy, some blade-sharp, some spaghetti-thin—until the entire sky over the bay looked like a chocolate roller coaster, camouflaged by the night.

Running out of steam, Dot focused harder, her flickering fingerglow chasing a last thin trail of green fog as it surged towards Tedros’ girl body, plastered against the castle wall.

“Dot, that’s the important one . . . ,” Anadil warned.

Dot gritted her teeth, trying to keep her glow steady, aiming right at the whip of fog lashing for Tedros’ face . . .

“Now, Dot!” Anadil cried—

Dot screeched with effort and shot a blast of light. The fog froze into a knife-sharp icicle, an inch from Tedros’ eye.

Tedros blinked in shock, eyelashes grazing the chocolate spear. . . . Then slowly he looked down at the shaking, helmeted rat in his hand.

The rat locked its paws onto the icicle, with Tedros still holding on to the rat’s body.

“Oh no,” Tedros peeped.

Anadil kicked him off the ledge and Tedros let out a howling scream, clinging to the rat like a handlebar as it zip-lined down the chocolate icicle. At the end of the icicle, the rat flew off, like a sled off a track, before hooking onto another piece of fog-turned-chocolate. The rat zip-lined so fast along the chocolate tracks—corkscrews, dive-drops, sidewinder spins—that Tedros saw nothing but a kaleidoscope of cocoa and stars, as if magically sucked into one of Merlin’s hot toddies. He could hear the chocolate rails splintering as he zoomed past and the rat squealing with terror, knowing it was only a matter of time before the entire ride shattered under their weight. The rat flew into an upside-down loop and blood surged into Tedros’ head, his mind blanking blissfully, his legs kicking through air, detached from gravity. Above him, the rat’s claws shredded even faster along the chocolate tracks, sending creamy brown flakes scattering like snow. Delirious, Tedros closed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, tasting cottony sweetness, wondering if he’d died and gone to Prince Heaven, where he could ravish and pleasure without duty or responsibility forever and ever and ever . . .