Moving in sync they backed away toward the windows, a coordinated withdrawal, each one keeping one of the opposition well covered. Quentin got his elbows under him and propped himself up to watch, trying not to pose a threat to anybody. They were organized as hell, whoever they were. Two of them were commandeering Pushkar’s carpet, unrolling it flat onto the air outside.

“No!” Betsy said. “You can’t!”

She was handling this way better than Quentin was. Already she was back on her feet and walking toward them, launching wild attacks with both hands, lightning and then fire flowing from her fingers, flooding the room with light. But three of the robed people had joined hands to create a defensive barrier, and her magic died against it. Quentin sat up all the way now. His head was clearing. She was right: this was their job. That case was theirs. Those people had no right to it. He got to one knee.

Now he knew why their magic sounded so familiar: they were speaking a distorted kind of archaic German, which he happened to know well, because it was the same language the page from the Neitherlands was written in.

The last one climbed out onto the stolen carpet.

“Stop!” Betsy shrieked.

She ran to the window as they slid away. The bird hopped out from under the pool table.

“They cannot open it,” it said, maybe to itself. “They still cannot open the case.”

Quentin staggered to the windows, but he could only send a futile, fugitive heat ray after them, which whanged straight back off their shield and burned a scribble on the wall of the house next to him. Plum was kneeling by Pushkar, who was shaking off the spell that dropped him. Lionel was still on his hands and knees staring spacily at the floor.

The banging on the door started again, more urgent now. The wood was splintering. Even the blond guy on the couch, the one Betsy had shut down, was stirring. But Quentin felt only calm. Fear and confusion were gone, he’d lost track of them in the fight. And they weren’t done fighting yet. They were going to finish this thing if he had to do it himself.

“Pushkar.” His voice sounded weird and distant in his bruised ears. He cleared the dust out of his throat. “Pushkar. Is there anything here that can fly?”

Still leaning heavily on the pool table, Pushkar looked around the room.

“Yes,” he said.

CHAPTER 14