I sprung across the creek at its narrowest point and clawed my way up the bank. This was the edge of the city. Sporadic campfires lit by solitary trolls revealed the wooden braces that kept the cliffs from collapsing. The light was dim as I raced past and I was grateful, because the body parts I glimpsed were hideous—ancient, powerful beings whose quietude suggested that they wanted only to die in peace. Their flesh was covered in lichen and toadstools from decades of inactivity.

A figure swung down from an overhead pipe and landed on two legs in front of me. Firelight reflected from his aviator goggles and soda-cap forearms. For an instant I felt the notebook spirals around his biceps before pushing away, but there behind me, emerging from the gloom, were the eight red eyes of Blinky. I spun on my heel and started in a third direction but was met by ARRRGH!!!, whose cemetery teeth gleamed from the darkness.

“You’ve wasted so much time.” The metal man’s voice crunched from his stereo speaker between blasts of static. He raised a spiked glove. Dangling there was the bronze medallion. “Don’t make me say it again, Jim Sturges. Put this on before it’s too late.”

It took a few seconds before I recognized my own name. This had been no random abduction, which meant Dad had been right: there had been things in the night trying to get me. I thought of the ten locks on our front door and for the first time ever longed to hear their protective rhythm.

The man of metal read my mind.

“Your father refused this once,” he said. “Don’t make the same mistake.”

My muscles trembled with overdue exhaustion, and my mind gave out beneath the madness of all that had happened. I wanted to cry but didn’t have the energy. I slumped and hung my head, defeated by the stink of troll breath and the icy realization of a terrible truth. I covered my face with my hands.

“You’re the ones,” I said, “who took Uncle Jack.”

“Yes.”

“Who ruined Dad’s life.”

“Yes.”

“And now you want to ruin mine.”

“Take this.” The medallion jangled. “Take this and you’ll see.”

A piercing ululation tore through the air. I dropped my hands. Bells rang throughout the city and shepherds’ horns were blown. I turned to look and saw the snuffing of a hundred fires at once, the lowering of flags and the folding of scaffolds, the silhouette of carts and wheelbarrows pushed from the center of town to the edges. The ground began to shake as every single troll hurried to clear the streets. Many were headed in our direction. The stampede was coming.

That’s when I saw the ray of sunshine.

It broke through a crack somewhere overhead, firing like a lightning bolt into the mud near the sewage creek. The ray of light widened, and I heard the strangled yelp of one of the fishermen as he went down. That began the panic. Shrieks rose up, one after another. A second ray of light struck a leaning tower in the center of the city.