The woman was extremely tall, blue-haired, and brown-skinned, with hoop earrings so large that Theo thought they could serve as perches for parrots. She wore a black dress with lots of complicated straps crisscrossing her shoulders and a belt with at least three buckles that perhaps doubled as weapons. She loomed like a goddess, both hands on her hips, glaring down at them. Another woman, shorter and Asian, looking more surprised than angry, stood on a pedestal in the middle of the room in a half-pinned white wedding gown or caftan or muumuu or bedsheet—Theo wasn’t up on the latest fashions—both hands clapped on the sides of her face like Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. If Theo had to guess, and he had to, the door from the tunnel had led them into the back of some sort of fancy shop. There were mirrors all around and plush armchairs. Several large stalls for changing. Some glasses and a pitcher of water with lemon slices floating in it sat on a marble table next to one of the chairs. Theo thought about asking for a sip of the water, but had a feeling the tall woman might dump the whole pitcher over his head.

“What,” boomed the tall woman, “in the name of all that is good and right do you think you children are doing?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we were just—” Jaime began, but the woman cut him off.

“Child!” the woman said. “This is a place of business, not a public park! Not a movie theater! Not a library! Not a school! Not your living room!” She peered at Nine, who had dropped down to her belly as if to appear smaller. “And not a zoo!”

“We’re so sorry,” Tess said. “We didn’t know where—”

“You just opened a door in my gorgeous stone wall, a door I didn’t know was there,” the woman said. “How did you get it open? Where did you come from?” She stalked to the wall they’d just burst through and peered down the stone steps. “What in the world . . . ?” she said, her voice echoing off the stone.

The Asian woman stepped off the pedestal on which she’d been standing, carefully gathering up the hem of the dress/muumuu/caftan, trying not to disturb the pins studding the bottom. “What’s down there, Janice?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” said the taller woman. “Perhaps the children would like to explain it to us before I call all their parents.”