Wood Sprites

Louise pointed firmly at Crow Boy. “But you have to listen to us. You might be bigger than us and stronger, but we’re a whole lot smarter than you. We’re not going to risk everything if you’re going to charge in without even asking us what we think.”

Crow Boy glanced about the suite, nodding slowly. “Yes, I see that you’re resourceful. And there was the explosion that saved us in the kitchen. And you got us to the hospital. And back out of the hospital. And yes, perhaps I leapt to battle too quickly. .” He fell silent a moment and then came to carefully lower himself into a kneeling position. “Thank you for all you have done. You could have left me in the cage and fared well without me. To be truthful, I would be hard-pressed to get myself to Monroeville with little more than the clothes you’ve provided. There is no one I can trust in this, except you. I need your help to save my people. I will do anything you ask, just please, help me rescue them.”

“We’ll help.” Louise picked up her new phone and snapped a picture of him. “The Pennsylvanian runs once a day. It leaves New York around eleven in the morning. We have to have IDs and a battle plan by then.”

40: Team Mischief

This can’t possibly work, Louise thought.

“Do you see them?” Jillian was hopping up and down as she tried to peer through the crowds. The new Penn Station might be an airy, light-filled building, but it still contained thousands of people, all intent on their own journies. All of them taller than the twins.

“Are you sure about this?” Crow Boy murmured.

No, Louise thought. It was a patented crazy plan. There was a full-out manhunt for the mysterious trio of children who had disappeared from Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Taking the train was full of hurdles, but so was every other way of getting to Monroeville.

“They’re here.” Nikola’s little-boy voice came over the earbuds that they were all wearing. “Northeast, fifty-seven feet, at a standstill.” There was a pause and a very Chuck Norris-like “Team Mischief move out” followed in the same Welsh lilt. Odd how Tesla now seemed very much like four little people. He felt much more like a tank operated by a crew instead of just one person in a puppy outfit.

“Which way is north?” Jillian hopped up and down more.

“This way.” Crow Boy headed toward the right.

The Amber Alert for the three “elf” children scrolled across the large monitors even as Crow Boy plowed through the crowds. The twins had managed to keep any cameras from recording their pictures, but the alert featured long detailed descriptions. A winged boy with a broken leg, twin brown-haired girls, and a large dog nanny-bot were entirely impossible to forget.

They’d done what they could to change their appearances. They’d found a healing spell for broken bones in the codex and cast it on Crow Boy’s leg. He’d muffled whimpers of pain but refused to let them cancel the spell. Twelve hours later, hurt had etched a dark glower onto his face, but he was walking without a limp. Without wings or the cast, he started out well disguised, but they took the precaution of spiking his hair and bleaching the tips. He looked like an angry porcupine. Even New Yorkers were veering out of his path.

Louise and Jillian were pretending to be boys. Harry P. Johnson and Ron W. Johnson, to be specific; as long as Jillian didn’t slip too far into character and use a British accent, no one should catch the allusion. They were young enough that in T-shirts and jeans they really didn’t need anything more.

Tesla was the most problematic to disguise. Most nanny-bots were smaller dogs, leaving Louise to wonder at her parents’ choice. They had discussed very briefly buying a different nanny-bot and shipping Tesla on ahead. The outcry from everyone killed that idea. In the end, they printed out the invisibility spell and affixed it on a large cardboard box that covered him. The babies had practiced keeping Tesla behind Crow Boy and between the twins as “Team Mischief” moved like a wedge through the hotel suite.

In the busy train station, Crow Boy was having no problem blocking people. The twins, however, needed to throw their arms wide to stop people from tripping over Tesla in his invisibility box.

“Maybe we should split up.” Louise scanned the area for a quiet corner for Tesla to stand. “You and Crow Boy look for—”

“There they are!” Jillian cried.

Amtrak had a rule that children under twelve couldn’t ride unescorted. Crow Boy was old enough to be an unaccompanied minor, but he would still need an adult to check him in with station personnel and undergo an interview apparently designed to keep loose cannons from traveling alone. Since they couldn’t travel alone, the twins had simply found a family to travel with.