A wall of tension formed between Amanda and Maleficent. The witch produced another ball of fire, but this time Amanda levitated it as well. It hovered next to the witch, burning hotly and illuminating her green face.

“You will regret this, little one,” Maleficent muttered, clearly afraid of her own fire. “You are playing with things you know nothing about.”

She grew the head of a vulture. Wings began to sprout.

Amanda released her. Again, Maleficent fell abruptly, before slowly being carried aloft. Evidence of the vulture was gone; the green-skinned fairy hovering over the precipitous fall.

The strain on Amanda was evident. She had quickly grown pale, her body now shaking.

Finn saw that Maleficent was merely playing for time. She knew Amanda couldn’t keep this up forever.

“Release Wayne!” Finn called out, “or she’ll drop you.

“The Quill,” Maleficent said, “or you’ll never see him alive again.” She looked over at Finn, who held to Chernabog rather than drop to the platform where the creature might squash him like a bug.

Amanda’s strength gave out, and she collapsed into Jez’s arms.

“You harm any one of us and you will never see that pen!” Finn shouted. He let go, jumped, slid down the mountain slope, and aimed straight for the two girls, hoping his timing was right, for he could see the roller coaster from the corner of his eye. Chernabog stepped forward, raising his arms in defiance. But he was too late.

Finn’s wild slide down the mountainside connected with both girls at the exact moment the roller coaster arrived. He stretched out his arms and caught both Amanda and Jez, his momentum carrying all three of them headfirst into the passing roller coaster. They tumbled into a middle car.

But the safety bars on the ride were already set, having been locked at the start; and, as the cars gained substantial speed, Finn held on to the weakened Amanda as Jez reached out to cling to the car, and with Maybeck, Philby Charlene, and Willa calling out from the back, the Kingdom Keepers plummeted down into the dark.

65

CHERNABOG MOVED WITH surprising agility for something that was a beastly demon with a pair of batlike wings the size of boat sails.

To the surprise of all, Chernabog made no attempt to stop the Kingdom Keepers. He flew toward the bottom of the ride. For once in his life Finn willed a roller coaster to go even faster.

He did not want to lose them.

Finn had ridden on Expedition Everest before. Within a matter of seconds they would be thrown into a spiral that would crush them against each other if they couldn’t hold on tightly.

Holding on with one hand each, he and Jez wrapped their free arms around the other’s shoulders and, with Amanda pinned between them, leaned forward, braced for the spinout.

Expedition Everest roared into its climactic spiral, the G-force driving Finn and Jez to their right, their hands slipping along the restraining bars. The force nearly threw them from the car, but together Finn and Jez managed to keep Amanda pinned in, and soon the roller coaster began to slow to a stop.

As it came to rest, the restraining bars released, and Maybeck and the others hurried to join Finn, Amanda, and Jez.

Finn left Amanda in the care of her sister and led the others through the building and out an enormous garage door that was standing wide open.

They ran out into the street where they caught a final glimpse of the back of the ice truck as it sped away.

“What now?” a gasping Philby said, clutching his sides.

“They got away,” Finn said.

“But we can’t just let them go!” Maybeck said.

“We got Jez back,” Finn said, “and we crippled the second server.” He looked at each one of his friends. “I think it’s safe to say that Jez and Amanda are now officially Kingdom Keepers.”

The others nodded.

“We have work to do,” Willa mumbled.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Finn said. His suggestion met with no resistance.

66

THE STORY MADE THE morning news: a refrigerator truck, being driven poorly, had been pulled over by the local police. The officer swore that he’d been knocked over when he’d gone to open the back of the truck, and that two creatures had been seen hurrying away. He refused to describe them. He said only that they had traveled in the general direction of Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park, and that from everything he’d seen, that was where they belonged.

For nearly two weeks, Finn—who’d been grounded for a month—sneaked onto VMK the way Wayne had told him. He hoped to find Wayne by typing the name into a text screen. When the white-haired avatar failed to appear, Finn organized the other kids, most of whom were also currently grounded.

So it was that exactly a month after the event at Expedition Everest, Finn went to sleep fully dressed, holding a small black remote button in his right hand.

As he fell asleep that night, he intentionally dreamed of the Magic Kingdom, and he awakened there on a Park bench, his body glowing under the moonlight.

He was at the hub near the entrance, at the end of Main Street, USA.

Soon, the other Kingdom Keepers joined him. Only Charlene was still in her nightgown, having forgotten to change into street clothes before going to sleep. Or maybe this was how she wanted to dress.

The five headed up and into the small apartment above the firehouse in the Magic Kingdom. It was exactly twelve midnight.

This was Wayne’s apartment. Most had visited it before. There was incredibly sour milk in the refrigerator and food that now wore a coat of green fuzz—Wayne had not been here in a very long time.

They searched for over an hour for the Stonecutter’s Quill, but to no avail. If Wayne had hidden it, he’d hidden it well.

“What now?” Charlene asked.

“Is there any choice?” Finn asked.

“But without the pen,” Philby said, “what leverage do we have? We can’t win his release without that pen.”

“We’ll think of something,” Finn said.

“Or maybe Jez will dream it,” said Charlene, “and give us more clues to follow.”

“The point is, we did save Jez, and we pretty much saved the Animal Kingdom from being overrun by DHIs. We can’t be giving DHIs a bad name, after all.”

They laughed. Five shimmering kids, glowing as they enjoyed a rare moment of levity.

“Maleficent used us to bring Wayne out of hiding,” Finn said. “We failed him. And although we don’t know enough about Chernabog, we’ve seen his power. And I have a hunch that the bat with green wings was him all along, although I’m not sure how to explain that.”

“We know that even Maleficent cannot transform herself for very long,” Philby said. “Especially in this heat. She and her animal army may have been planning to take over AK. They had the ice truck as their backup, in case they failed. It was only when we crashed the server that she resorted to moving Chernabog. What’s strange is that if they hadn’t captured Jez, if she hadn’t been in that tunnel to have that daydream, we might never have known what Maleficent was planning, might never have been there when she was freeing Chernabog.”

“I think it was intended—us being there. I think if we’d failed to defeat the server then the animals would have caught us all and taken us to her. I don’t know what would have happened, but I think she had plans for us. Amanda saved us all by levitating her. Without that…”

“I always thought staying up that late would be fun,” said Charlene. “But it—”

“Stank.” Although Maybeck used another word.

“We’ve got work to do,” Finn said. “And we need to act quickly. Who knows what secrets Wayne might have in that old head of his? Secrets no one should know.”

“Tell us what to do,” Willa said.

All eyes fell on Finn. They waited for him to say something.

He smiled, a warmth filling him and making his DHI glow even brighter.