Maleficent climbed up onto the sill. The crowd cheered from below.

Color filled the sky—the fireworks display had begun.

“Stop!” he shouted.

She turned. “YOU!”

It was no trap. Their being here clearly surprised her.

Her red eyes locked on to his. Her green, hideous skin scrunched tightly around her eyes. If looks could kill…he thought.

Finn stepped back, afraid. The cool air… Three loud bangs of thunder mixed with the fireworks, making a war zone out of the sky. A fiery backdrop played out behind the green creature standing in the window.

She glanced back at him one more time and then climbed outside.

Finn and Philby hurried to the smoldering window opening and looked out.

Maleficent was climbing the castle wall, her cape swirling in the wind. She moved like an insect.

He looked down and gasped. They had to be a hundred feet up.

“I’m not going out there!” Finn said.

“The stairs!” Philby said.

With every second she would be cooling off, regaining her powers. The boys hurried back to the bedroom, determined to follow her. The Dapper Dan was pounding on the closet door from the other side.

“Ready?” Finn said, his hands against the bed frame.

Philby, selected as a DHI in large part for his brainpower, did not need to hear what Finn had in mind. He knew intuitively.

“One…two…”

On three the boys shoved the bed out of the way. The door flew open.

The Dapper Dan, who’d been pushing hard on the closet door, fell through and tumbled down onto the carpet. Finn and Philby ducked into the closet, hurried out the emergency door, and threw the bolt before the Dapper Dan had climbed to his feet. They had trapped him inside.

They hesitated on the landing.

“Up or down?” Finn asked Philby, the challenge obvious to both boys.

Philby looked down the stairs, knowing this meant safety. Then he looked at Finn. “If she gets free, we’ll never be safe again,” he said.

“Up!” the two boys said in unison.

The boys climbed the dark staircase, slowly at first, but then, holding the rail, Finn picked up the pace.

As they neared the top, the sound of the crowd grew louder. The stairs ended in a small stone chamber with an open window.

It took only seconds for Finn’s eyes to adjust. There was a young woman tied up in the corner. She had wings, and for a moment he thought she, too, was an Overtaker. Then he recognized her as Tinker Bell. She was a Cast Member, in costume.

Maleficent stood in the open window, her robe fluttering, the fireworks flashing colors in the sky beyond her. Now Finn saw the metal wire secured to the wall.

“Silly boys!” Maleficent said in a raspy voice. “The end is near.”

She jumped.

Finn ran to the window.

But she hadn’t fallen. Instead, she flew off, away from them.

She could fly!

But then Finn understood: near the conclusion of the fireworks show, Tinker Bell flew from the castle. Tinker Bell was actually a Cast Member riding a zip line from the castle onto a roof in Tomorrowland. But on this night, it wasn’t Tinker Bell riding the zip line.

Maleficent let out a bloodcurdling screech—to the delight of the crowd—as she rode the wire high in the sky. She grew smaller and smaller.

The crowd went crazy with cheers and screams.

Her hideous screech rang in the air until swallowed by the next thumping blast of fireworks—the grand finale—that joined the rippling of thunder echoing off the Florida landscape like the aftereffect of a bomb exploding.

9

THE LIGHTNING STRIKE that hit Cinderella Castle charged the night sky with intense light as fire rained down. The bolt of lightning had grounded out on the thin wire holding the weather balloon. Next, the lights went out in a large area encircling the castle, including the street lamps surrounding the Hub, most of Liberty Square, and as far away as Tomorrowland. Spotlights that normally lit the sky went black, leaving the colorful glow of the fireworks’ grand finale.

Then something—or someone—flew out toward Tomorrowland, and it was quite obviously not Tinker Bell. The caped figure was chased by a ball of swirling orange flame. A chorus of cheers arose. No one was exactly sure what they’d just witnessed, but whatever it was, it was amazing.

Willa and the others heard the cheer. Only moments later a swirl of rumor reached them: a witch had flown from the castle. Maybeck said a few words that would have gotten him detention in school.

“Which witch?” Charlene wondered aloud.

“Three guesses,” said Amanda.

The three others looked at her sharply.

“Finn!” Charlene muttered, her worry hanging in the air.

“What do we do now?” Willa gasped.

“You’ve got to tell us what you know,” Maybeck demanded of Amanda.

“It’s Jez that saw this coming, not me,” Amanda said.

“Saw what coming?” he asked.

“Trouble.”

“You already said that. You gotta give us more.”

“I told you: Jez is different.”

“She’s your sister!” he complained.

“Yeah,” she said, sounding apologetic. “Kind of. I guess you could say I’m a little different as well.”

“Different how?”

“Just…different.”

“She’s not on trial,” Willa complained to Maybeck. “She and Jez came to warn us!” She addressed Amanda. “What did Jez think was going to happen?”

“She saw things. She wrote them down—drew things—in her journal. Kept track of them—dreams mostly. And daydreams. But…” She cut herself off and looked at each of the others searchingly. “The really creepy part is she showed me a sketch she made of lightning striking the castle. She knew it was going to happen, and I think she knew that Finn was going to be inside.”

“You owe us an explanation,” Maybeck said impatiently.

“And you’ll have it,” Amanda agreed. She glanced around—a number of guests were braving the rain to get a better look at the castle. “But not here. Not now. You have to help Finn. He’s in danger. More danger than from just the lightning. It’s the Overtakers. They did this. They’re responsible. Jez…I have to find Jez. They’re afraid of her…powers. She can stop this by warning you and others, but not if they control her.”

“Stop what?” Maybeck asked.

“I wish I knew.”

“The lightning?” Willa asked. “We’re a little late, if that’s the case.”

“It was more than that,” Amanda said. “Listen, I’ve got to find Jez. You all need to help Finn and Philby. They’re in danger. Jez saw that coming. That was what she was trying to prevent.”

“Okay,” Maybeck said, “enough chit-chat. Let’s get going. Amanda and I are going to head back to look for Jez while you two check out the castle and find Finn and Philby.”

“With the power out, they’ll close the Park,” Willa warned. “They’re not going to let us run around for long. And if they recognize us, they’re not going to want us in the Park at all.”

“Well, then, pull up your hood. Mess up your hair. We gotta do this,” Maybeck said. “If they close the Park, we’ll IM and figure this out.” He grabbed Amanda’s arm and tugged. She hesitated, then moved with him.

They took off at a run.

“Everyone IM at midnight,” he yelled over his shoulder.

Charlene and Willa headed for the castle, which was shrouded in darkness and a veil of smoke left over from both the fireworks and the lightning strike.

Behind them, they left the sputtering hologram of Jez, who, as another series of street lamps flickered and failed in the spreading blackout, sputtered and went dark.

Gone, just like the real Jez.

Some kids cheered from under awnings. Rain continued to fall.

One of them shouted, “The Kingdom Keepers rule!”

Willa winced at hearing the nickname that a local newspaper had adopted for the kids and their DHIs. She felt a chill down her spine and a pain in her stomach. They weren’t superheroes; they were teen models mixed up in some confused technology that no one fully understood—not even the people who’d invented it.