Ellea lay on her back and watched stars begin to appear in the darkening sky.  “No comets yet,” she observed.  “It’s quite a clear night, really.”

Jon, sitting nearby, smiled hesitantly.

Djaren perched in the paper and paste observatory he’d built at the top of the gazebo, staring upward through his spyglass.  “I think I see a nebula.  And those are three little stars clumped together, not one, in the beak of the Swan.”

“You’d better come down from there.  I think you’re going to be in trouble,” Ellea said.  “There are people coming down from the hotel.”

Jon sat up and peered over the gazebo rail.  “That maid doesn’t look very pleased,” he said, then jumped, as sudden radiance flashed from his palm.

He stuffed his hand in his pocket while Ellea lit a lantern, both to mask Jon’s light and to see who was coming.  Ellea could hear Djaren scuttling about above, trying to clear away his paperboard constructions, maybe.  He skidded down suddenly, landing at the gazebo entrance in a little flurry of paper.

“I’m sorry if we’ve made a mess.  We’ll tidy it all up,” he said in Germhacht to the people approaching.  They did not answer.  Ellea looked around Djaren’s back to see eight adults, all in simple, dark, fine clothing like the servants and staff at the hotel.  One woman was clearly a maid, apron and all.  Even though Ellea could not recall having seen any of them in the hotel before, they looked oddly familiar.

“Are you the night shift?” Djaren asked, looking at the grim advancing faces.  “Because we are hotel guests, and I did ask permission to be here.”

Jon, close beside Ellea, whispered, “It’s getting brighter. Something’s wrong.”

The people were nearly upon them.  Ellea felt Djaren tense.  He stared from one face to the next.  “Pumphrites!” he yelled.  “Half of them are Pumphrites in plainclothes!  Run!”

The woman in the lead, the maid, reached out with one oddly claw-like hand, grabbed Djaren by the front of his jacket, and threw him with horrific strength into the bushes three yards away.  He fell with a cry, tangled partway through a topiary.

Ellea and Jon retreated.  Jon pulled his hand from his pocket and bright light burst out from his palm, briefly blinding the oncoming Pumphrites, and giving Jon and Ellea a chance to scamper over the gazebo’s ledge and drop down into the garden. 

Ellea grabbed Jon’s other hand and ran toward the hotel’s hedge maze.  “What’s going on?” Jon asked, breathless from running.  “What do they want?  They don’t look quite themselves.  They’re not talking.”

“That is certainly out of character,” Ellea allowed, pulling Jon around a short series of bends in the maze.

“Should we be leaving Djaren alone out there, with them?” Jon asked. 

Ellea paused, torn.  He’d flown like a rag doll and made a noise on falling.  He was bigger than her, and always trying to be the heroic one, playing at being Father with none of his powers.

“Probably not,” she said, “but he is rather clever, you know.”  Her brother’s voice rose in a challenge somewhere behind them.  She frowned.  “Not as clever as he thinks he is, though.”

“My hand did something, did you see?  Maybe it will again,” Jon said.  “It doesn’t feel right, running.”

“I think they are after us, not Djaren,” Ellea pointed out.

“Oh.  Why?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe it’s to do with your hand.”

Jon blinked.  “Oh, dear.  Maybe if I ran off alone--”

“Don’t be silly or tiresome.  We’re in this together.”  Ellea pulled Jon toward her, and down a left turning, remembering how the maze went, from having seen it out the windows.

They heard Djaren’s voice again, a cry of pain, and a shout suddenly muffled.

“He’s in trouble,” Jon said.

“How annoying of him.  We’ll have to rescue him, of course, but I think it would be smartest to alert the concierge and the real hotel staff.  If we double back down this way, we can squeeze through a bare patch and run in near the kitchen entrance.”

“That’s clever,” Jon said.

“Of course it is.”

The plan nearly came off.  Ellea peered out, looking both ways, then yanked Jon after her in a sprint toward the kitchen doors.  But then the maid was suddenly in front of the doors, waiting for them, and a man came round another corner with Djaren, holding his arms twisted high and hard behind him.  He’d been gagged.  Djaren used the distraction of their appearance to kick hard at the man’s shins.  He broke free, spit out the gag, and dashed toward them.  “Back in the maze, and scream bloody murder!” he said.  “Don’t get close to any of them, they’re stronger than they should be.”

Ellea led the way back into the maze, and Jon after her.  She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Djaren was following.  It was good they were all together again, though she didn’t know where they should run next.  Her plan hadn’t worked, and she was too breathless and harried to consider any alternatives, except getting away as quickly as possible.  She hated it when people didn’t give her time to think.  She wished she were allowed to ignore the bounds of mental privacy just this once, and stop their pursuers herself. 

They all made it together deeper into the maze.  Ellea thought she’d been bringing them through the right turnings, but it wasn’t fast enough, and that man and the maid were close on their heels.  Ahead, Ellea heard people moving and realized that the Pumphrites were trying to corner them.  Djaren was shouting in five different languages, everything from “Kidnapping!” to “Fire!” to other more unlikely and inventive warnings.  Jon added shrill affirmatives to the ones he understood.

“Aren’t we just giving away our position?” Ellea panted.

“Do you suggest that we could escape this by stealth?  Because I am open to options,” Djaren gasped back.

“You’re the one with ideas,” Ellea said, a little harshly.

“I can neither fly nor dig like a mole, so I fail to see a method of escape from superior numbers,” Djaren said.  “If they have both entrances to the maze blocked, which I imagine they have by now, our only option for surprise is going through a wall somewhere.  Maybe Father or even Tam could thrash them, but I certainly proved I can’t, unarmed.”  Djaren sounded unhappy.  No bruises showed yet on his skin, but he was cradling one arm with the other.

“I see a place ahead where we can maybe squeeze through.”  Ellea pointed.

“Good. You and Jon go first, as I’m bigger and will likely be slowest.  If you see a chance, run out where there are people and get help.”

“Don’t do anything heroically stupid,” she told him.

“I’ll try not to.”  Djaren made a face. “Now go. Go!”

Ellea squirmed out through a thin patch, scratched and annoyed, and helped pull Jon after her. Djaren scrambled out through the hole they’d made with little problem, and they dashed off through flower beds to the easternmost gate of the hotel grounds.

Ellea cast a glance back as they ran, and saw something dark swarm up over the hedge wall and drop to the ground on the other side.  It landed on all fours, like a crouching spider.  Ellea blinked, and watched another shape do the same thing.  She wondered, even if she broke the rules and touched their minds, if she would find anything human there to stop.  Suddenly she felt much more frightened.  The light from Jon’s hand was glowing brilliantly all around them.  Surely someone would see that, wouldn’t they?  And come to help?

Djaren grabbed her up around the waist and ran with her, so they could all move faster.  He lifted her up onto the closed gate and helped her climb by pushing her feet up higher so she could reach the denser ironwork at the top.  Jon found a way up, bracing himself against both the stones on the wall and the gate lattice.  They both made it safely down to the other side together.

Then Djaren began to climb.  He was only just at the top when their pursuers caught up, all moving oddly, quick and jerky, with eyes strangely wide and bright.  One man grabbed at Djaren’s leg.

 Jon turned and ran back to the gate.

“What are you doing?” Ellea paused to shriek after him.  She didn’t want to lose them both and be left all alone.

“I don’t know,” Jon called.  “But oughtn’t I be able to do something?”

Djaren had both arms wrapped tight around the iron work on top of the gate.  The Pumphrites clawed at him with their grasping hands.  He kicked at them and lost a shoe.

Jon grabbed the gate with his madly glowing left hand, and the black iron bars were limned with lines of silver.  The Pumphrites shrieked and recoiled. One man who’d actually touched Jon’s hand fell back with smoking fingers.

Djaren kicked free and scrambled up over the gate.  He dropped down on the other side a little too hard, with a choked curse.  “Run!” he shouted, and pulled Jon after him, shoving him to run ahead while he limped after.

Jon seemed reluctant to get too far ahead of Djaren.  “Are those people possessed?” he asked Ellea.

“Yes, probably,” she said, looking back to see them swarming the gate like monkeys. 

 “Run,” Djaren insisted, catching up.

“My hand did something.”

“It did, yes, thank you very much,” Djaren said.

“Here’s a carriage coming,” Ellea said.  She dashed out before it and yelled “Stop!”  At the same time she gathered her will and repeated the command with the full force of her mind.  Forget the rules.  This was the one thing she could do to save them.  The carriage reined up suddenly before her, horses rearing and snorting.

The door of the carriage opened, and a woman’s voice called out in Germhacht from the darkness inside.  “Why have we--?  Oh, dear, whatever is the matter?”

The children hurried to the carriage.  Jon pointed back to the dark shapes dropping down from the gate.  “Those bad people are chasing us!  We need to get away from them, please.”

“Oh, my,” the woman said. “Why, they don’t look at all right.  Do get inside, dears.”

Djaren helped Ellea up, and then Jon, who paused with one foot in the carriage as  his hand blazed suddenly bright, lighting the face of the woman inside, with her purple crystal earrings and brightly colored turban.  Her eyes were too bright, and her smile too wide.  “One ought to be enough,” she said. 

Someone grabbed Ellea from behind and shoved an awful smelling cloth against her face.  She watched, helpless and furious, while the carriage driver raised his whip and hit Djaren.  Another man kicked Jon in the chest, and he fell back, letting go of the carriage, and landing on top of Djaren.  Ellea’s will slipped away like spilled tea even as she tried to direct it into an outraged command.  The carriage pulled away, taking with it her last fading view of the boys sprawled on the cobblestones.