Pop Industries occupied a warehouse whose painted sign promised PARTY SUPPLY & SURVEILLANCE.
The balloons in its windows had eyes.
The cameras in its walls had more.
At the center of the monitors sat a man in a dark suit.
He called himself the Popper.
Astrid’s team had crossed his screens in too many eras and too many impossible places, leaving photographs and little bursts of magic behind.
He watched a clip of the girls laughing beside Edgar.
Then he brought up a file marked VARIABLE UNKNOWN.
“They think the world will float forever,” he murmured.
“But I know how to pop a prophecy.”
He pressed a red switch.
Inside the warehouse, racks unfolded.
Pin-headed machines rose from them, each with tiny propellers and a steel point for a nose.
“Deploy the Prickers.
Begin the Deflation Protocol.”
The first wave passed over the forest at dusk.
Astrid’s device chirped.
An intrusion alert filled the glass in front of her eyes.
“We’ve got company,” she said, “and they’ve got pins!”
The black-haired witch rolled up her sleeves.
The red-haired witch lit her torch with her fingertips.
Edgar took one look at the approaching glitter and stepped in front of Astrid.
“Time to pop back,” she told him.
For once the word felt less like a joke than a promise.
The Prickers descended in a gold storm.
Edgar leapt.
His fists scattered three of them into the branches, while the black-haired witch sent a gust spiraling between the trunks.
Astrid raised a glowing circular seal.
“Winds of rubber, rise and bind!” the witch cried.
The first rank spun helplessly against an invisible current.
Astrid found the next pattern on her display.
The Prickers moved together, adjusting their attacks whenever one fell.
A shared signal linked them.
She reached into the circle and traced its center with a finger.
“Eat wax, tinheads!”
The red-haired witch drove fire through the trapped machines.
Orange sparks burst in the air.
For a moment they were winning.
From his control room, the Popper watched the sparks go dark.
“Initiate phase two,” he said.
The next machine hit Edgar square in the shoulder.
Its needle found a seam.
A hiss escaped his armor.
His golden surface dulled to steel gray, and the pressure that made him strong began to drain away.
“Edgar!” Astrid shouted.
He seized the machine and crushed it, but a second one came at Astrid’s helmet.
She jerked her controls.
Her bubble bounced the pin aside.
The impact sent her tumbling through the air.
Below, the ground rushed up, much too solid and much too close.