The moment before Addy opened her eyes, she heard beautiful music. A violin and a flute. And a deeper note, played on a cello. Phew, safely out of that stinking laboratory! But where? One eye popped open, and then—BOING!—the other. Holy cannoli! She was sitting on a marble floor, leaning against a pillar and—sludge!—her hands were empty. She hadn’t been able to hang on to Catnip as the sickening tumble of the page-turn happened.

“WYLDER!”

“I’m right here.”

He was next to her, staring hard at the ceiling. Addy twisted her head around to see what he was looking at.

Incrediballoo!

The day Uncle Vim had drawn the final version of this page, he’d eaten about two pounds of M&M’S and drunk seven cups of peppermint green tea. He’d been too excited with his own masterpiece even to pause for supper.

“Where are we?” Wylder asked.

“At the hotel.” She found her voice coming out in a whisper of awe. “In the lobby of the Banff Springs Hotel.”

“Wow,” said Wylder. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“It really exists, in Alberta—only not the same, of course. He made it kind of amazing, eh?”

Go, Uncle Vim!

Last summer he’d hitchhiked out west with his pal Mike to do some “research.” Of course, Vim and Mike couldn’t afford to stay in the luxurious hotel—they’d slept in a tent—but her uncle had spent his days in the Banff Springs lobby with his sketchpad. Taking visual notes in the real place helped, obviously, but Addy could see that the best parts were all his imagined details, like—

“Look at those amazing waiter guys!” Wylder seemed to be in a trance. “ServiDudes in tuxedos!”

“Where’s the comic book? Give it to me.”

“ ‘Thank you for saving us, Wylder,’ ” said Wylder, using that squeaky voice again to imitate her.

Addy might have said thank you, might even have smiled, except …

“We’re here without Catnip! We’ve got to flip the page and go back to Lickpenny’s lab.”

“Are you nuts?” Now he was paying attention. “Did you happen to notice the oncoming robot, covered in patches of human skin?”

“You turned the page too quickly! I didn’t have time—”

“Of course I turned the page quickly! His hands were reaching out to twist our little necks!”

“But I didn’t catch Ca-a-atnip!” Addy didn’t mean to make that whimpery noise, but it happened, along with a hot prickle in her eyes. “He was drinking that disgusting—” She thought of all the things that she and her uncle had laughingly imagined were in the catalyzer. Hens’ feet and snot and kale and …

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Look,” she said. “I get that you’re afraid. Wait for me here. I’ll go alone and come back quick as anything. I can’t just leave him there, you … you … worm sludge!”

She tried to snatch the comic from Wylder’s hand, but he yanked it away.

“You shouldn’t call me names all the time.” He stuffed the comic under his shirt. “We’ll talk about this when you’ve calmed down a little.”

“Aaaaahhhhhh!” Addy spun around and stomped off toward the fountain in the center of the lobby.

Wylder watched her walk away. Maybe he should have been more understanding. Or at least handed over the comic—which was hers, after all. But no way was he going back to Lickpenny’s lab! For a rat?

And if she went back there by herself, she and the comic might end up as robot chow, and then what would happen to him? Darn it, why did she have to get so upset? Girls! Always making a big deal about things. His mom was the same way. All Wylder wanted was to have fun. This was the coolest hotel in the non-history of the world. Hotel?! You could host the Olympics in here. Pillars the size of trees reached up to a sky-high roof of dazzling diamondy brilliance.

And what on earth was this? A rolling counter with stools to sit on, driven by a guy with an apron and a pointed beard. He pulled up with a smile and asked if Wylder wanted a milkshake, compliments of the hotel.

Wylder sat at the counter and sipped at cold, rich strawberry heaven while the contraption zigzagged through the lobby.

“This is a great idea!” he said. “How long have you been making milkshakes?”

“How long?” The driver looked puzzled. “It is simply what I do.”

“Always?”

“My MilkshakeMobile and I have always been here. Sir,” he added.

Wylder thought about this. Maybe if you existed on a page in a book, there was no sense of before or after. Your whole life was right there. Every time that page was opened, there you were. This milkshake guy had no childhood. He would never die. It was the same for anyone in any book: Winnie the Pooh or Superman or Hermione What’s-her-name from Harry Potter. Every time you opened the story, there they were, eating, fighting, laughing—whatever. Every single time. Wylder didn’t know if he should feel pity or envy. He finished the milkshake right down to the gurgly end. That helped. It was an amazing milkshake.

“Hey! HEY!” Addy’s voice carried across the lobby.

Wylder jumped off. Who was she yelling at? Should he go and help? Not that he felt badly about her rat. But they were in this adventure together.

He was still hesitating when he heard his name called.

Isadora Fortuna swept through the lobby amid a blitz of flashing cameras. Wow, she must be really famous! A fleet of ServiDudes in black and white followed her, carrying parcels, her coat, an ice bucket with champagne and glasses, and probably toothpaste. Uniformed hotel doormen stood on either side of her, each trying to bow lower than the other. She ignored them both, because she was talking to him.

“Wylder Wallace! So pleasant to see you again, mysterious young man.”

She looked even cooler than he remembered. Her pearly pistol and coiled whip hung from a belt, but now there was a knife in a leather sheath as well. Someone took a photograph as she reached to pat his shoulder. He was momentarily blinded by the bright light and had to blink several times. Was this what it was like for movie stars?

“Your friend Addy—the girl in pantaloons—is she here as well?” asked Isadora.

Wylder nodded.

“My niece has remained on the train,” said Isadora. “I was going to lunch alone. But I prefer the company of young people. May I prevail on you both to join me?”

She smiled like the dawn. Why didn’t Wylder’s mom smile like that? If Isadora ever wanted him to tidy his room, he’d do it in a minute.

Selfish, sludgy, comic-stealing Wylder Wallace! No fair, no fair, no fair! Did she have to physically tackle him to get back her own property? The comic book was really important to Uncle Vim. Plus, it was apparently their only way of moving around … and maybe their only way of getting home. Why did that smirking boy think it was okay to grab it? And then tell her to calm down? Grrrr!

Addy dodged the MilkshakeMobile (her idea, of course—“Quick, name your most wished for fast food,” Uncle Vim had said) and paused by the fountain to let the spray sprinkle her face. This place was like the inside of one of Uncle Vim’s wild dreams. It was a shimmering, clinking, crazy steampunk wonderland … so why couldn’t she have fun for even a minute? Why was she so worried all the time? Because she’d promised to help Viminy Crowe launch his new Summer Special, and that did not include disappearing into some science-fictional dimension.

And of course because she had lost Catnip. Again.

Would she hear his voice in a room as big and busy as a circus? Catnip didn’t exactly squeak. It was more of a rat meow with an underlying whistle, kind of like a chirp.

Her hands were soaking wet from holding them under the fountain’s sprinkle, her shirt spattered and damp.

CHIRP!

What?

Addy’s ears strained to listen above the hubbub of the hotel lobby. Had the violinist tweaked out a bad plink?

CHIRP! There it was again.

Addy’s head whipped around.

Catnip! Alive and wriggling! Not perched on the rim of a bubbling cauldron in the villain’s lair, but on the same page of the comic that she was on! Oh, but …

There was a big but, bringing a throb of rage to Addy’s chest. Catnip was upside down. His tiny feet scrabbled against thin air as he swung slowly back and forth far above her. Professor Lickpenny’s horrible nephew leered over the balustrade of the mezzanine. His grimy fingers gripped Catnip’s tail, and his arm swayed casually above the crowd that clustered around the fountain.

Addy leapt onto the escalator, shouting, “Hey! HEY!”

If Nevins dropped Catnip, she’d drop him, the sludge-ball cockroach! Addy pushed past a lady’s taffeta skirt and ducked under a gentleman’s wool-clad arm, catching a whiff that she wished she’d missed.

What was going on here? In one hand, Nevins had Catnip. In the other, he grasped the mysterious parcel that he’d collected for his uncle. This was supposed to be the scene where the brat fell into the milkshake churn and Flynn had to save him. (Ironic, since Nevins’s package contained the spare part for the lammergeyer, which would grab Flynn later in the comic.) That was what was supposed to be happening. But Nevins was nowhere near the milkshake churn. And where was Flynn?

The story was changing.

Addy stumbled up the escalator. “Don’t you dare drop him, you measly dot!”