CHARLENE PRIED THE JAWS of the chair open, freeing Amanda, who seemed to be in shock, staring blankly at the two tables smashed together before her. Charlene didn’t have time to think about that. She cartwheeled through another pair of approaching tables, turned, and tossed a snapping chair into the middle. The tables banged together, crushing the chair, and teetered.

The tables fell.

“They’re like bees!” Charlene called to the recovering Amanda. “One sting and they’re dead.”

The front of the dining area burned. On the stage, a charred Witch Hazel staggered, off-balance, still stirring an invisible pot with an invisible spoon. At her feet, the Traveler swung his feathery necklace over an oddly green-hued fire. As Charlene and Amanda watched, he glanced offstage.

The trio of teens emerged from the wings, dragging an adult female mannequin.

What were they doing? Before she could make sense of it, Charlene spun and karate kicked the nearer of two tables rolling toward her. It wobbled, causing its twin to do the same. Changing course, the pair wheeled away, heading toward the fire.

A boy her age was busy lifting a fallen projector off the floor and steadying it on a table. He aimed its white beam toward the stage.

The Traveler pulled a cel from a large case.

The boy focused the projector’s lens.

The Traveler was speaking to the three teens. They moved the mannequin and squared its shoulders to the screen.

All this, Charlene thought, with fire and a battle raging around them.

Maybeck ran from the opposite side of the room to its center. Only then did Charlene focus on the tables that seemed to be holding Amanda semi-comatose. A pair of fallen tables.

They lay on the floor, but they didn’t look like the other tables that had closed like hunting traps.

These two were different.

Then she saw one of Finn’s running shoes, empty on the floor.