People only started screaming when the rug stood up.

Shenanigan didn’t blame them. It’s not every day you see a fireplace uncurl and stretch, one arm and knee painted black, the rest daubed all over in a blue-and-white pattern. Part of the wallpaper detached itself next, pulling a backpack from a sofa cushion—but it was growing harder to see what was happening in the apartment. A fine mist was filling the space beyond the glass, turning the painted figures blurry and indistinct.

“That’s the fire control system!” gasped Laurent, scrabbling for the radio on his hip. “We use mist, rather than sprinklers, so as not to damage anything—quite clever, you know—”

“A soupçon of urgency, please!” cried Bouquet. “It’s covering their escape!”

“Stop them!” Soufflé shouted to no one in particular.

The goons in gray sprang forwards. One of them picked up a drinks trolley and flung it at the glass. It bounced off, scattering guests and knocking Contraire to the floor as it rebounded. Whoever these men in gray were, they could not have been the brightest, because another one then did the exact same thing with a fire extinguisher and took his friend out at the knees.

The rest of the attendees had nothing better to do, so they began to scream louder.

Soufflé’s men continued to hammer at the glass with whatever was available, and seemed about a minute away from resorting to the hardest thing in the room, which was probably their heads. The Martinets joined in hurling whatever was to hand: trays, their champagne glasses, their shoes (which was a bad idea, considering they’d just thrown their champagne glasses), their hats. All of it either smashed against the glass wall of the exhibit, or ricocheted backwards.

Meanwhile, the apartment continued to fill with mist, until it looked as if a perfect cube of rolling white fog had settled into the gallery. Occasionally Shenanigan thought she saw dim shapes moving within, or a swirl of vapor that could have been an eddy from an outflung hand. The attendees continued to scream, but Shenanigan noticed that, despite the risk of rebounding objects, they were pressing closer and closer to the glass, trying to see inside.

“Where are the police?” demanded Grisaille, looking very small and peculiar in her silver blindfold.

“They’re trying to get in through the apartment door,” moaned Laurent, looking up from his radio, “but it’s not working. Someone has barricaded it.”

“Attention!”

Rousseau strode into the room. In a calm, clear voice, he ordered the attendees to make their way towards the exits, and was ignored.

“Maman, let’s get you out of here,” said Soufflé, suddenly remembering his mother. “I knew we should have brought Beige! Ennui, you don’t mind missing the rest of this, do you? No, of course you don’t. Please take Mother home…”

A pipe gurgled, and all at once the mist began to clear, settling into fine droplets on the glass. Everyone pressed forwards to see what was inside. Even the men in suits stopped punching the glass with their meaty fists and looked.

What was inside was…nothing.

It was an empty room, with some paint-splattered floorboards and peeling wallpaper. The furniture was gone. The pots of paint, the papers, the canvases, the washing line, even the stuffed rat—all of it had vanished, as if it had never been there.

“They stole the entire apartment,” said Silhouette in wonder.

“Not all of it,” said Erf.

In the center of the room, the plinth that had held the Pierrot was still standing. Placed delicately atop it were two small green wrapped disks, like the chocolates one would find on a pillow, and a card that read:

With the compliments of the Hôtel Martinet

Everyone turned to look at Soufflé. He was standing perfectly still, but his face was getting pinker and pinker as if all the blood was rising up inside him like a geyser and any minute his head would pop off.

“What happened?” asked Grisaille as Ennui gently maneuvered her out of the gallery. “Why has everyone gone quiet?”

“Allez les chercher!” Soufflé snarled at the nearest goon.

Several things happened then, in neat succession.

The pipes above them gave another ominous gurgle, and then a clunk.

The largest of the henchmen gave up using his fist and head-butted the glass, creating a long, thin crack that spidered upwards towards the curtain.

An enormous net containing the furniture, the rug, the art supplies, the empty coal scuttle, the canvases, and all the assorted detritus from the fake apartment dropped from the ceiling like the bounty of some strange fisherman, and jerked to a halt less than a meter from the floor.

“What on—” began Inheritance, but this was quite rude of her, because things had not finished happening.

The glass shivered and seemed to freeze in a dense network of tiny cracks.

A fire alarm began to wail, and all the sprinklers in the main part of the gallery went off.

And, finally, the wall of the exhibit disintegrated, showering attendees in broken glass.

The screaming really ratcheted up a notch then. Those who had been pressing forwards for a better view surged backwards, suddenly less interested now that there was no longer a barrier between themselves and the action. There was a piercing whistle, and Shenanigan saw Rousseau standing by a pull-down fire alarm.

“Attention!” he bellowed again. “Please calmly make your way to the nearest exit!”

He had to spit out water. Shenanigan was fairly sure that sprinklers were supposed to sprinkle, not pour.

“Is this”—Felicity was jostled by a shrieking woman, and grabbed Maelstrom’s sleeve to stay upright—“part of the tableau?”

“I don’t think so,” Maelstrom said. He looked at the watery chaos about him and took a deep breath. In a voice that once hailed his crewmates over the roar of oceanic storms, he shouted, “EVERYONE TO THE LIFEBOATS—I mean THE EXITS! FOLLOW ME!”

Shenanigan was nearly knocked flat as the crowd swarmed gratefully towards Maelstrom. She pushed against the current, craning her neck to look up towards the mess of pipes, walkways, and lighting rigs that wove itself above the exhibition space and from which the giant net had dropped. Water got into her eyes, but she was fairly sure she could see movement.

“There’s someone up there!” cried Bouquet, following her gaze.

“No there isn’t!” shouted Contraire automatically, but the rest of the Martinets looked up too.

In the dark above the fake apartment it was possible to make out several figures. A flash of gold told Shenanigan one was the acrobat, and the other four must be the rest of Ouvolpo. They had tied the rope that held the net of furniture to a pipe that had probably looked sturdy, but which was now coming loose, dribbling water. They were trying to secure it in place, but their hands slipped uselessly off the rope.

Soufflé turned to the gray-suited men, who, having won their battle against the glass, were waiting to be told what to break next.

“Allez!” he snarled at them, and that was enough to get them to move—and Shenanigan too. She did not think, because that had never been her strong suit. She ran ahead of the goons and into the fake apartment, leaping onto the net.

She heard Phenomena shout, “For goodness’ sake, Shenanigan,” but since that didn’t register as helpful, she stopped listening. Her hands slid a little on the wet rope, but she managed to get purchase. The net was enormous, swollen with its catch, and she hauled herself up the mass of captured furniture using a chest of drawers as a handhold, inching towards the walkway above. Three of the figures had already abandoned the rickety pipe and managed to slither out of an air vent. The fourth—the Wallpaper—was pulling on the arm of the fifth—the Fireplace. And there was something familiar about the Fireplace. They were working furiously on one of the knots while their comrades escaped, trying to fix it more securely, but the rope had swollen with water, and the knot had locked tight.

Shenanigan climbed faster. Ouvolpo had what they wanted. If she let them get away now, she might never know the end of the mystery. Never see Pomme again. Never tell her that it was always better to use waterproof rope in situations like this.

The net was shaking in her hands. She risked a glance down. Half the police were shepherding the guests out, though Shenanigan was gratified to see her sisters and Erf sprinting ahead of them. But Soufflé’s hired men had followed Shenanigan’s lead, and at least six burly gray suits were climbing up the net after her. She did not have to be Phenomena to make the simple calculation of more weight = more stress on pipe = bad. She heard a deep, wrenching groan above her.

The walkway shuddered. Several pairs of eyes locked on Shenanigan. Fireplace’s were widened in shock, and Shenanigan felt a jolt of recognition. The thief let go of the rope and threw themselves onto one of the now-sodden blue curtains, and with a desperate leap, Shenanigan did the same.

With a screech of metal, several bolts on the pipe tore loose, and the net dropped to the floor, furniture, goons, and all. Shenanigan barely managed to get clear. She skidded down the length of the curtain, landing hard on her back on the apartment floor. Blue velvet collapsed around her, smothered her, wet and heavy and suffocating. She couldn’t breathe.

In the dark, a hand found hers, and she was dragged out, gasping.

It was Fireplace. They took her wrist and pulled her to the back of the apartment. Shenanigan glanced over her shoulder as she ran, and saw the crumpled men in their even more crumpled suits groaning amongst the rubble.

Fireplace kicked aside a metal bar that had formed the makeshift barricade on the apartment door, and pulled Shenanigan through into a clean white staff corridor. The back of the door was dented and pocked from the blows of the police, but by now the officers had run round to the front of the exhibit, abandoning their post. Fireplace and Shenanigan navigated through the warren of staff corridors at a sprint, until they almost crashed into Shenanigan’s sisters and cousin waiting beside the glowing green sign of a sortie de secours.

“Shenanigan!” Erf’s voice was irritated. “There you are! Phenomena said you’d come out this way—”

And then they shoved the fire door open, and all five of them panted in the warm, faintly petrol-smelling air of an alley.

A manhole cover was open. One member of Ouvolpo, their long hair tied in a high ponytail, was just disappearing inside. Close behind them, a sharp-limbed person was shimmying down a drainpipe from the roof, while a person still painted like wallpaper cleaned their glasses on their sodden shirt. Finally, the acrobat leapt from a ledge, turning a somersault and landing noiselessly atop a dumpster. They had a Pierrot-sized box tucked under one arm.

They all stilled when they saw the children.

Fireplace let go of Shenanigan’s arm. They looked at each other.

“You can take off the mask,” Shenanigan said. “I know it’s you, Pomme.”

The thief hesitated, and then pulled down the painted fabric that covered most of their face.

“Cat’s out of the net, then,” Pomme said.

“Bag,” said the children automatically. Pomme grinned her pointed grin, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“You shouldn’t have got involved,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have left us behind,” retorted Shenanigan. As glad as she was to see Pomme again, it was tempered with a desire to push her errant cousin down the open manhole. The argument might have continued, but the fire door behind them opened again, and Pomme dropped into a crouch like a startled cat.

“Is everyone all right?” demanded Maelstrom. “I saw the net collapse and— Ah.”

The last members of Ouvolpo began to make a hasty exit underground. Maelstrom briefly met Pomme’s eyes and nodded, as if this was all just confirmation of something he’d long suspected. The footfalls of the approaching police echoed down the corridor behind him.

“Damn,” he sighed. He turned round, folded his arms, and blocked the doorway.

One of the officers ran headfirst into his chest. Uncle Maelstrom was unmoved. He just lingered there, arms folded, shielding Pomme from view while she disappeared down the manhole and slid the cover into place behind her. The children arranged themselves to look wet, tired, and innocent. The first two weren’t hard to accomplish.

Maelstrom only stirred when Rousseau pushed the officers aside, his eyes dark gold and furious.

“Swift,” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Maelstrom smiled. “I think I’m obstructing justice,” he said.