Penny was pulling her pajama top over her head when Zoe screamed from below.
“Zoe?”
She heard the front door crash open, then Zoe’s wordless shriek.
She ran for the open trapdoor from her attic bedroom to the hallway below, still struggling to pull her shirt down. She tottered over the edge for a moment, trying to free her hands from the leather cord and the Phoenix Key hanging around her neck. Now that they kept the book locked inside the trunk while they were away, Penny never went anywhere without the key. By the time she’d untangled herself and started down the sliding stairs, Zoe’s cries had regressed to mere babble, like the frightened half-talk of someone caught in a horrible dream.
Penny pounded down the upstairs hallway, bare feet slapping the floor painfully, and slid to a st
