Whit shrugs. "Doesn't matter, does it? Any person willing to risk her life tackling a New Order policeman is a friend. A really good friend."

Whit rips down a NOTICE from a loudspeaker post near the track and tears it into shreds. "By the way, when did you become a 'leader of the Resistance'?" he asks with a chuckle and a glint of his baby blues.

"Hey, if The One says it's so…"

"Leave it to you to be launched into fame and fortune by a totalitarian thug."

"Shut up!" I start chasing him down the track, laughing in spite of myself. "You're just jealous!" And Whit starts pumping his arms into a sprint, back in football mode.

"No fair!" I call after him. He's bigger and older, and of course he can run faster. A lot faster.

For just a few minutes, we let ourselves be kids again. A brother and sister racing along the train tracks. Pretending that one of their best friends hadn't just been murdered, that they weren't on the run from half the world.

With a burst of enthusiasm, maybe even fun, we run those last few miles to our destination-a little brick building that appears on the map with an X and the instruction: GO THROUGH SIGNAL HUT.

"You have keys?" I yell to Whit, noting the chain and padlock on the door.

"You have spells?" he calls back.

Oh yeah-that's right. I'm a witch. And Whit's a wizard.

Sometimes it's hard to remember things like that when you're busy running for your life. But I do have spells-and they do seem to occasionally work on chains and padlocks.

And pretty soon we've actually escaped from the fiends of the N.O.

For the moment anyway.

Chapter 7

He is surrounded by a dozen or more famous works of art that he's had confiscated-works by the likes of Pepe Pompano, Pondrian, Cezonne, Feynoir-the best of the best. All banned and forbidden. All his now.