A moment later, she and Uncle Jake were gone.
“He said we could watch them from the magic mirror,” Briar said.
Mirror’s face appeared in the reflection. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen. What can I show you this evening?”
“We want to watch Uncle Jake and Daphne in Paris,” Sabrina said.
“Coming right up,” Mirror replied. “Just say the magic words.”
“Mirror, Mirror for goodness sake, let me watch Daphne and Uncle Jake.”
Mirror smiled. “That’s more like it.” His face dissolved and the mirror’s surface revealed a narrow avenue lined with elegant apartment buildings. Each building had a smoky bar, or a cozy restaurant, or a little boutique on its ground level. People were spilling out of all of them, drinking wine and gazing to the heavens. High above, fireworks filled the sky. Streams of blues, greens, reds, and whites shot across the horizon, then fizzled before the next round. In the distance, an enormous steel tower hovered above it all. It was illuminated by thousands of little lights, and at its top a beacon flashed a brilliant spotlight three hundred and sixty degrees.
Sabrina turned to Briar to gauge her reaction. The woman was awestruck. “That’s the Eiffel Tower,” she said. “It’s amazing.”
Sabrina suddenly realized what Briar must feel. She had been trapped for more than two hundred years in a little town. Now, all at once, she could see the outside world so vividly it seemed real. Paris was a place, Sabrina suspected, Briar never expected to see again.
Uncle Jake and Daphne stepped out of a doorway and gaped at their surroundings. They stood still for a moment in awe of the city.
“There she is!” Briar said, pointing at a woman walking down the street. Sabrina searched the crowd. It was indeed Goldilocks, their elusive savior. She was grinning from ear to ear, obviously enjoying the sights and sounds of the city of lights.
“She’s there, Jake!” Briar cried.
“Sorry, he can’t hear you,” Sabrina said. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“How frustrating,” Briar complained.
Luckily, Uncle Jake seemed to spot Goldilocks as well, and they watched him and Daphne follow the woman down the street.
“I’m not sure how she’s going to react,” Puck said. “If they asked me to come back here I don’t think I would. They’d have to stuff me in a sack and drag me back against my will.”
Sabrina was unnerved by Puck’s words. She had never once thought that Goldilocks might not want to come back to Ferryport Landing, but the more it spun around in her head, the more troubling the idea became. Why would she want to come back? The town was controlled by the Scarlet Hand. She would be trapped inside the barrier again. Her true love was married with children, and from a letter of Goldilocks’s that Sabrina had read, the woman seemed to believe she was responsible for the death of their grandfather, Basil Grimm. If the roles were switched, would Sabrina return? She realized the answer was no. An army couldn’t drag her back to this horrible little place. What would they do if Goldilocks refused?
Just then, a black motorcycle tore down the street. The hair on the back of Sabrina’s neck stood on end. The driver was the same man they had seen in Venice—the same man who was terrorizing Goldilocks.
“What’s going on? Who’s that?” Briar asked.
“That dude in black is following her everywhere,” Sabrina explained. “He’s one of the Scarlet Hand.”
Sabrina watched her sister and uncle bolt down the street, weaving in and out of pedestrians and knocking a waiter carrying coffee cups to the ground. Sabrina shouted for them to be careful, knowing full well they couldn’t hear her. Still, it made her feel better to try.
Goldilocks spun around in the street. She must have spotted the motorcyclist, because she quickly hailed a taxicab and got inside—moments later she and the cab were roaring away.
“If we were there we could track her by air,” Puck said.
Sabrina nodded. She should be there, helping her sister, making sure she was safe. She felt an incredible anxiety rip through her. She realized that this was the first time she and Daphne had been separated in a very long time. Daphne could be injured. This lunatic on the motorcycle might hurt her. Anything could happen.
Briar seemed to sense her fear. She reached out and squeezed Sabrina’s hand. “They’ll be fine, Sabrina.”
Sabrina nodded and watched Daphne and Uncle Jake jump into their own taxi in hot pursuit. With the image focused on her family, Sabrina couldn’t see Goldilocks, but she saw the motorcycle race past their cab. She watched Daphne roll down the window and crane her neck out to see where he was headed. When the cab made a sudden turn, she nearly fell out and Sabrina screamed.
“That was a close one,” Puck laughed but stopped when both Sabrina and Briar flashed him an angry look. “What? It was funny.”
Suddenly, like water flowing from a broken dam, a herd of stray dogs poured out of every alley and doorway. There were rottweilers, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, pit bulls, wolfhounds, beagles, poodles, golden retrievers, Shih Tzus, West Highland white terriers, and dozens more in hot pursuit. They barked and snapped at the black-clad rider’s feet, causing him to swerve all over the road.
“She’s called some friends,” Sabrina said.
“She can talk to animals?” Puck said. “That rules.”
The dogs gave the rider as much trouble as they could, but his bike was faster than all of them. Soon, they were left behind, causing traffic to back up all over Paris. Luckily, Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab was undeterred and their driver raced on, steering the car into a circular street called Place Charles de Gaulle. At its center was an elegant arch decorated with statues and finely carved reliefs. Cars whipped around the circle from all directions. Without any traffic lights or signs, the circle was pure chaos, and there were several times Sabrina was sure her family would die in a head-on collision. But the driver was quick, and he steered the car out of traffic at the last possible second and darted down a tree-lined road bordering a park.
“Where do you think she’s going?” Sabrina wondered aloud.
“Exactly where I’d go,” Briar said, pointing at the approaching metal tower rising like a giant on the Parisian horizon—the Eiffel Tower. The tower was an incredible work of engineering made from huge steel girders and stood more than a thousand feet tall. It was quite a bit bigger than Sabrina had imagined, and she suddenly felt envious of her sister for seeing it in person without her.
Sabrina watched Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab come to a stop. They paid the driver and leaped out just in time to watch Goldilocks dashing toward the entrance to the tower.
“Why would she go up there?” Briar said. “There’s no way off that thing once she gets to the top.”
“She’s probably going to pull the talking animal stunt again. When we tracked her down in Venice, she had a bunch of pigeons fly her to safety. I bet she wants motorcycle boy to follow her up there so she can do the same thing. It would be a great way to lose him.”
“Except I doubt it will work. The wind has to be crazy powerful up there,” Puck said. “I don’t think my wings could take it. I doubt a bird could do it, either.”
Sabrina gasped. “So there’s no way off that thing if he catches her?”
Puck shook his head. “Not unless your uncle and sister can rescue her from that lunatic.”
“Speak of the devil,” Briar said as they watched the deadly motorcyclist skid to a stop nearby. He leaped off his bike and pulled a silver dagger from his boot; then he raced through the entrance to the tower. Sabrina saw Daphne pointing at the motorcycle. Without a word, she dashed through the entrance to the tower. Uncle Jake tossed the entrance fee to a clerk, and he and Daphne hurried into an elevator, just as it was about to shut. Sabrina scanned the tightly packed crowd around them. The man in black wasn’t there, but neither was Goldilocks. She imagined the poor woman, standing at the top, backing away from the dark rider with his deadly blade. She tried to force the vision out of her head. They would get there in time. They had to.