Alice was flung backward.

She landed heavily on her only arm, her head slamming hard against the ground. It took her a few seconds to blink away the dizziness, but she clenched her jaw against the dull, throbbing pain and drew herself up, determined not to sway. Alice could still hear Oliver shouting and fighting, landing kicks and punches wherever he could, and she was just about to charge forward again, ruler clenched tightly in her hand, when she felt the ground shift beneath her. One of the foxes had slammed its head into Oliver’s jaw with a resounding crack—and Oliver had gone still.

The foxes snapped around his limp figure, fighting to see who’d get to take the first bite, and Alice felt her brain disconnect from her body.

“NO!” she cried.

She stumbled as she threw herself forward, falling hard onto her knees, her agonized screams ringing out across the barren landscape. She bent into the raging heat and blinding light of this strange town and felt the fresh pain of fear and loss pry open an iron door in her chest and all at once—everything changed.

The land, the sky, the foxes, and even Oliver: disappeared.

Alice had reduced the color of all things around her—the large, the infinitesimal, and everything in between—to a single shade of black, and she was so wholly unaware of the magnitude of what she’d done that it wasn’t until she heard the confused, frenzied foxes knocking into one another that she realized she’d snuffed out the sun. Alice alone stood in stark contrast to the painted night. She examined her single arm—the white of her skin glowing neon in the dark—and for the very first time in her life, Alice Alexis Queensmeadow felt powerful.

Alice heard the foxes scamper off into the distance, the four of them no longer brave enough to fight blindly. When she was finally sure they were gone for good, Alice closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and—with the simple twitch of her mind—reset the colors she’d so fully distorted.

She spotted Oliver instantly.

He was on his back, his arms and legs splayed, his lip bloody—but, thank heavens, he was still breathing. Alice ran to her friend, tossed her ruler to the ground, and pulled him up against her.

She shook him, but he wouldn’t wake. She slapped him, but he wouldn’t speak. “Oliver, please!” she cried. But he wouldn’t stir.

Tears were streaking fast down her face and though she fought valiantly to hold on to hope, she wasn’t sure how to fight this.

Panic had overtaken her.

Alice was just in the middle of giving Oliver another good shake when her eyes hit upon the ruler she’d dropped so carelessly onto the ground. The inscription in the blond wood was staring up at her.

SNAP IN THREE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

If this wasn’t an emergency, Alice was a dill pickle.

She didn’t hesitate—desperation had left her no options. She grabbed the ruler, held it in place with her foot, snapped it twice—leaving her with three broken pieces—and cried, “Help! Help! This is an emergency!”

And everything slowed.

The scene before her went soft and blurry, and a moment later, all things froze. The bees went still in midair; sitting birds went silent mid-chirp. Only Alice was free to move, and when she did, she stood up.

A crack, a zip, and an exclamation point later, three extremely thin, ludicrously tall, bright orange doors were set before her. Hung on each door was a different sign:

STEP THROUGH TO FIX YOUR ARM

ENTER HERE TO SAVE YOUR FRIEND

OPEN ME TO FIND YOUR FATHER

And then, in small print under each sign,

CHOOSE ONLY ONE DOOR OR DIE A PAINFUL DEATH

It’s a great testament to the tender heart of our dear Alice that she did not agonize over this decision. Alice Alexis Queensmeadow knew right away what she would do.

(She’d decided to save Oliver, of course.)

Alice would no longer be bullied by the tricks and games of Furthermore. She didn’t care what the doors said. She would have her friend and her father. (And maybe her arm, too.)

She would find a way.

So she marched right up to the door she’d chosen, turned the knob with great conviction, and tripped—in the most unflattering way—straight over the threshold. With a sudden twist in her stomach and the uncomfortable displacement of her heart to her throat, Alice fell forward, screaming, into a strange sky. She flipped upside down only to tumble right side up only to plummet horribly to her death, and it was only the sound of someone else’s blistering screams that so swiftly silenced her own.

Oliver came barreling through the sky like a bullet, slamming into Alice so hard she nearly knocked her head against his nose. She righted him as best she could and then took hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly, relief and joy flooding through her. She had no idea how much she’d come to care for Oliver until she’d nearly lost him.

“Don’t worry,” was the first thing she said to him. “Everything will be alright.”

And Oliver beamed at her.

After ascertaining that he was indeed in one piece and not two, Alice quickly explained everything that’d happened with the fox and her ruler and the emergency doors, careful to leave out the part about things changing colors. (Alice wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.) Oliver’s head was spinning with the weight of all this frightening new information, but somehow, despite the horrors they’d seen, a huge smile had hinged itself to his cheeks. (Alice had chosen him, you see. Alice had chosen to save him, and Oliver was euphoric. It was all rather sweet.)

But Alice was thinking of other things now.

The thing was they’d been falling through the sky for quite a long while now, and they still hadn’t reached the bottom of anything—and it was beginning to make Alice anxious. To make matters worse, it was taking a great deal of effort to keep her skirts out of her face (and with only one arm, my goodness), and she was growing tired.