Lily pushed Stacy aside as Theresa sent a magical charge through the floor, making it cave in partway. She used her dagger to deflect flying debris and followed the others to the edge of the room. Jake jumped over a gap in the floor. "Goodbye!" Theresa said. "I'll see you at the Empire State." She turned into mist and zipped through the hole in the window.
The moment the queen left the window, the palace doors banged open. Pieces of the ceiling above fell and smashed holes in what was left of the floor. Lily realized that Theresa's magic was the only thing keeping the prison from falling apart. "We need to get out of here!" she shouted. "I noticed!" Tara replied. They edged around the room and ran out the door as the palace fell completely, scattering dust with a massive BOOM. Foxfire came up with the other robot animals and Lily climbed on, riding away as chunks of rock burrowed into the ground.
They reached the elfin city in ten minutes. Lily slid off Foxfire's back, patted him on the head, and led the way into the northern tower. A crowd of angry people was waiting for them. They pushed their way through the mob of crazy elves and went to a conference room, where they could talk in peace. Luckily, Jake found a way to get to that room secretly. Stacy ripped a map of the elfin world off the wall and spread it on the table. "Now, where could Theresa be?" she asked.
Lily glared at the map. "Not at her prison, that was destroyed." "And she wouldn't be in the elfin city, because that would be very annoying," Tara added.
Suddenly the map crackled, and a stream of mist erupted from Theresa's palace, weaving its way to the edge of the map, where it disappeared completely. Jake frowned. "That's impossible. We have charted our world entirely and accurately." "Unless Theresa's not on this planet ..." Stacy said. Lily looked around the room. Her heart began to pound as she tore a map of Earth off the wall. Immediately, the stream of gray mist appeared in the center of Alaska, leaping across the map until it reached a place Lily knew only too well.
Tara squinted at themap. "What in the elfin world? Where is that place?" she asked. Lily stared atthe spot, labeled neatly with the three words that represented her home: NEWYORK CITY.