“Majority rules,” Mira informed him.

Jace held up his wrist. “Doesn’t rule me. I’m free.”

Mira rolled her eyes. “I’m technically a princess. I could declare this a monarchy.”

“You’re even more technically a fugitive,” Jace pointed out. “No offense.”

“Whoa,” Cole said.

As they curved around the next bend, a cupcake the size of a hill came into view—vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. Everyone crammed to his side of the coach to have a good look.

“Rethinking your policies?” Jace asked.

“I’m still full from the cookie,” Mira said. “Besides, how do you even get started on something that big?”

“We’ll need mining equipment,” Cole said.

“Check out my side,” Twitch said.

Everyone went to the other side of the coach to stare at a lemon meringue pie as big as a circus tent. In front of the epic pie, s’mores the size of card tables were scattered among the wildflowers, oozing marshmallow from all sides.

“Journey over,” Jace said. “We’ve found our new home.”

“Do you see anybody else here?” Mira asked.

“Their loss,” Jace said.

“Free food everywhere,” Twitch said, “and not a person in sight. What does that tell you?”

“More for us?” Cole asked, earning a high-five from Jace.

“Very funny,” Mira said.

“We get it,” Jace said. “It’s too good to be true. There must be a catch. It’s just fun to joke around.”

“It might not even be a deliberate trap,” Mira said. “But the boy who made this place disappeared. Something went wrong here. People avoid it for a reason.”

They heard a faint banging up ahead. As the coach advanced, the sound grew louder.

“Are we about to learn the reason?” Cole asked.

“We should get ready,” Jace said, suddenly serious.

Cole put on his shawl and held his bow, fingers gently plucking the string. The volume of the pounding increased.

After passing through an orchard of gummy fruit and jelly beans, they found the source of the booming—an enormous red-and-black checkerboard with a rapid game in progress. Each checker was as wide as the street Cole lived on, and either slid or jumped to a new square when moved. The checkers moved on their own, and no side ever paused. Jumped checkers waited in stacks beside the board. As they watched, kings were made on both sides, and black soon won. Immediately the checkers returned to their starting positions, and a new game began.

“Those would squish you flat,” Twitch said.

“Not if you stay away from the board,” Jace said.

Out the window on his side, Cole saw a ten-story Ferris wheel turning briskly, all the cars empty. At one side of it, across a small stream, a herd of vacant bumper cars jostled with one another on a broad black surface. Beyond the two attractions, off in the trees, Cole glimpsed the top of a roller coaster.

“Look over here,” Cole said. “This place is awesome.”

“What are those?” Jace asked.

“A Ferris wheel and bumper cars,” Cole said. “Rides from my world. This kid had to come from Earth.”

The autocoach continued to trot along, the pace never changing. Cole continued to watch out the window. As bizarre as some of the sights were, the surrounding environment made them weirder. A hot-fudge waterfall crept down an otherwise normal rocky slope. Hamburgers the size of cars populated a brushy field beside thornbushes and boulders. A group of plastic action figures the size of real people posed within a grove of birch trees.

In many ways, Brady’s Wilderness felt like a crazy dream come true. So much of it was silly and impossible. If they weren’t being chased by legionnaires, if they weren’t trying to find Mira’s lost powers, and if this place had a safer reputation, they could have so much fun here.

Cole wondered if his lost friends were seeing sights like this. In Junction City, was Dalton encountering the equivalent of giant pies and fudge waterfalls? Was Jenna using something like a Jumping Sword or Jace’s rope? He hoped they were experiencing at least some good things to help make up for their new lives as slaves in a foreign world.

“More cookies and milk,” Mira said, peering out her window. “Whoever Brady was, the kid liked to eat.”

“Look at the different kinds,” Jace said.

Cole saw a creamy pond crowded with what were either oatmeal or maybe peanut butter cookies. Another contained chocolate cookies with white chips. A third featured huge pale cookies with cinnamon on top—probably snickerdoodles.

“Anybody want to go fishing again?” Jace asked. “We might kick ourselves tomorrow when all we have to eat is dried meat and biscuits.”

“I don’t trust this place,” Mira said. “Let’s keep survival the priority.”

“Why just survive when you can feast?” Jace pressed.

“I’m still stuffed,” Cole said. “They look good, but I doubt I could eat much.”

In the distance, they heard the rich call of a horn blowing, long and low, the note rising a little at the end.

“What was that?” Mira asked.

“Legionnaires?” Twitch guessed.

“Mango would have warned us,” Mira said.

“What if they got her?” Twitch suggested.

Another horn answered, closer this time. Two more sounded from different directions. Then a brassier instrument let out a blast.

“Was that a trumpet?” Cole asked.

“Look!” Twitch shouted, pointing.

Cole followed his finger to the milk pool with the snickerdoodles. Something was rising out of the milk near the edge of the pond, as if walking ashore from the depths. A dripping skull emerged, followed by shoulder bones, then the rib cage and the arm bones. The skeleton held a rusty shield in one hand and a corroded sword in the other. The pelvis rose above the surface of the milk, followed by the femurs. Very little tissue clung to the bones—mainly just some rotten tendons and ligaments at the joints. After leaving the pond, the skeleton jogged toward them, bones shiny with milk residue.

“What is that?” Cole said, his voice pitched higher than he had intended.

“That is why we listen to Mira,” Jace said.

“Look the other way,” Mira said.

Several skeletons jostled one another as they exited the woods on the other side of the road. The fastest moved at a trot. A couple walked. One was missing a leg and hopped along using a spear as a crutch. All had weapons—a few swords, a sledgehammer, a crowbar, a rock.