Free Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Chip and Katherine and Alex back into their frantic motions. They couldn’t just spring out from the wall because both men were moving erratically now; jumping away could easily mean slamming into a man or a torch. So they dodged right and left, narrowly avoiding first one torch, then the other.
    The first man stopped his torch midswing, barely an inch above Katherine’s shoulder.
    “Do you think there’s a secret chamber somewhere, where the princes are hiding? Do you think the wind’s coming from there?” he asked.
    “I think it’s dangerous when the likes of you tries to think,” the other man said.
    The first man didn’t move his torch. He seemed to be waiting for an errant flicker, something that would lead him to his suspected secret chamber. The torch burned steadily, the flames flaring evenly in all directions.
    One of the flames licked down toward Katherine’s shoulder. It wasn’t on her shoulder—she didn’t need to move yet. Jonah could see by the agonized expression on her face that she was trying not to move, trying not to arouse the man’s suspicions even more. But her ponytail was flipped over that shoulder, near the torch. Some force—static electricity, maybe?—was making the individual hairs reach up toward the fire. While Jonah watched, horrified, one of the flames from the torch leaped over onto one of the tiny hairs.
    Katherine’s hair was on fire, and she didn’t even know it.
    Jonah rushed forward, heedless of the men. He shoved Katherine down.
Stop, drop, and roll
, he thought crazily. The rush of air made the flame flare up.
No time for stop, drop, and roll
. No space, either. He slammed his arm against Katherine’s shoulder, smothering the flames with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
    He looked back at the men, hoping they hadn’t noticed anything.
    They were stumbling backward, looks of terror spread across their faces, which looked even ghastlier in the torchlight.
    “W-witchcraft,” the first man stammered.
    “Sorcery,” the other agreed.
    “Or—ghosts?” the first suggested.
    Jonah realized that, to them, the smoldering hair would have looked like a flame suddenly appearing from nowhere, floating in midair, and then disappearing just as abruptly.
    Jonah had experience of his own with strange appearances and vanishings, out of and into thin air.
    The first man turned and called over his shoulder in a slightly shaky voice, “There’s nothing to see in this corner. Nothing.”
    He and William backed away, their eyes trained on the spot where the flame had vanished.
    “We’re done here, too,” a man called from the other side of the room. “Back to the courtyard?”
    And then the men with torches left. They pulled the door firmly shut behind them, plunging the room into darkness again.
    Jonah sagged against the wall, his body limp with relief.Then a hand slammed against his shoulder, knocking him to the side.
    “What was that all about?” Katherine hissed in the darkness. “Pushing me around in front of those men, hitting me—”
    “Katherine, you were on fire!”
    “I was?” She sounded skeptical. “How come I couldn’t tell?”
    “It was just your hair,” Chip contributed. “Jonah probably just saved your life.”
    “My hair?” Katherine wailed. There was a thumping sound, as if she’d slapped her hands down on her head to feel each individual lock. “How … how much? Do I have singe marks on the ends? Am I going to have to get it all cut off?”
    Incredible. Katherine was almost completely invisible—and sitting in total darkness—and she was still worried about her appearance.
    “It was just, like, five hairs,” Jonah scoffed. “It won’t disqualify you from running for Miss America someday.”
    “If we ever get back to America,” Katherine moaned.
    Jonah thought about joking, “I know of three ships that are headed that way in another nine years—and nine years has got to be enough time to get from England to Spain and meet up with