Now it’ s my turn to stand there with my mouth hanging open. I push my glasses up on my nose. “The right kid? What does that mean?”

Zoe stares up at me. “One who best matches the token, I think.”

“But Zoe, I’m not one-hundred percent pure. I’ll never be. It’s not possible.”

“Ha! How well I know that! You’re right, no one is perfect. But the token is. So, what if the token is looking for someone it can trust to use its power perfectly? Maybe that’s you, Arcade.”

The woman and man leave the room, and we follow them out to the steaming warehouse. She dips her stick into a few more containers and shakes her head.

“Maybe it’s me? How will I know? How will the token know?”

Zoe begins to pace. Her hands are glued to both sides of her head. She closes her eyes, and her face contorts. Then she stops, shakes her head, and takes a deep breath. “Arcade, I don’t know how to tell you this.” She takes another deep breath.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“This is totally out of the box for me.”

“I know.”

“And it wouldn’t make any sense, except that . . . we’re here, and that doesn’t make any sense either.”

Silence. Zoe gathers herself.

“Arcade, the only way the token will know if you’ll use it properly is to put you through the fire, just like it just went through the fire.”

Gulp.

“And now,” she says with a sympathetic smile, “I know why you were afraid to get out of the elevator.”

This whole time Doug has been standing there with his mouth hanging open. “Zoe, what are you saying?”

“The woman on top of the Empire State Building said that things were about to heat up, right? To test your metal?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That still doesn’t make sense.”

“Arcade, I don’t think she meant the word metal, m-e-t-a-l. I think she was referring to the word mettle, m-e-t-t-l-e. It means strength of character, courage, determination, the ability to cope in the midst of difficult circumstances.”

“Difficult circumstances?” The knot in my throat returns.

Zoe puts both hands on my shoulders. “Arcade, I think that Triple T Token hanging around your neck is a fiery ‘mettle’ tester—”

I look down. And there it is, back on the chain.

“. . . and it’s about to test you.”

*  *  *

The fiery metal tester pulses light.

“It’s time to go.” I pull the warehouse door open and we exit back into the hallway. The gold arrows have switched direction!

We follow them back to the elevator doors, where glitter is rising up and the golden coin slot is waiting.

I stall.

“Now what?” Zoe asks.