“Not real?” she shrieked, looking at him in shock. There was no way around it—she was terrified. He felt awful for her.

“It looks like a giant jack-in-the-box,” he said loudly, doing his best to project over the sound of the laughter, looking around the side of the box that the clown had sprouted from. “Dang, that was really something, wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

Becca stared at the clown as if in disbelief, the color completely drained from her face. She was still breathing hard, her hand over her heart. “I think that is officially the most scared I have ever been in my life,” she managed. “Except for the last time a clown scared me this badly, of course. But now that it’s over, I feel . . . kind of good, weirdly.”

“Right?” Kylie said from across the room. “Makes you feel strong, doesn’t it? Facing my fear wasn’t how I thought it’d be at all.”

“Same,” Danny agreed. “I felt pretty proud of myself after leaving that basement. I think we’re all pretty cool for getting through our clues without dying of fright.”

“Seriously,” Frankie added, and Miguel nodded.

Matt gulped at the conversation. The group still hadn’t come across any clues that were made just for him yet, but maybe the Game Master had forgotten about him. That would be the best case. He wanted to hold on to that hope, because the other option was that his worst fear was waiting for him, and he knew without a doubt that he’d rather deal with literally anything besides that. The fact that they were in an attic was already making him nervous—it had seemed like the perfect fit for his worst fear. When he’d unfolded the note that Frankie had dropped from the trapdoor, he’d been sure the clue would be for him. When it had been for Becca instead, he hadn’t been able to help feeling relieved. Now that they were up here, though, he was getting uneasy again.

After the clown ran out of juice and stopped swinging around, the crazed laughter dying down until it was completely silent, Becca was able to gather herself enough to join the others in searching around the room.

“I don’t see Elephant or Nacho in here anywhere,” Miguel said in frustration. “We’ve done so much, how have we not beaten the game yet? This is getting ridiculous.”

“I think we passed the point of no return in ridiculousness hours ago,” Matt said with an empty chuckle. “Don’t worry, Miguel, we will find them. There can’t be too much more—we’ve been through the whole house now!”

“That is true,” Miguel agreed, looking around the room warily. “We must have missed something in here.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Becca said. “Maybe we should consider opening some of these boxes.”