“Well, there you go,” she said as Winnie fell to her knees and reverently gathered up the puzzle piece. She flashed it at Ahmad, who gasped.

It was larger than he expected and didn’t look like what he imagined when he thought of a puzzle piece at all, or even the example that Madame Nasirah had conjured up for them. It was marble-carved, shaped like a monkey’s head with the eye of the animal formed by an inlaid stone.

“Hey, um, do we get a user’s manual along with this?” demanded Winnie, spinning around to face the MasterMind. But the girl, hoverboard under her arm, was already halfway into what appeared to be another flying car—one that was definitely a Ferrari compared to the rickety rickshaw model they had briefly used—sleek and stunning with a silver sheen.

“Good luck! You’ll need all you can get!” she called, and then the little craft zoomed off.

Great. Just great.

“Now what?” Ahmad demanded impatiently, but Winnie seized his arm.

“Um, Ahmad?”

“What is it?”

He looked up.

“Oh,” he said weakly. “Great.”

Their mouse friend was back. And he brought company with him: a whole lot of his kin.

“Oh gosh,” Winnie said weakly as the mice gathered about them, jostling and rolling their eyes at one another and smoothing their whiskers. “This is my mom’s worst nightmare. Not mine, though,” she added hastily as one stepped closer. “I like mice.”

“How do you feel about lizards?” Vijay Bhai asked cheerfully. If it had been any other moment, Ahmad would have shot him a glare. Not the time.

“Okay, okay, back up. Let’s not crowd the future champions!” To Ahmad and Winnie’s relief, T.T. brushed through the crowd and rushed up to them.

“Sorry, but can you pick up the pace?” T.T. said shrilly. “Look, you guys need to focus. I don’t know what the MasterMind told you, but I assure you she’s downplaying her own talent to keep you underestimating her—and you should never underestimate a girl.”

Winnie nodded in agreement.

“The Architect is a spoiled brat, bloated on his own power and used to doing the bare minimum to keep it. The MasterMind is pampered and proud, but has a nice set of teeth she keeps hidden. If you tempt her, she’ll turn on you and bite. Hard.”

“We know,” Ahmad broke in. “We’ve been keeping track of time too.”

T.T. raised a furry brow and pointed up at the sky. Ahmad and Winnie craned their heads up. Right on the borderline of the sky underneath a pixelated crescent was the countdown clock, its numbers churning back so rapidly that Ahmad could hardly make out what time it was.

Ahmad groaned.

“Great. I can hardly make it through a quiz at school in one period and now we have to be timed on this.”