“What a shoddy job. It’s taken days just to undo whatever she plucked out. Probably when she realizes I’ve restored it to this point, she’ll just come in and wreck it all over again. But I feel I’ve made my point.”

“You . . . restored this?” Ahmad asked tentatively. He didn’t see anything that looked like it had been cleaned up, much less brought back to the old glory that Vijay Bhai seemed to seek in every dusty corner and destroyed stall.

Titus Salt gave him a withering stare. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“I still don’t understand,” Vijay Bhai broke in again. He waved a hand backward, as though indicating the Paheli they had left behind. “I don’t understand how any of that works out there. But I do understand that the world I knew, that I grew up in, has been demolished. There’s not a familiar face to be seen out there. So how are you—”

Titus Salt reached out and grabbed his wrist, fast as a snake striking in a nature documentary. Winnie shrieked.

“What are you doing?”

Titus Salt didn’t pay her any attention. His gaze was fixed on Vijay Bhai.

“There are loyalties in Paheli, boy,” he whispered. “You know as well as I do. When you’re loyal, it does not go unnoticed. When you do your part in the game, you are more than a mere pawn. You are a cog in the gear. You keep it rolling. And those who need that gear to roll along won’t forget that you deserve the oil as much as that gear.”

Ahmad stared at him, confused. What did all of that mean? Was he talking about the Architect?

Vijay Bhai, though, had gone absolutely pale.

Titus Salt gave a terrible grin up into his face.

“It is not the Architect’s world alone,” he rasped. “Or have you forgotten who brought you here?”

Swiftly, faster than Ahmad’s eyes could track, Vijay Bhai snatched back his wrist.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Titus Salt,” he whispered, and Ahmad had never heard his uncle so angry. “I hope you realize that.”

Titus Salt was still giving that horrible, horrible smile. “Aren’t we all, young balloon man?” He cackled. “Aren’t we all?”

Without another word, Vijay Bhai turned on his heel and started walking back in the direction they came from.

“Wait, is that it?” Winnie called after him. “But what about your balloons?”

T.T., who had been entirely silent, blinked rapidly.

“T.T.?” Ahmad asked anxiously. “What did all of that mean?”

“I’m not quite sure,” the mouse squeaked softly. “But we need to move on now. This place makes me nervous when it’s properly lit.”