Tick quit listening to them, having noticed a strange man enter the restaurant, looking about as if he was lost. He was heavily built, head shaved bald, and dressed in a suit as fancy as any Tick had ever seen worn by Master George. The man’s eyes finally fell on Tick and his friends, and he started walking directly for them, stumbling twice in his polished new shoes.

“Uh-oh,” Tick whispered. When Paul and Sofia looked at him, he nodded toward the stranger.

“Who’s that guy?” Paul asked.

Tick only shrugged.

When the man reached their table, he bowed awkwardly. “Good . . . day,” he said very slowly, taking time to carefully pronounce each word. “I . . . welcome . . . you . . . to . . . our . . . city.”

He bowed again, then turned to walk away. As he took his first step, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and let it fall to the floor. It was such an obvious act that none of them called it to the man’s attention. He kept moving, continuing in his halting gait until he’d left the restaurant, never once turning around to look back.

Paul practically jumped onto the floor to pick up the paper, then unfolded it on the table. Tick and Sofia scooted their chairs around to see the message:

DO NOT READ THIS ALOUD!

I’m a friend of Master George.

Meet me in Tick’s room at 9:00.

Don’t say a word to me.

We must communicate in writing.

People are listening.

~

The first thing Sato felt was frigid air, gusting in short bursts of wind that bit through his clothes, pricking his skin like dagger points. Feeling as if he’d just plunged into an icy lake, he gasped for air as he swung off his backpack and searched for the thick down coat within. As he pulled it out and stuffed his arms inside the soft, warm lining, he gaped at the place George had decided to send him.

The highest reaches of an enormous mountain, blanketed in snow.

He stood near the edge of a rocky outcropping which overlooked an infinite expanse of clouds, thin peaks of smaller mountains thrusting through the cottony layer here and there, black stone frosted in white. Above him, the sky was deep and dark and blue, like an ocean hanging impos-sibly over him. Realizing how high up he was, Sato stumbled backward, falling into the soft snow. The world seemed to sway around him.

He scrambled up and turned his back to the cliff, brushing the snow off before the cold stuff melted and soaked through. To his left, a steep path led up the mountain, the barely visible steps of roughly cut stone glistening with ice. If that was the way he needed to go, it would be a treacherous journey. Other than a sparse bush and a few dead trees, he saw no sign of life anywhere—just endless rock and ice and snow.