She took in the play first, frowning. It wasn’t their game. Countless times he had taken the board down and set it up again, and always each stone was in the proper position. But this was different. Had she made a different play two moves ago, it could have gone this way, but she’d been smarter than that. Because she’d considered this move, she’d guessed at his response, and she knew that if she moved her white stone like that, she’d be trapped. As he showed her now.

She snatched at the paper. Two words this time. Kikashi. When one forced an opponent into a move that would ruin their momentum. And under that, aji keshi. When one had been outsmarted.

Her fingers convulsed around the paper. “He’s not going to outsmart us. He will not.”

“No. He won’t.” Drake moved the board a bit, peered around it. Checked the desk drawer. Peered underneath it. Spun for the small shelf by the window.

“What are you looking for?” Red asked.

Drake darted a glance at her. “My poetry book. And the notebook I kept with it. They were on my desk when I left. They’re always there.”

So he could write to her. Those beautiful messages, written in code.

“Why would he take that?” The guard sounded baffled.

“Good question. I think . . . I think he intends to tell us something more. More than he can do through Go.”

Three of six. The words, the number exploded in her mind like fireworks, so sweet she nearly gasped from their splendor. They trickled down through her spirit, summer rain on parched soil. A balm. A song. A perfect proposition.

She reached for Drake. “My flat. Now. Three of six.”

“What is three of six?” But even as he asked, he took her hand and followed her out.

“Eighteen. My flat. That day, anyway. Because it’s—it doesn’t matter, just come.”

His grandfather and his attendant were in the doorway, blocking it, but they slid aside when they saw the speed of their approach. Shouted a question after them, but Drake shouted back that Red would fill them in and didn’t slow.

No more words, not on the stairs. They didn’t need them. It was enough that he trusted her. It was enough that God had spoken again in her soul. It was enough to make her hope that there was time, still, to save Dot.

Night had fallen again. It was cold and clear and only days until Christmas, but just now those days mattered not at all compared to the minutes before them now. Fingers still knotted together, they ran down the familiar streets.