“Max!! Max!!” She couldn’t help it. She screamed at him. “Max! Max!” But it was as if he didn’t see her.

And then his eyes blinked. She hadn’t realized it, but it was almost as if they hadn’t blinked before. But it was as if he had been frozen somehow in time. He was still holding the knight tightly in his hand. He got up from the table. He turned away from her. And began to walk away. And Tess watched as he walked right—she had to be imagining it—as she watched him walk straight through the wall . . . and simply disappear.

“Maaaxxx!!”

It was still freezing in the room. But there wasn’t a visible crack in the wall. Nothing. Just her. In the empty library with one white Queen’s pawn moved up one spot and, as if in punctuation, the other side of the board set up perfectly except that one of the black knights was missing.

“Maaxxx!!”

She ran down the small flight of stairs to the lobby. There was no one there. At least, that what she thought at first. But then she saw the gentleman with the bowler hat, the one who owned Princess, sitting in an armchair in the corner. She ran over to him to beg him to help her. “Please!” she said. He was staring straight ahead as if he didn’t even see her and couldn’t hear her pleas. She sat down in the chair next to him.

“Please. Please!” she said. “Won’t you help. I think my brother’s . . .” But before she could finish the sentence, she saw the gentleman’s face begin to crack and tiny pieces start to break away, first his cheek and then part of his nose as if he was made of plaster. The wall behind him started to crack as well. And all the papers neatly stacked behind the bell desk flew from their spots and scattered across the room as if a wind was blowing, a lampshade flew sideways.

As if by instinct, Tess reached into her front jeans pocket for the marble but realized it wasn’t there. She hadn’t put it in her jeans when she’d changed her clothes. Not that she was sure that it would help.

The massive chandelier with the hanging prisms in the lobby began to shake as if it could fall from the ceiling. She looked over at the armchair where the gentleman had been sitting but all that was there was a cloud of dust.

Tess ran from the room towards The Garden Room, only to find that the door was open.

“Maaxx!! Maaxx!!” She called out, hoping he might be there.

But the only thing that answered her was the wind.

~ CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ~

the cat’s eye marble