Alex’s grandfather turned away, considered the buildings across the road, then suddenly turned back. He had slipped his black eye mask on. “Listen, do you hear?” he said, cocking an ear toward the opera house. Beneath the sigh of rain on the streets, Alex caught a distant swell of music.

“They’re doing Puccini. Shame we’re busy. Ah well. Here goes nothing. Although, eh, you shouldn’t really go around robbing museums, of course, Alex.”

He crouched, then leapt, touched down briefly in the middle of the road, then sprang again, to land near the museum’s raised entrance.

“That really is quite impressive,” came Kingdom’s disembodied voice.

“Harry,” Alex said. “Do you think he’s up to this? I mean, he’s been getting weaker and . . .”

“I know. But ’ave you ever tried talking your grandad out of something, Alex?”

They both sighed. Alex held the toy robot and prepared to begin his process of contacting the power. A thought struck him. “Did you ever remember the other thing you found out, Harry?”

“Eh?”

“When you left the message for Grandad before . . . before your accident. You said ‘two things, it’s not.’ One was about the frames. What was the other?”

“Oh.” Harry thought for a second. “Nah. Sorry.”

A third jump and the old man stood on the roof above the museum doors. Alex placed his phone on the seat alongside Harry’s. As he did, he noticed a new message. When he’d checked earlier, hoping for more cryptic clues from Kenzie, there had been nothing. This was from David.

Sort of bad news here. Kenzie Mitchell’s in a coma or something. They just found him in his room. Can’t wake him up. Guy’s an idiot, but not good stuff. Doctors don’t know what it is yet. Tricia Babcock says it’s touch and go. Weird biz.

You okay? What’s happening there?

Alex stared at the screen. It felt as though everything was draining out from him. He sat staring at the dark floor of the car. In the shadows there, he saw Kenzie staggering away as he pushed him through the door in his mind, Kenzie falling backward, disappearing into the roaring light. He let go of the robot as if scalded.

“There ’e goes,” Harry muttered, jolting Alex from his thoughts.

Alex grabbed the binoculars Harry proffered. It took a moment to find his grandfather, a faint gray phantom in the dark, moving toward a wall where the level changed again. Another great leap and he was poised on a much higher roof. A glazed skylight ran the length of the building. The old man padded along in a catlike crouch, hunting for a particular spot.

“Everything okay?” Harry spoke to both phones at once.

“All clear.”

“Clear.”