Miraculously, they made it back to Queens before four in the morning. They climbed the stairs back to the twins’ room. Nothing seemed different, nothing had been disturbed. They emptied their pockets on the night table. Ono beeped at the various tools as if they, too, could come to life; it was a relief when they didn’t.

Jaime, Theo, and Tess peeled off the uniforms and Tess hid them in a trunk in her closet, a trunk that had THE MAGIX written in gold along the top. Jaime reminded himself to ask her what that meant some other time.

They got back in their respective beds and tried to sleep. Which was ridiculous, because they were all way too keyed up. Jaime had the tether or strap or whatever it was tied around his wrist like a bracelet. He traced it with his fingers. Something was tooled in the leather, some kind of code maybe, some kind of cipher. And the eagle had offered it to them, to him. Why? Because he was the first person it saw? Because it saw something in him that seemed trustworthy? But that was dumb. How could some mechanical eagle decide he was the one to take the bracelet rather than anyone else?

Unless it somehow knew that they were the ones who had awakened it.

The day broke cool and rainy. Bleary-eyed, Jaime, Tess, and Theo dragged themselves from bed and went downstairs, where Mr. Biedermann was making scrambled eggs and bugbacon and Lance was sitting in the corner, sulking. Jaime didn’t know a suit of armor could sulk, but then he hadn’t known that a puzzle game could turn into a robot and then a ladder and back again, or that stone eagles could be dormant for more than a hundred years until someone stopped a clock. It felt as if he were in a comic book. Living a comic book.

Jaime pinched himself and yelped.

Tess frowned at him, confused. He shrugged. “Just checking.”

She nodded, as if this made perfect sense. Maybe she’d been pinching herself a lot, too.

Mr. Biedermann held up a spatula. “So who wants bacon?”

All three of them raised their hands; all three of them yawned.

“Stayed up a little too late last night, I guess?” said Mr. Biedermann, scooping slices of bugbacon and putting them on each of their plates. “You can nap later.”

Tess moved her bacon around her plate, but didn’t eat. “Where’s Mom?”

“Where else? Work.”

“Anything about Nine and Karl?”

Mr. Biedermann scooped eggs onto her plate. “I’m sorry. Not yet. But she is following some leads.”

“What leads?”

“She wasn’t specific. You know how she is.”

Tess took this news without changing expression, though under the table her leg started to bounce. Theo touched her arm, mouthed: Breathe. She took a deep breath, held it, let it out. The bounce quieted a bit. Not much, but a bit.