When she was little and plagued by nightmares, Grandpa Ben would sit up with her and have her tell him a story. A story that fixed all the nightmares, chased them away. If she dreamed of a monster under her bed, Grandpa Ben asked her what would make the monster less scary. So she would tell him a story about a monster that was scared and lonely because it lost its teddy bear. And if she dreamed she was swimming in the ocean and a shark came up beside her, she would tell Grandpa Ben a story about a shark that had decided to become a vegetarian and needed help with recipes. Angry ghosts turned into friendly ghosts who helped you empty the dishwasher; huge, faceless aliens with too many mouths transformed into happy little green Martians eager to share their knowledge of all the worlds in the universe.

Standing at the rails of the ferry, Tess told herself another story. One in which she and Theo and Jaime found the answer to the Cipher, and the answer was something so powerful and magical that could bring back everyone and everything that Tess had lost.

Tess almost laughed out loud. She would have said she’d been reading too many comic books, except she hadn’t been reading any comic books lately.

And then the ferry was docking, and they disembarked along with everyone else telling themselves a story about how they would win that new client account, how they would impress the boss, how they would ace the audition or the tryout. Near Washington Square Park, a car stopped at a red light played music so loud that the bass was distorted. A bunch of kids walking across the street in front of the car started to dance to the music. They danced furiously all the way to the other curb, making everyone around them laugh. Tess too. It was as if the world didn’t want her to be quite so sad, that her work wasn’t done yet.

They got a couple of pretzels from a vendor and sat on a bench to eat them, and to talk.

“I knew there was something wrong with that place,” Jaime said. “But I didn’t think anyone had actually bugged it. I didn’t know the Morningstarrs made those kinds of things.”

“They didn’t,” Tess and Theo said at the same time.

“Not that we knew of before,” Tess amended.

“Cricket tried to tell me about the bugs weeks ago, and I didn’t pay attention. She called them wiggle worms.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tess said. “How could you know?”

“I should have,” Jaime insisted.

“Well, we know now,” Theo said.

“They do, too!” said Jaime. “The people spying on us, whoever they are. We talked about the clue all morning!”

“We don’t know who’s spying on us,” said Tess.