Jaime, who had been murmuring to Auguste, said, “Trying to teach him the lyrics from a Nas song.”

Imogen waved her hand. “Already tried that.”

“Whose world is this?” Jaime said to the bird. “It’s mine, it’s mine.”

Auguste said, “Who lives / Who dies / Who tells your story?”

“What did I tell you?” said Imogen. “He’s impossible.”

They ate Gino’s delicious tortellini with peas and mushrooms and listened to more happy banter between the Cipherists. It was good to be here with them, Theo thought, good to be back where his grandpa Ben had spent so much of his life, with the people he had loved most besides his own family. But then, these people were like family. Even the silly bird who couldn’t stop singing his sad songs, reciting his sad poems.

But Theo couldn’t help feeling a bit sad, too, sad as the bird. It used to be that the Cipherists knew everything; it used to be that his grandpa Ben knew the most of all. But now Grandpa Ben was gone, swirling in his own eroding memories in the care facility uptown and the Cipherists knew less than Theo himself. Once, that would have made Theo feel proud. Finally, he was the expert! He didn’t feel like an expert. He felt like a lone pea lost in a soup of cream sauce.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on sad things. They would have to sneak out in the middle of the night to get to Green-Wood Cemetery, or they would have to come up with some kind of story that would get the Cipherists to accompany them without understanding what they were really doing.

Stories were not Theo’s thing—they were Tess’s. And so far, she hadn’t told any stories or offered any excuses or ideas. And Jaime, too, seemed lost in the banter of the Cipherists, or maybe he just looked as if he were. They had been so focused on the clue and then the bugs that they hadn’t had the time to talk about the woman in gray, the one who Jaime had been drawing for months. When Jaime had gone to answer the door back at his apartment, Tess had shown Theo the drawings on Jaime’s desk. The likeness between the woman in gray and Jaime’s superhero sketches was uncanny, unbelievable, inexplicable. If only they’d been able to talk to her, ask her where she’d come from, ask her why she’d saved them, ask her who in the world she was.

“A woman’s been following us,” Theo blurted. Tess kicked him under the table and Jaime looked as if he might flick a spoonful of peas at his face, but Theo soldiered on. “Two women, maybe more. All blondes.”

“Blond women?” said Imogen. “What blond women?”