“Doubtful,” said Gino. “I can’t imagine this lot finding steps in the Cipher that we haven’t. And why bother trying to solve a Cipher when you can simply buy or steal anything and everything you want?”

Theo winced at the things he and Tess and Jaime had stolen: Ono and the book from Kingsland Homestead. And how much damage had the eagles caused at Station One? Someone would have to pay for that. Maybe they’d made it easier for Slant to buy the station, too, and charge everyone a skillion dollars just to ride the Underway.

Omar inspected the trunk. “This appears to be old. Perhaps early nineteenth century, perhaps even earlier than that. No identifying markings that I can see right now. But we can take it back to the society with us. Inspect it properly.”

Tess opened her mouth, probably to argue, but Imogen had spotted Nine. “Is that . . . ?”

“Yes!” said Tess. “The blond women brought her, maybe to help sniff out the trunk, I don’t know. They dyed her so that she wouldn’t be recognized. But I knew her. I would always know her.”

“Mrrow,” said Nine.

Theo was glad Nine was back but, at the same time, outraged that Tess and Jaime were so comfortable telling these lies when a woman who claimed to be the Ava Oneal was standing here, chatting as if she hadn’t been delivered straight from the pages of a history book. Or the pages of Jaime’s sketchbook.

Theo’s head spun. He needed some water. He needed some crackers. He needed a nap.

“I’m so glad that you found Nine, that you’re not hurt, that your aunt was able to come for you,” Imogen said.

“I feel awful that this little trip put you in danger,” Priya said. “We were so excited to have our little adventure we didn’t think about the risks.”

“We don’t often think about the risks,” said Gino.

“Some of us think too much about them,” Tess said. Nine nudged her fingers. Tess scratched the cat between the ears. Despite the living mystery, the breathing impossibility standing in front of them, Tess seemed calmer than she had in days. Once again, it seemed as if Theo and Tess had traded places, and that Theo was the anxious one, and Tess, the logical. He would have to have his own therapy animal. Considering his spinning head, his roiling gut, it would have to be a big one. A wolf named Pink. A giraffe-owary named . . . Giro.

Help.

“Enough talking. We need to tie these people up and leave them for the police,” Gino said. “It’s better than they deserve, attacking a bunch of children.”

The Cipherists got to work tying up Duke Goodson and the blond ladies, with the aid of Ava and Jaime and even Nine, who twirled around Tess’s legs and mrrowed and purred so loudly that Theo would have heard her from Manhattan.