Puzzle 8 Mall of America 

“All I’m saying is that I’d crush you,” Clarissa says. “I’d crush you at any game in the Xscape Arcade.”

The three of you—you, Teddy, and your Puzzle Academy rival Clarissa—are at the Mall of America for approximately 15 seconds before she finds something to squabble pettily over. As to be expected of your rival. You, meanwhile, have been utterly innocent the entire time.

“I would obliterate you,” you say, calm and placating. “I’d destroy you at Moose Mountain Adventure Golf.”

Teddy looks world-weary. Clarissa scoffs loudly, about to retort, when abruptly she pauses.

“Look,” she says, pointing toward the Urban Outfitters down the way from you. You squint. There are six people in hoodies, milling around near the entrance. And then there’s a seventh person, also in a hoodie, who is undeniably, 100 percent using the reflection in the glass to stare at your trio.

You take off after the seventh one. Seeing your abrupt change in motion, they begin sprinting away. Their sprint is not that fast—you have the faint impression that this isn’t some youth you’re after—but they seem to know their way around the mall. They duck into a maintenance hallway, and you burst through the door, finding the path ahead empty. Then you look behind you and see that neither Clarissa nor Teddy have followed you here.

You tear through the back halls of the mall, looking for the person in the hoodie as well as your compatriots. Minutes pass, then tens of minutes. You pass brand after brand until they all blur together, and you start to get all the places you’ve already looked mixed up in your head. You’re about to give up hope and ask mall security to call for them on the intercom, when you catch a glimpse of something out of place in the periphery of your vision.

Something important.

You watch carefully, slowly taking in what you’re looking at.

Fifteen minutes later, Clarissa and Teddy find you loitering near the fountain.

“We found it, near—where was it, Teddy?” Clarissa holds a silver envelope triumphantly in her hand, sneering.

“The water fountain,” Teddy explains. You give a noncommittal noise in response and unceremoniously take the envelope from Clarissa’s grasp. At her offended squawk, you open it.