She spun away, forcing herself to picture anything else, but for some reason now she was thinking ofFitzyshirtless andwhere were all these hormones coming from?
“What did you want?” asked Adi.
She took a deep breath. “The ribbon. From the fortune teller room. It’s been uploaded onto the Domain. Did you ever figure it out?”
He frowned.
“There was a ribbon, with a code? It came out of that box with the scarves.”
Adi’s eyes widened. “I forgot about that.” He disappeared into his room and emerged a moment later with the ribbon in his hand.
“Hold on—what ribbon?” asked Sierra.
Carter showed them the post on the Domain.
“It’s definitely the same one,” said Adi, perching on the edge of the couch cushion and spreading the ribbon out on the coffee table.
Oaelnibtskati klciIcectiphc ailedthoileee yvuBihiufltfw teeydanliehii eSstftdderinl aeshiwAndwsal mapenanoBotlb srocdsatuniee lctoAlrbttmjm ohtfrereteeui othfefejhsAsn kheiltsuectte
“Another anagram?” Beck asked. “Though that would be one heck of an anagram . . .”
“I’ll plug it into a decoder,” said Carter, opening her phone.
Adi shook his head. “It’s not an anagram.”
“Oh, come on,” said Carter, nudging him. “You think everything’s an anagram.”
He scowled half-heartedly. “This one’s not. I can tell by the feel of it.”
“It wasn’t necessary to complete the room,” Beck said with a frown. “Do they normally put extra clues in there? Big red herrings like this?”
“No,” Adi said. “Did you say it was on the Domain? The episode hasn’t even dropped yet.”
“The person who uploaded this picture figured out theAlicia Angelosanagram, too,” said Carter.
“It’s someone involved with the show, if they have access to the ribbon,” Beck said.
“It has to be Louis,” Carter said.
Adi snapped his fingers at Beck. “I need a pen and paper.”
“Am I your maid?”
Before Adi could respond, a ballpoint pen smacked him in the forehead. It rebounded onto the table as he reeled back, pressing a hand to his forehead and gaping at Sierra.
“Oops,” she said unapologetically.
Carter passed him a notepad. They gathered closer as he copied down the first line of the note, squished together on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.
“A one-letter Caesar cipher gets us . . .P-B-F-M. . . That’s not it. Two letters . . .Q-C. . . obviously not. Three letters . . .”
“Could be a keyword cipher?” said Carter.
“Was just thinking that.” Adi doodled a question mark on the page. “Does anyone remember some sort of keyword planted in the room?”
“Try ‘Alicia,’” said Sierra.
“It’s not ‘Alicia.’ The twoAs throw it off, and keyword ciphers work best if they include at least one letter from the end of the alphabet.”
