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“Nobody here,” Gideon said as Tempest stepped into the bookcase-lined library being used for the literary escape room game.

“Where is he?” Cameron stepped past them, brandishing the sharp poker above his head. “This stupid game Lucas is playing has gone on long enough.”

“You thought he was dead.” Kira poked her head out from behind a bookcase. “I don’t think anyone is in here, by the way. Unless Lucas can fold himself into a tinier space than the most acrobatic person I’ve ever met, the room is empty.”

“Obviously, I was wrong about him being dead.” Cameron lowered the poker. “I’ve never seen a dead body before, so how was I supposed to know he was acting? If he’s not in here, he must be upstairs in the apartment.”

Cameron stepped toward the door. Before he got there, it slammed shut. The wooden door banged with such forcefulness that they all jumped.

“Wind?” Ivy whipped her head around, looking for an open window.

“The windows are closed.” Gideon turned from where he stood at a window, looking grave. “And there’s something you should all see—”

“Later.” Cameron rattled the door handle. “We need to catch Lucas first. And this stupid door handle is stuck.”

“It didn’t sound like Lucas,” Tempest said. She hadn’t thought it sounded like Harold at first either. But as soon as Mrs. Hudson had said his name, she knew that’s who it was. She shook off the idea. Surely it had to be the power of suggestion. She was an expert at it, after all. Had Mrs. Hudson planted the idea in Tempest’s mind that made it real?

“Well, who else could it be besides Lucas?” Cameron asked, shaking the door handle once more. It didn’t budge. “He’s the one playing games with us.”

“That voice,” said Mrs. Hudson, stepping between Cameron and the locked door. “I don’t know who this Lucas is, but I recognized that voice. And so did you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Cameron stared at her. “That wasn’t Uncle Harold’s voice. Mrs. Hudson, will you please step aside so I can get us out of this room and we can catch Lucas?”

Mrs. Hudson raised an eyebrow at him but stepped aside. He knelt at the doorknob and frowned. He gave the knob a twist, but it didn’t affect the door. “It’s sticking.”

“Your hands are probably sweating from nerves.” Mrs. Hudson nudged him aside. She shook the door handle gently at first, then more violently. “You built an escape room, so this is what you get.”

“Why isn’t there a keyhole?” Kira asked, kneeling next to Mrs. Hudson.

“Because it’s just a handle,” said Tempest. “The escape room door doesn’t really lock. We just pretend it’s locked when we show players the padlock with the code they need to solve. It’s all for show.” She tried the door herself. It wasn’t possible, but the door wouldn’t budge. “This shouldn’t be locked. Someone must’ve locked us in from the outside.”

Her gaze fell to Mrs. Hudson, who was looking around slowly, taking in the surroundings. Mrs. Hudson hadn’t been inside this room before. At least not since Secret Staircase Construction had begun their renovations. Her expression was difficult to read. She was no longer angry like she had been during their initial confrontation yesterday. Nor was she full of wonder at the magical room they’d created, which was even more bookish than it had been when it had been Harold Gray’s private library. Tempest froze when she realized what Mrs. Hudson’s strange expression was. Fear.

Mrs. Hudson was entirely serious about her accusation. She really believed Harold was here in this house. Or rather, Harold’s ghost .

Or maybe Tempest was simply projecting her own feelings onto the woman who wore unhappy expressions on her face so well. The one thing she was certain of was that whatever was happening, something was very wrong here. It wasn’t only the scream. Something felt off about this room, though she couldn’t yet place it.

Kira shook the door handle so aggressively that it rattled. Kira. Another strange addition to this mix. Did she have an ulterior motive for showing up early?

“Maybe if I try the poker on the door,” Cameron said.

“Stop.” Gideon said the word so forcefully that everyone instantly froze and looked at him.

Gideon stood in front of the largest window in the room. The window reflected the fairy-tale architecture of the house, tall and narrow with a curved top. With the light of the setting sun behind him, a halo of light surrounded his face. “You all need to see this.”

“It’s him,” Mrs. Hudson said.

Gideon gave her a quizzical look. “I don’t know who set this up, but I think we’re really trapped.”

“Obviously.” Kira crossed her arms.

“There’s a note,” Gideon said, “from the person who trapped us in here.”

“The room is filled with notes,” Cameron said. “Tempest and Ivy did a great job setting up literary-themed escape room clues.”

“This isn’t one of their clues,” Gideon said.

Cameron gripped the poker with renewed vigor and joined Gideon at the window, where something was taped to the windowsill. It was a small note, written on a four-by-six-inch index card. The note was handwritten in block letters with a black ballpoint pen.

Tempest grabbed Cameron’s wrist before he touched the note and read the words without picking up the note card: “ Danger! Poisoned panes of glass. No way out. ”

“Poisoned glass?” Cameron shook free of Tempest’s grip but didn’t reach out for the card again. “That’s nothing like the other literary escape room clues you and Ivy created.”

“Because it’s not one of ours.” Tempest stared at the note—the threat .

She looked up at the confused faces surrounding her. “Don’t touch anything around the windows. If the glass is really poisoned so we can’t get out, we don’t know if it’s just the glass, or also the frame and latch.”

“If you two are messing with us to test if a scarier version of the escape room works,” said Cameron, “then it’s in very poor taste. My uncle has only been dead for a couple of months, and to use his voice as part of a game—”

“We didn’t do it,” Ivy snapped. “When could we even have done it? We weren’t here today.”

“You weren’t?”

“No,” Ivy snapped. “We all had other things going on today. That’s why we wanted to finish this phase of the interior yesterday.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Cameron asked. “I was at work today, too. You two really didn’t write that note for the games?”

Tempest shook her head as Ivy continued to look indignant at Cameron’s accusation.

“I bet this’ll break the glass.” Kira hefted a heavy book over her head. It was a glossy, illustrated book of great fictional detectives from history, whose author would surely approve of it being used to get out of a locked room.

“Good point.” Cameron picked up the poker he’d brought upstairs for protection. “This is even better.”

“Stop.” Mrs. Hudson stepped between them and the window. “If the glass is poisoned, we don’t know what it’s poisoned with—or what it’ll do if we break it.”

“You mean poisoned gas?” Ivy asked from where she was standing next to the bookcase with a section for classic mysteries featuring poisons. “The library can’t be poisoned.” She side-eyed the books as if they’d betrayed her and zipped the collar of her pink vest up to her nose.

“Well, we’ll just call for help—” Cameron broke off and swore as he dropped the poker and patted his empty pockets. “My phone is still in the dining room.”

“Mine, too,” Tempest realized.

Everyone’s phone was downstairs.

“Lucas!” Kira shouted. “We know you’re hiding in this house. You won. We’re trapped and at your mercy. You can let us out now.”

“I know who’s here,” said Mrs. Hudson. “And it’s not the man you’re accusing.”

“He’s playing a game ,” said Tempest. “I doubt it’s real poison, but we can’t risk it.”

“The poison could very well be real,” said Mrs. Hudson.

“The windowpanes are definitely smeared with something clear and gooey,” Gideon said softly.

Ivy gasped as Kira leaned closer.

“All of you,” said Mrs. Hudson, “get far away from the windows.”

“ Poison, poison ,” Kira sang. “You’re trying awfully hard to convince us there’s real poison. Looks more like coconut oil to me.”

Mrs. Hudson turned a sour glare toward Kira. “You want to test it?”

“I’m just wondering why you’re trying so hard to convince us it’s poison. Cameron is right. This is a fun house escape room. Someone wrote a clue in exceedingly bad taste.”

“It’s a clue,” Mrs. Hudson said, “from Harold . That scream. That call for help. I’ve known that voice for more than thirty years. It was Harold Gray.”

“But he’s is dead,” Cameron said. It was the gentlest tone Tempest had ever heard him use with Mrs. Hudson. He led her to the chair at a small rosewood desk.

“I’m not being sentimental!” she roared, breaking free from his guiding arm. “I’m being rational. That was Harold’s voice. Now we’re all trapped in this room by Harold’s weapon of choice.”

“Agatha Christie loved poison,” Tempest whispered.

They stared at the two windows, nobody moving. The only sound was the faint whisper of wind outside the locked—and possibly poisoned—windows.

“Harold is dead,” Cameron said, but his voice cracked on the last word.

“You heard it, too.” Tempest’s gaze snapped to his. “You recognized his voice.”

“You’re right that he loved poisons,” Cameron whispered. “I mean… He never poisoned anyone in real life, but those were his favorite books from the golden age of detective fiction. One of the reasons Agatha Christie was a favorite of his was because of how well she wrote about poisons in her books.”

“Agatha Christie was a nurse during the war,” Mrs. Hudson added. “She got her poisons right. Harold read every single one of her books, most of them more than once.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Kira said, but her words were less than convincing since she spoke the sentiment as a whisper.

“Has everyone besides me lost their senses?” Mrs. Hudson stormed toward the locked door.

A vase of fake flowers teetered on the edge of the small desk. The porcelain vase crashed to the floor, cracking in two.

Gideon knelt next to the fallen vase. “No wires.”

“There’s got to be a rational explanation.” Ivy knelt at his side and picked up the bottom half of the vase. “Maybe Mrs. Hudson stomping away shook the desk?”

“Forget about the vase,” said Tempest. “We need to let go of the illusion that this was a harmless prank. Whoever is doing this, it’s real . The thing we have to deal with right now is that we’re surrounded by poison and trapped in our own escape room.”