“So, let’s watch it,” Theo said.
“Are you sure?” said their dad.
“Yeah,” Theo said. “Let’s see what the schmendrick has to say for himself.”
Mr. Biedermann punched the button on the remote and a reporter’s face filled the screen. “We’re waiting at the site of 354 W. 73rd Street, where Darnell Slant is expected to make a statement after he’s seen the damage from last night’s mysterious implosion that destroyed his latest investment. Luckily, no one was hurt in the event that took down this landmark building. But people everywhere are wondering whether this was simply a wanton act of sabotage, or whether Slant himself planned this all along. Aaaand, here we go live.”
The camera panned away from the reporter over to a tall, pale man with thick, dark hair buzzed on the sides, a man who would be handsome except for the lipless slash that matched his name. Jaime couldn’t have drawn a better villain.
“Thank you all for coming,” said Darnell Slant in his nasal accent. “This is an important day for all of New York because this is about the survival of New York. I know that some of you are upset. Some of you will probably protest what I’ve done here.”
Wait, what he had done?
“And that’s good. That’s what we do in this city. We fight for what we think is right. I’m fighting, too.”
Tess stiffened, and Nine licked her knee.
“Some of you see here the engines of destruction. I see engines of progress. The Morningstarrs were geniuses, the earliest architects of our city. I have said before that they should be honored in museums, in history books. We should think of them every time we ride the Underway. But the world in which they lived is history. And we need new heroes.”
Theo tugged at his hair, wanting to stuff bits of it into his ears to muffle the sound of Slant’s words.
Tess was squeezing her fists so tight that her knuckles went white.
“We have been trying to solve the Cipher for more than a hundred years,” said Slant. “But the solution is not in the streets or the buildings of this city, but in us, in its people. We are the magic. We are the treasure. And we are going to keep moving forward. The world stops for no one, and neither do we. We will rebuild. Thank you.”
He thrust the microphone at the nearest minion and was swallowed up by the buzzing, yammering crowd.
“Schmendrick,” said their mother.
“Liar,” said Tess.
“So, according to Darnell Slant himself,” the reporter said, “this was a planned demolition. But with residents barely out of the building, was it a legal demolition? Will charges be brought? And what are we to make of the fact that two men that reportedly worked for Slant, a Mr. Sinscher and a Mr. Poop, were found wandering in their underwear in Riverside Park, with no memory of the last six months? And what of the disappearance of Edgar Wellington, the current president of the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society, who vanished from the society’s headquarters a week ago only to show up last week at a Miami bar dressed like a Starr Punk?”
“Edgar is back?” said Mr. Biedermann. He turned to his wife. “Did you know?”
Mrs. Biedermann sighed. “I didn’t want to upset anyone even more. But yes. He doesn’t remember anything either, apparently.”
Theo didn’t have a name for what he felt about Edgar. Relief. Rage. Sadness. Disappointment. All of the above? “That’s . . . weird,” Theo said carefully.
“Yes. Very,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “All of this is very, very weird.”
“Weird,” said Aunt Esther, “is relative.”
And then there was nothing but the sound of Lancelot banging pots and pans in the kitchen, the scrape of coffee mugs on the table, the click of Aunt Esther’s knitting needles, Nine’s furious and insistent purr.
Slant had said, “We are the treasure.” Not so different from what Grandpa Ben always said.
Slant was so wrong about so much, but what if he was also just a little bit right?
Their world had been torn apart, but they were still here.
What is the city but the people?
“It’s very, very weird,” said Tess. “But we’re safe. And we’re together.”
“Yes, we are,” said Mrs. Biedermann, smiling, taking Tess’s hand. “We’re together.”
They hadn’t found the treasure, not yet.
But maybe they’d had one all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Jaime
It was a long ride from Hoboken. A short walk and two different trains, the Path under the Hudson and the No. 2 uptown. He wasn’t worried about the Guildmen anymore. They gave him no more attention than they gave anyone else, as long as he wasn’t littering. (He did, however, give the centipedes that cleaned the Underway cars a wider berth. Who knew when they would explode?) Now he was sitting in his favorite spot across from 354 W. 73rd Street, or rather, the empty lot where the building used to be. He’d gotten over the shock of it. Mostly. He’d even gotten over the shock of living in Hoboken (though he would never stop bugging his dad to find them an apartment somewhere cool, like Harlem or Seneca Village). Even Mima had adjusted, joining another bowling league, going out salsa dancing, and starting her own handyman business, which she called the Handy Woman. She was even busier than ever. Bought herself her own white van so that she could drive around and see her clients. Sometimes, Jaime went with her. He was getting pretty good with tools himself.
“Watcha drawing, kid?” said an older man, who stopped to tie his shoe. He was wearing a brown suit that nearly matched the brown of his skin.
“A building,” said Jaime, flipping the sketchbook so the man could see.
“Ah, that building. They never did figure out who did it, did they? Not for sure.”
“Nope,” said Jaime. “Not for sure.”
The man stood up straight, mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “A shame about all those people, though. Nobody should be pushed from their homes. It’s not right.”
“No,” said Jaime. “It isn’t.”
“Probably going to build some kinda fancy hotel or something. Some condos with an amusement park on the roof. Some restaurant that serves tiny food that only makes you hungry.”
“Probably,” said Jaime, smiling a little.
“Cheer up, kid,” the man said. “Who knows? Maybe in twenty or thirty years, you’ll be the guy who owns the city and you can do whatever you want with it.”
The man walked off, whistling. Jaime sketched the familiar lines of 354 W. 73rd Street, the windows like eyes watching over him, always watching over him, waiting for the twins to come.
Tonight was the night.
The crews had cleaned up the site. The rubble was gone. Slant was all over the TV talking about the tower of condos that he planned to put in the space, each of those condos with a view of the Hudson. The neighbors on either side of the lot were fighting him. They didn’t want a tower with views of the Hudson, a tower that would dwarf their buildings, send rents skyrocketing.
But they would lose.