16

When the pattern was finally agreed, there was a soft click inside the wall. The second lock released. The door swung inward.

Beyond lay a short passage and a square room, windowless and cold. Cables ran along the walls into a metal cabinet. On the far side stood a wooden stand with clamps where something round had been fixed and carefully removed.

“The Star’s mounting,” Snowell said. “Whoever took it did not snatch and run. They knew which leads to loosen.”

Kasparsnow went straight to the cabinet. Inside was a panel of small levers and switches, each marked with a word or half a phrase. Some of them matched lines you remembered from the invitations.

“These labels echo the letters,” he said quietly. “Each guest holds part of a sentence. When the phrases are set in the right order, the field can be adjusted. Or shut off.”

He touched one of the levers. The metal around it was faintly scratched, as if someone had tried different settings in the dark.

“Somebody has already been in here,” Wesley said. “And not with all the pieces of the sentence.”

Kasparsnow closed the cabinet.

“Tonight,” he said, “we will ask every guest to bring their invitation to this room. We will see at once who has something extra, or something missing.”

On a table by the wall was a chess game left half-finished. You wondered how the position arose.

Starting from the initial position, give a sequence of moves that reaches this position after White's 8th move (8 moves for White and 7 moves for Black).