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"You designed this?" he asked, realizing that there was more to the origami than an artfully folded paper sculpture.

Sakura nodded, and Brink picked up the origami flower, turning it to examine the edges and shadows, its depths and volumes. It was incredibly light, a thing spun of air. One of the petals was slightly longer than the others, and when Brink pulled it, the flower unfolded into a flat sheet. The paper shifted. There was something underneath. He slid a fingernail along the edge, and the top layer of the chrysanthemum peeled away, revealing a puzzle. A grid had been drawn on one side of the paper and a series of written clues on the other. It was a crossword puzzle, a puzzle within a puzzle, a delicious temptation custom-made for Mike Brink.

Sakura tapped her watch, starting the clock, and Brink went to work.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sakura Nakamoto knew that the opening moves of a game of skill were the most important, and the most difficult. From the outside, they might seem like guesswork—a series of random choices—but they weren't. One must know the right moves without knowing them. One must trust the phosphorescence of intuition, the wisdom of accumulated experience, that subtle, unquantifiable something that shows the way like a lantern on a darkened pathway. It was like answering a question that hadn't been asked. Or solving an equation that hasn't been formulated. It was a moment of pure imagination, all possibilities spread before you, beckoning. Some people just jumped in; others were careful, moving into the darkness slowly, one step at a time. Whatever method you used, nailing the opening was essential. One wrong move at the beginning and the whole thing would topple.

Mike Brink was famous for his opening moves. Sakura first heard of him a decade before, when she was thirteen and preparing for her first speed-cubing competition in New York City. Brink was considered the gold standard, the solver everyone wanted to be, so she'd looked him up on YouTube and watched him in action. His style, his speed, his intuitive grasp of solving had changed her way of seeing the game.

Since then, she'd watched hundreds of videos of Mike Brink and read everything she could find about him. The flesh-and-blood man matched what she'd seen online. He was tall, with blue eyes and pale skin and a Roman nose that gave him a strong profile. His sandy-blond hair was stylishly messy, and his three-day stubble made him both disheveled and handsome. His clothes were unassuming, almost plain. He wore red low-top Chuckies, soaked with melted snow, black jeans, and a T-shirt that read MIT PUZZLE HUNT 2015.

Sakura was born in Japan, moved to New York at nine years old, and was completely bilingual. Her intimate knowledge of the United States would be useful in dealing with Mike Brink. As would her training. She was born with a gift for strategy, her father said, and he’d taught her to play Go before she knew how to write complex characters. She’d won her first regional tournament at eight years old, in the adult category, a feat that had brought unwanted attention but fueled a passion for games of skill that never left her.

After she came to live in New York City, her training intensified. She played Go tournaments, won chess competitions, traveled across the United States for all variety of competitions. For fun, she began to participate in competitive video gaming. She won often and became one of the few influential teenaged-girl gamers. Videos of her playing Fortnite had been viewed millions of times. She inspired girls of a certain age to dye a streak of their hair bright aquamarine blue. Even now, years after she’d stopped playing, fans wrote to her.

But few people knew the real purpose of her training. Her skills were, as her aunt always said, a secret weapon. Acquiring knowledge is good but can also be perilous, her aunt said, quoting the priest Konan Osho. A heroic warrior, a kusemono, must expect that knowledge, even when one has the best intentions, can be dangerous. Become too smart, and you will be become arrogant. Too strong, and you will be challenged. Too kind, and you will be exploited. And so, Sakura hid her skills. Now, at last, it was time to use them.

The teenaged Sakura would have been in awe of Mike Brink, but the twenty-three-year-old woman couldn’t afford to be impressed. Too much was at stake. She’d been given the responsibility to oversee every element of the emperor’s invitation: delivery of the box; assessment of Mike Brink’s capacity to solve it; construction of a second puzzle and securing it inside the box. She’d been told to be ready to answer Brink’s questions before escorting him to Tokyo. She didn’t anticipate surprises—it was a rare moment when anything surprised her—but all of this had happened so quickly.

Two days before, on a visit to Tokyo, she’d been invited to the Fukiage Palace. She’d been ushered into the private quarters of the emperor, a modern room with plush white carpets and sleek contemporary furniture. An ikebana arrangement on a marble coffee table and a few pieces of traditional art were the only Japanese elements of the room. The emperor and empress sat side by side on a large white couch, waiting. Her aunt Akemi, their private secretary, sat nearby. Sakura hesitated, unsure of why she was there, but her aunt gave her a look and she entered the room, bowed low, her back stiff, her gaze turned to the ground, and waited to be addressed.