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He'd bought his first puzzle box over a decade ago. He'd sought out a distributor that exported traditional Japanese boxes and ordered them by the dozens. He experimented with elaborate and perplexing boxes, trick boxes designed to turn a solver in circles. He met an innovative American puzzle-box designer who showed him his designs, demonstrating what—with a wicked imagination and a sharp sense of the mischievous—a puzzle-box constructor could do. With their precision and difficulty, their iron-tight sequences, puzzle boxes were like solving a tangible code.

Most people felt their way through the maze of sliding pieces, using trial and error to guide them. Not Brink. He had a sixth sense for puzzle boxes. He intuited each move, felt it in the way a pianist felt the next key or a sprinter the next step. He understood a box's secret language, responded to the slightest pop and click of a mechanism, knew the meaning when a piece slid easily or with resistance. A puzzle box had its own language, and Mike Brink spoke it.

Looking at the box in his hand, he felt an overwhelming urge to open it. "Is this what I think it is?"

Sakura held his gaze, as if enjoying his discomfort, then nodded, a terse gesture that made his heart leap. "Inside that box is an invitation to solve the Dragon Box," Sakura said. "It's yours, if you can get it."

Of course, this small box wasn't the puzzle itself. The Dragon Box would never have been taken from Japan. This was the riddle before the riddle. That was how a puzzle box worked: puzzles within puzzles, patterns within patterns, a nest of infuriating enigmas whose complexity was meant to confuse even the most expert solvers. The Dragon Box was the most complicated of all. It was legendary, as mythic as the riddle of the Sphinx. An invitation to solve it arrived once in a lifetime. He still couldn't quite believe it was real.

He turned the puzzle box in his hand, examining the surfaces. He felt its solidity, the expert construction, the ruthless economy of it. Despite its size, it was a masterful puzzle box, one he couldn't approach lightly.

"How many moves?"

"This is a three-sun box," she said. "And it requires twenty-four moves to open."

A sun, Brink knew, was a Japanese form of measurement. It equaled roughly an inch. "Seems awfully small for twenty-four moves."

"Size has nothing to do with difficulty." She crossed her arms over her chest, assessing him. "Or the value of the treasure waiting within."

Big things come in little packages. He smiled, acknowledging this truth. "Any special design elements I should know about?"

"There are nothing but special design elements. A puzzle box is never quite what it seems. It's a master of illusion. Don't let your guard down, even for a second."

She glanced at his wall of puzzle boxes. He could feel her assessing him, wondering if he was good enough. Did she doubt his abilities? There was no one better. He'd spent years cracking these things. "Ready when you are."

"Good," she said, turning her wrist to reveal an Apple Watch with a black leather band. She tapped the reflective screen, calling up a glowing stopwatch. "You have sixty seconds."

She didn't wait for him to respond. With a tap, the countdown began.

Brink had one minute to solve the puzzle box. But he didn't need a minute. Not nearly. Without fully thinking, without even knowing what he was doing, his mind circled the box, assessing it, tearing at the surface, searching for a way in. That is how it always happened. His mind absorbed a puzzle the way his tongue absorbed taste or his nose scent—effortlessly, as if it were made for that singular purpose. His gift, that inexplicable genius left in the wake of trauma, took over. The first move came to him. Then the second. The solution appeared in his mind like a hologram, the slide of panels, the order of moves, clear and distinct, until the box lay open on the table, solved.

"Impressive," Sakura said, her eyes wide with admiration as she stopped her watch. "You opened it in twelve seconds."

He felt a wave of pleasure, a rush of triumph, a delicious release of chemicals in his bloodstream. That was it. That was what he loved about solving, right there—the moment the pieces came together. The moment it all made sense.

"But you're not done yet," Sakura said. "You may use the remaining forty-eight seconds to solve this..."

Inside the box was a piece of crisply folded origami, the paper petals forming a bright yellow-orange chrysanthemum.

"The chrysanthemum is the symbol of the emperor of Japan," Sakura said. "He sends you his sincere hope that you will solve my puzzle."