My hunch is mostly proven correct. After surveying the next weird score, we determined that each measure resembles a room, which some measures formatted unusually wide or tall. Each one has only one whole note at one part of the measure, which could resemble a door.

The path lies within the score. Follow the measures to number four.

It seems simple enough. We just need to follow the score like we would a map to the room that the measure 'four' resembles. The only problem is orienting ourselves when we enter the warehouse so we know which measures correlate with which rooms.

Three hours and one meal later, Emi and I stand around the kitchen table, gathering anything and everything we could possibly need to break into a warehouse this afternoon.

"Keys?" I ask.

"Check. Map?"

"Check. Bobby pins?"

"Check." I have no idea how to pick a lock with them, but it probably doesn't hurt. Emi continues, "Sneakers?"

My eyes dart to my dirt and grass-stained converse. "Check. And you?"

"Check. Phone, tablet?"

"Check, check."

"Same."

"Snacks?"

Emi looks up from whatever she's doing on her phone. "What?"

I shrug. "I don't know. We might get hungry."

"Fine," Emi sighs. She ducks into the pantry and grabs a handful of granola bars, shoving them into her cross-body purse. "'Kay. I think we've got everything."

"Let's head out." What else could one possibly need when breaking into an old warehouse?

═════∘✧◦ 🎻◦✧∘═════

The road becomes increasingly worn down the further we drive. I thought the area we lived in was bad, but the uneven, cracked concrete is far worse than the streets by our apartment. I bounce up and down with the bumps, the mac and cheese from lunch sloshing around my stomach. Even more sickening is how faded the yellow line on the two-lane road is. All it takes is for one careless driver to come along, not paying attention to where the car is, and we'd have yet another money-sucking problem to deal with.

After a long stretch of driving by rough, unpainted buildings, the street ends. A stone building sits beyond the paved road, amidst dry, overgrown grass. I'm grateful that my sneakers and jeans completely cover my ankles, lest I get chiggers or some other critter from traipsing through the grass.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Emi asks. "It seems pretty... disheveled."

The white stones on the exterior are mottled with dirt and a rust-colored film that balloons across sections. In some places, chunks are missing from the facade, leaving the neighboring stones jutting out, ready to knock out a passer-by that gets on its nerves. Clouded, gray windows hang on the upper half on the building, most cracked or broken, darkness spewing from behind the holes.

I shrug. "Cheaper than shopping. Let's go."

We step from the car, a rotting stench saturating my nostrils. I wrinkle my nose and spare a glance around. My eyes fall on a narrow alleyway between two crumbling brick buildings on the street. Two beige cars and a gray one are parked beside the rusted trash cans that are crammed against the sides of the alley. Other than those three cars, ours is the only one around.

Emi and I make eye contact. Without a word, we hurry to the warehouse's front door.

"We should've thought about how we'll get in," Emi says once we stand before the green metal double doors. "The building is locked."

"Who says it's locked?" I ask, stepping forward. Something squishes beneath my foot, a plastic bag oozing a white mystery liquid. I focus my attention on the door to avoid gagging.

Emi's hands shift to her elbows. Her eyes dart nervously around. "Well, who'd leave it unlocked?"

I twist the door's handle. It rotates down, and the door slides open. I face Emi, a cool smile on my face. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters," Emi sputters. "We're trespassing on the city's property."

"Emi, we, the tax-paying citizens, are the city."

"Your logic is flawed."

"And you're wasting time." I turn my tablet's flashlight on. My hand finds Emi's wrist and tug her into the dark corridor. The light casts the unfinished, chalkboard-like walls in an eerie yellow glow.

Five steps in, blinding light fills the hallway. I shield my eyes with my hand and blink to clear the flash away from my vision.

My eyes adjust to the brightness after a few seconds. A hallway stretches before us, and there's a door on our left a few paces away. "Well, at least we—"

"Shhh!" Emi frantically looks about.

"What, it's not like anyone's here," I say in a slightly lower voice.

"We don't know that," Emi whispers. "What if someone found this place before us?"

I roll my eyes. "Fine." I turn the flashlight off. "At least we don't need a light anymore."

We take several steps forward, our shoes padding lightly against the hard floor. I try to orient myself by aligning the various doors in the wide hallway with the picture of the score I took. We pass several doors on either side, which are spaced similarly to the elongated measures on the score. As we walk, more lights flick on overhead.

A hand lands on my arm, and I jump, barely suppressing a yelp. Emi's worried eyes meet mine.

"D-don't you think it's kind of weird that the lights keep turning on overhead?" she says.

I hadn't really given it much thought, but now that she mentions it...

"There was electricity in the 1920s." I swallow. An iced almond milk latte would be great right about now.

Emi deadpans. "The lights are motion activated."

Silence reigns in the hallway. My pulse ticks upward.

"At least we know that we're the only ones here," I finally say. "Otherwise, the lights would already be on."

Still, we hurry our pace down the hall. At the end, it curves around, and Emi and I are met with a hallway that's already bright from the fluorescent lights overhead.

Emi turns to me, her face a cross between anger and fear. "No one here, huh?"

"How was I supposed to know?" I whisper back. "Let's just find the clue and get out."

I feel far too exposed walking down the lit corridor. Every time my shoes presses against the ground with the lightest sound of rubber against stone, I cringe. Room after room passes, and I can't help but wonder what lays behind the closed doors. Is someone inside? And if there is, who are they? What are they doing here?

Halfway down the hall, muffled voices carry from a room just ahead. I freeze mid-step.

Shoot.

It's too far to walk back to where we came from, but we still have quite a ways to go before we'll reach the end of the hall. We can only hope that we can round the next bend before anyone sees us.

Emi and I break into a partial-run, trying not to let our shoes thump on the ground. Footsteps clop behind one of the closed doors, and the voices get louder.

"The truck's almost here."

Blood rushes in my ears, turning the man's voice to static. Finally, the end of the hallway is in sight. I start to breathe a sigh of relief only to realize that our problems aren't behind us. No, they've only just begun.

The hallway is a deadend.

A solid wall lies before us. Other than the concrete stairs ascending on the right, we're trapped.

The doorknob turns behind us. Emi's hand grabs my arm, but she quickly releases her grip as she vaults herself into a small alcove under the stairs. I dart in beside her. My heart pounds in my chest. I crouch down, hands gripping my tablet to keep them from shaking, while Emi squats with her arms hugging her knees.

Footsteps, loud and lazy, slowly clop their way down the hall toward us. I squeeze my eyes shut, only to reopen them a moment later.

A doorknob turns, followed by screeching hinges. It closes a moment later.

Minutes pass. I alternate between staring at Emi, the cobwebs on the wall, and the dirt on the floor.

I hope there are no spiders back here. No hairy critters seem to skitter near us, but I keep my eyes peeled for them just in case, just as my ears are peeled for the slightest noise emanating from up the hall.

The silence is so thick, I hear Emi swallow beside me.

"Do you think he's gone?" she breathes.

I give a slight nod. "Probably."

"It's a dead end," Emi says through gritted teeth. "A. Dead. End."

"I know." I unlock my tablet. "We must've misread the map when we got in."

"This was the only path forward," Emi says. "And we haven't seen any other hallways diverging from the main one so far."

"Maybe one of the doors leads to another part of the building."

"Not according to the map." Emi's finger jabs at the space between the two lines of measures. "If this represents the corridor, why wouldn't one of the measures show a route to another hallway?"

"Then how do we get to the measure four room?"

Notes and measures glow up at me. I shake my head, trying to figure out the configuration. The area we entered seemed to align with the spacing of the last two lines of music. There was a room on the left, then a few paces later, one on the right, then we had to walk a long way to reach two doors opposite each on either side of the hall. These distances correlate with the spacing of the measures on the score.

"Maybe the score isn't a map," Emi says. "Maybe we misinterpreted the clue."

I purse my lips. As much as I hate to admit it, Emi may be right. But how else could the score represent the next clue's path if it's not a map?

My eyes scan the music once more, the glowing lines, the glowing notes. And then I see it.

"Emi, look! The bottom three lines are in alto clef."

"Uh-huh."

"The top three are in treble clef."

"Okay." Emi's eyebrows go from furrowed to raised. "Wait, that's an octave higher."

"So the top three lines, where the measure four room is, are higher than the bottom three lines. We need to go to the second floor!"

I poke my head out. No one is in sight, so I beckon Emi to follow me up the stairs. Just as my foot lands on the first concrete slab, a door screeches open. I run up the stairs, Emi on my heels. We dash around the first landing and up the remaining stairs. I turn the door handle.

Locked.

The footsteps come closer, and I resist the urge to frantically jiggle the handle.

"Let me try it," Emi whispers.

"There isn't—"

Emi's hand lands on top of mine, gently nudging the handle upward. It gives, and I heave the heavy monstrosity open a crack. We slip through before the weight of the door eases it back into place with a soft click. Another hallway awaits, and I start toward the curve at the end of it just as a shadow appears on the walls, getting larger as a steady clicking approaches. I search the corridor for somewhere to hide. The only thing I spot is a large black box sitting on the ground. I push it over a few inches, though it squeaks on the floor. It's pushed out just far enough that Emi and I can duck behind it.

The door opens to our right while the clicking shoes round the bend.

"Is the shipment ready?" an alto, female voice says.

"Almost. Just have a few things remaining to pack up," a gruff voice responds.

"Are the ledgers up to date?"

"Yeah, right here."

"Good. File them away in room four."

I exchange glances with Emi. She mouths, "our room four?" I shrug, peeking out just enough to see a buff guy stroll to the end of the dimly lit corridor. He stops at the very end, sticks his keys in a door's lock, and steps into a room. The woman's heels echo in the opposite direction.

Five minutes pass according to my tablet's clock before the buff guy reemerges. He lumbers toward us, and I'm grateful that his face — small and round compared to the rest of his hulking frame — is angled at the door, not at the floor where we are. He passes by, tucking his keys into the pocket of his leather jacket, because of course he'd be wearing a leather jacket.

His footsteps descend at a steady pace until only their echo lingers in my ears.

At last, I allow my lungs to exhale in relief. I turn my tablet on and quickly turn nighttime mode on to make the screen as dark as possible. A grin spreads on my face when I look down at the score again. The room four the buff guy entered correlates with the location of measure four: they both appear to be the final rooms in this hall, and this hallway seems to curve to the left, indicating that this hallway would indeed contain the measure four room. I flick my head toward room four, but Emi shakes her head.

"Come on!" I whisper.

Reluctantly, Emi pushes herself to standing. "Let it be known that I do not support this decision."

"Duly noted."

We tip-toe to the door. Emi's hand already holds two bobby-pins, just in case we need to pick the lock. I hope the three tutorials we looked up before leaving are enough to get the job done. Before we start on the lock, though, I try the handle just in case.

It twists down, and the door opens.

I grin at Emi, who just grimaces. I automatically fumble along the wall for a lightswitch, but Emi taps my shoulder. When I look at her, the outline of her head is shaking vehemently.

"What if they come back?" she whispers. "We can't risk them noticing a light."

"Fine." I turn my flashlight on, waving it around to get a sense for the space. A desk sits in the center of the room with bookshelves behind it. Some other furniture is strewn about on the sides. It's unimpressive until my light shines on the front of the desk. A wooden plaque sits on the edge, bearing the name "D.C. Silverenn."

"Jackpot," I murmur. "I'll take the left half, you take the right. Remember, we're looking for some sort of safe." I walk behind the desk and pull out the drawers one by one. The contents are sparse, mainly old fountain pens and paper, though there are some weirder finds, like rope and bullet shells. I sink into a squat, thinking about where to look next.

My flashlight reflects off something under the desk. I peer underneath it to find a black, metal box lying on its side. Something clinks inside of it when I turn it over. Excitement bubbles inside me, and holding my flashlight in one hand, I use my right hand to probe the cold sides. The top slides off to reveal a gun.

I shuffle backward on instinct. I glance at Emi, who's deep in concentration going through the books on the shelves. For some reason, this doesn't seem like it's the clue. Other than the gun being in a metal box, nothing about it says 'safe' to me. I slide the box back under the desk, resisting the urge to keep it with me, just in case we're accosted in here.

It's not like you know how to use a gun, anyway.

"Cerise!" Emi's whisper sounds more like a shout in the quiet. I hurry over to where she stands by the bookcase in the corner of the room. She aims her flashlight on a singular note suspended in an eight measure staff imprinted on the wall.

"It's a whole note in the bottom-left part of the staff, just like the position of the musical note in measure four of the score."

"Yeah. Except there's a bass clef beside it, not a treble clef."

Realization smacks me the moment I say it. Emi's head whips toward me.

"The floor!" she says.

"Exactly." I kneel down, handing Emi my tablet. She holds the flashlight while I press on the carpet. It doesn't budge. I inhale a deep breath, then run my fingertips over the carpeting. My face scrunches as I imagine all the dirt and who-knows-what collecting under my nails. At least they're short — one advantage to being a musician.

My fingers catch on a seam, the tiniest fracture in the carpet fibers. "Bobby pin, please." Emi hands me a bobby pin, and I wriggle it into the floor, using it to dig up the carpet. It doesn't give at first, but slowly, the carpet peels back. My heart pounds in my chest. I will it to move faster, but flooring has a funny way of not listening. We just have to get it up before someone else returns, before someone discovers us.

An image of the gun flashes through my mind. I can't tell if I regret my decision to leave it where it was or not.

Finally, the carpet peels back all the way. Emi shines her light directly on the spot, and it reflects back, bouncing off black metal that nearly blends into the darkness. Triumph swells in my chest. It feels too good to be true that we actually found it, the next clue to Silverenn's riddle.

"Good thinking, Emi!" I remove a box from a shallow hole, then cover the spot with the carpet. It falls limply into the square divot. Emi crouches beside me, a grin on her face. Despite all we've been through, despite any danger that we might've put ourselves in when we came here, we did it. We figured it out.

I flip the box over. The light, the excited, burning light of success, fizzles out. A combination lock juts out from the metal. Faded black letters encircle the white dial.

"This... wasn't part of the clue," Emi says.

I swallow, turning the box over. "Maybe it's a different clue."

"You mean we have another riddle to solve in here? Another score to analyze?"

I turn to Emi, meeting her wide, concerned eyes. "Yes."

That iced latte would really, really be great right now.