IF YOU FIND THIS

I haven’t told you everything that’s happened yet, but for now I have to move these notes somewhere different. It’s not safe to keep them in my dresser, or anywhere at my house, after what happened in the smugglers’ tunnels—Jordan says anyone who’s after Zeke might be after us. So I’m moving these notes to the graveyard, behind the tomb with the stone boy, to an empty urn near the grave of ZACCONE. Before, my mom probably was the only one who would have found these notes, but now just about anyone could.

If you’re a kid reading this, don’t think you would fall in love with me if you met me. Maybe you think you would, but you wouldn’t. Not even 1%. My eyes are freakishly large, and my shoulders are stained with brown freckles, and my tooth is chipped from falling out of a tree. Here’s the truth—no one loves a boy who takes violin lessons. Here’s the truth—no one loves a boy who memorizes square roots.

Whoever you are reading this, I’m going to ask you a riddle. If you solve the riddle, I’ll give you the gold lighter of a high schooler as a prize. But I won’t tell it to you yet—I’ll tell it to you later.