Even though he was tired, Grandpop made sure to tuck Sasha in. The tutors were coming in the morning, he said, and she needed to be in bed on time. He sat down on the floor beside her bed and made up stories about haunted hotels and terrible room service. “I ordered breakfast in London and they brought me antlers. They did! I opened the silver lid and there was nothing on the plate but reindeer antlers. And a bottle of hot sauce.”

She knew it was an effort for him to make up funny stories, and not just tonight. Eduard said Grandpop “carried the weight of the world.” Sasha knew it was the weight of his god. Every day, he’d told her, God reminded him that most people in the world were suffering terribly.

“It’s a wicked world out there,” he said to her as he tucked her in. “We all have to do our part to make it better. But what? That’s the question.”

She didn’t answer. But when he left her room, she sent a text to his bedroom wall that said, We’ll figure something out, GP! Love you.

A minute later (Grandpop was slow at working the house interface) he sent back: I know we will. Now go to sleep!

*   *   *

Two hours after midnight, Bucko shook her awake. “Time to get our raid on.” Sasha retrieved a few items from her black bag, and then the bear climbed onto her back.

Eduard’s office was on the second floor. To get there they had to walk past the master bedroom. “They’re probably having sex,” Bucko said into her ear. “You know they do it all the time.” She did not want to think about what Eduard and Suzette did in their bedroom. She’d seen enough sex online to know that she didn’t want to see it in person, especially not between her parents.

The office door sensed the key fob in her pocket and unlocked itself before she touched the knob. She closed the door behind her but did not turn on the light. She did not know this room as well as she knew the other rooms in the house—Eduard did not like her in here, and it was one of the few rooms that the house did not let her see—but the gap in the drapes allowed enough moonlight to make out the desk, the armchair, the bookcases. Leaning against one of the walls was a stack of paintings wrapped in brown paper, each one much taller than Sasha and wider than she could span with her hands outstretched.

“Blimey, more paintings?” Bucko asked. “Since when does Eduard like art? He sure doesn’t like yours.”

She’d discovered the first painting on a raid months ago. And now there were four, no, five paintings. Eduard hadn’t unwrapped any of them.

“Forget that,” Sasha said. “It’s the briefcase we’re after.”

“I’m on it,” Bucko said. He hopped down from her back and ran over to the desk, where the briefcase lay. “Let’s pop the lock on this dead man’s chest.”

Sasha climbed onto the chair beside the bear. She ran her hands over the lock like a safecracker. She’d found the combination two years ago, written on a piece of paper in Eduard’s desk, and Tinker had memorized it for her. Eduard had never bothered to change it. She worked the wheels, and it popped open.

“Avast!” Bucko said.

Inside the briefcase, the slate was in its usual holder. She turned it on and unlocked it with the same four-digit code he used on all his devices. Why was he so lazy about security?

The messages she wanted to look at were in the Vik Group network storage. She didn’t have the latest password for that, because it was the one password Eduard was forced to change regularly—and that’s why she needed his slate. Eduard never logged off the device.

She searched for all messages addressed to Edo Anderssen Vik, or that mentioned him in the body. There were thousands. Many messages she’d seen before, but there were hundreds of new ones since the last time she’d broken into his slate. She transferred them all to her own storage on the house’s network. Then she put everything back where it belonged, and Bucko remembered to give the slate a wipe with his furry paw to erase any of her fingerprints.

She wondered, not for the first time, if she was a bad person. There seemed to be something in her that wanted to sneak and steal. It was this bad thing, she was sure, that had caused her real parents to leave her at the orphanage. It was this bad thing that had made her listen to the Wander Man. And it was this bad thing that had made her try to kill Mr. Paniccia when she was five years old.

She wasn’t like Grandpop. He was a good person, and his IF was God himself. Sasha’s friends, on the other hand, could be so … immature.

“Let’s roll,” Bucko said. “Mission fucking accomplished.”

“Wait.” There was something new on the floor near the desk, a package about two feet square. Did Eduard bring that into the house with the latest paintings?

The box was marked up with shipping stickers, and the flaps had been opened. Sasha squinted to make out the label in the dim light. It was addressed to Grandpop. The “from” address was a series of numbers. She should have brought Tinker with her to remember it for her.

Bucko was opening the flaps. Inside was a cube of pale plastic. It was too big for her to lift out.

“Just so we’re keeping track,” Bucko said, “Eddie’s now intercepting mail, art, and office equipment.”

She had no idea what the object was, or why her father was keeping so many things from Grandpop. Adults were crazy.

*   *   *

She could not sleep until she’d read the new messages. She knew the IFs would be curious, so she called up Mother Maybelle, Zebo, and Tinker, and together they went through the files.

A number of them had already been flagged by Eduard as important. A dozen were from someone named Rovil Gupta, and several more were from Lyda Rose. Both of them mentioned “Little Sprout.” She knew that name.

“Hey Tinker,” she said. “Do you remember that photo? The real one, on paper?”

Of course he did. They’d found it in Grandpop’s desk drawers once. The next time she’d looked for it the photo was gone, but fortunately Tinker had been with her the first time.

The robot boy whirred, and a length of paper unrolled from the slot in his chest. Mother Maybelle leaned down, fabric crinkling, and tore off the strip.

“Hmm,” she said.

She handed the paper to Sasha. In the photo, four people stood facing the camera, holding glasses. A toast, just like in a wedding movie.

Grandpop looked about the same as he did now. Next to him was a hugely fat white man with brown hair and a sour look on his face. Beside the fat man was a pale redheaded woman, her head thrown back, laughing at some joke. And beside her was a tall woman with skin darker than Sasha’s. She was smiling too.

Tinker had also remembered the words that had been written on the back of the photograph: “NME 50! Little Sprout 3/5/17.”

Sasha had no idea who these people were, or what most of the words meant. But she could find out.

Mother Maybelle saw what Sasha was thinking. “You are not staying up all night hunting around on the internet,” the woman said. “You have school tomorrow!”

“Just let me finish,” Sasha said. She turned back to the message list, and on impulse she searched for “Little Sprout.” One of the messages had come in just a few hours ago, from someone named Gilbert Kapernicke. It wasn’t addressed to Edo, but to Eduard. Zebo read it aloud:

Dear Eduard,

Rovil Gupta, whom you may remember from Little Sprout, visited us today by phone. We talked about Lyda, so much so it was like having her in the room. She is hurting, and she would very much like to speak with your father. We would be pleased for you to arrange this, but of course that is your choice to make.

“Who the hell is this Gilbert nitwad?” Bucko asked.

“Please,” Sasha said. “Just let me think a minute.” She had to figure out so many things. Who were these people? What did they want from Grandpop? And how was she going to tell him without Eduard ruining her life?