“I . . . I Don’t know.” JSYYAALYUFMIYZFT Tom scratched his head. “Is it Latin?” “It can’t be,” I said. “There’s no letter J in Latin. No U, either.” “Maybe this is another code, like you said. Maybe this one’s really, really secret.” Another code made sense. “But how do I decipher it? Where’s the key?” “Well . . . maybe those symbols mean something. At the beginning.” †Δ “Is that a cross?” he said. I peered at it. “I think it’s a sword.” “A sword? Oh!” Tom pointed to the end of the second line. “There. ‘End swords.’ There’s another sword.” A sword. A triangle. Another sword. Hugh’s fourth. Lions and gates. And a jumble of unreadable letters. That was the message. I didn’t understand any of it. Master Benedict had taught me backward writing the very first summer I’d joined him. He knew I’d figured out the number code from the gunpowder recipe. And he’d pointedly stuck the lemon juice in my face. He obviously expected me to decipher this message.