Jame­son care­ful­ly observes the room’s ornate ceil­ing, not­ing its intri­cate blue and gold design fea­tur­ing an elab­o­rate X with dia­mond-shaped squares on either side. With­in these dia­monds are shields con­tain­ing sym­bols like Greek let­ters, a flower, a lion, and a sword. He recalls key phras­es from Rohan, but noth­ing clicks until he shifts his focus from the details to the broad­er pattern—the X itself. This real­iza­tion sparks a con­nec­tion to Rohan’s ear­li­er hint about “the mark,” sug­gest­ing the X might lit­er­al­ly mark a hid­den spot.

Beneath the X on the ceil­ing lies a table, and Jame­son quick­ly moves to inspect its under­side. With Avery’s help, he dis­cov­ers small, coast­er-sized disks in each cor­ner. Avery iden­ti­fies them as “wheels,” recall­ing Rohan’s cryp­tic instruc­tion to “let the wheels turn a bit” before the game begins. The duo real­izes these wheels are not just dec­o­ra­tive but func­tion­al, like­ly part of a mech­a­nism to unlock some­thing hid­den.

Work­ing togeth­er, Jame­son and Avery attempt to turn the stub­born wheels. After apply­ing upward pres­sure and per­sis­tent effort, the wheels begin to rotate. Once all four are turned repeat­ed­ly until they can move no fur­ther, a hid­den com­part­ment on the table’s side sud­den­ly opens. This break­through con­firms their the­o­ry that the wheels were the key to uncov­er­ing the next clue in the game.

Inside the com­part­ment, they find a key, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in their quest. The chap­ter high­lights Jameson’s keen obser­va­tion­al skills and Avery’s quick think­ing, as well as their seam­less col­lab­o­ra­tion. The dis­cov­ery of the key not only advances the plot but also rein­forces the theme of team­work and deci­pher­ing hid­den clues in high-stakes sit­u­a­tions.