At 11:43 p.m., Sofie Toddlesworth had narrowed the colour down to six shades of purple. This was progress.

Violet was too theatrical. Plum was too old. Mauve looked like bathroom paint. Aubergine was immediately disqualified because Sofie refused to fight crime dressed as a vegetable. That left royal purple and something the manufacturer called Imperial Majesty, which was ridiculous because they were almost exactly the same colour.

Almost.

Sofie held the two swatches beneath her desk lamp. Royal purple contained marginally more blue. She chose Imperial Majesty, changed her mind, then changed it back before pinning the winner to the board.

The board had started life three weeks earlier as a mood board. Sofie hated the term mood board. Mood boards were for interior designers and people planning weddings. Sofie was studying to become a crime scene investigator, so she called hers THE CRIME SCENE.

Photographs, sketches, fabric samples and handwritten notes covered almost every centimetre of cork. Black thread connected costume designs to possible names. Purple thread connected names to symbols. A photograph of a question mark had somehow acquired three separate lines of inquiry.

VIOLET VEIL had been eliminated for sounding like perfume. PURPLE REIGN was trying too hard. NIGHTSHADE sounded poisonous. ENIGMA sounded pretentious. PHANTOM sounded male. QUESTION MARK sounded like she hadn't finished deciding.

Sofie stared at the final name: MYSTERY GIRL. It was obvious, and that bothered her. She wrote TOO OBVIOUS? on a yellow note and stuck it underneath, then removed it because it wasn't straight. The second attempt was also crooked. The third was perfect.

The clock read 12:26. Sofie had intended to leave at ten. Not leave leave. She wasn't going anywhere important. She was simply going to put on the costume, climb onto the roof of the parking garage two blocks away and look at the city. That was all. A rehearsal. Nobody would know—unless somebody saw her, photographed her, called the police, or she fell off the roof.

Sofie looked back at the board. The cape was the problem. Definitely the cape. She had prepared six versions. Long looked dramatic but created a snagging hazard. Short was practical but made her look like a magician's assistant. No cape was safest but ruined the silhouette. She measured the long cape again: one hundred and twenty-seven centimetres. She had measured it eleven minutes earlier. It was still one hundred and twenty-seven centimetres.

Good. Next: mask. Then boots. Then gloves. Then belt.

At 1:18 a.m., Sofie finally stood in front of the mirror. Purple suit. Black boots. Cape. Hood. Mask. Question mark. Mystery Girl stared back at her. Sofie turned sideways. Not bad. She turned the other way. Better. She lowered the hood. Worse. Hood up. Better.

She practised looking intimidating. She looked constipated. Relaxing her face produced a considerable improvement.

“Answers are overrated,” she said. Awful.

“Curiosity can be deadly.” Worse.

“You don't know me.” Sofie stared at herself. “Of course they don't know you. That's the point.”

She dropped into the chair and checked the time: 1:37 a.m. Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow would be better. She could adjust the mask in the morning because the left side was perhaps two millimetres wider than the right. The question mark could come down slightly too. Three centimetres. Maybe two. There was still plenty to do.

Sofie began removing the belt when something on the desk caught the light. She stopped and looked at the amulet.

It was heavy, old and far too ornate for the costume: a golden disc containing an eye within a triangle, surrounded by markings Sofie had never completely understood. It had belonged to her great-grandfather. Her mother had given it to her years ago with very specific instructions: keep it safe, don't wear it, and don't ask about it. Three instructions almost perfectly designed to ensure Sofie eventually did all three wrong.

Her great-grandfather appeared in only four family photographs. In three, the amulet was visible. In the fourth, somebody had scratched away the part of the photograph where it should have been. Sofie had once asked her mother why. Her mother changed the subject. When Sofie asked again, her mother left the room. That was considerably more interesting than an answer.

Sofie picked up the amulet and held it against the centre of her belt. It shouldn't have worked. Gold wasn't part of the palette. The design was too elaborate. The symbol competed with the question mark. It violated practically every decision she had made during the previous three weeks.

It looked perfect.

Sofie fastened it into place and, for once, didn't check the mirror. She pulled up her hood and walked towards the door, then stopped and returned to the desk. The Imperial Majesty swatch needed to move four millimetres to the left. She studied it, moved it three millimetres back and smiled.

Perfect.

Sofie switched off the lamp and headed for the door. Tomorrow would have to find something else to worry about.

Tonight, Mystery Girl was going outside.

DECISIONS

THE BEGINNING