“I’m hungry,” said Jax.

“So am I,” said Shannon. “How about we walk to the diner and bring back some food? We could try the pizza this time. Darius?”

Darius didn’t take his eyes off the table, frustrated that he still couldn’t see a pattern. “Hmm?” he said distractedly.

“Jax and I are going to get pizza.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sounds good.”

“You know, it might not be possible to solve it,” said Shannon. “Some jigsaws have too many missing pieces.”

“What?” said Darius. “What’s a jigsaw?”

Shannon looked at Jax. He shook his head. “I don’t know what a jigsaw is either.”

“Oh. Well, it’s a puzzle. You have to remake a picture of something by putting together lots of small pieces in the right order.”

She went to the bookcase behind the table and scanned the shelves. Underneath a stack of board games, she found a single jigsaw box, creased with age. It had a seascape on the front.

She showed Jax and Darius. “See? One thousand pieces.”

Jax held out a hand for the box. It rattled as Shannon handed it to him. When he removed the lid and saw what was inside, his mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be kidding. They’re all blue. It would take forever.”

“That’s kind of the point,” said Shannon. “It’s a challenge.”

“No thanks,” he said. “I wouldn’t even attempt it with magic.”

Shannon rolled her eyes. “Clearly nothing worse could be said of any Terran activity.”