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right, team! Battle formation! We’re going in.”
    “Going in, dear?” Mary-Todd asked.
    “We must stop the enemy.” Eisenhower pulled his ski glasses back over his face.
    “Dad, wait.” Hamilton was surprised that the words were coming out of his own mouth. Eisenhower was, too.
    “Wait?” Eisenhower said. He leaned forward, glowering at his son. “You’re not afraid of these Cahills, are you?”
    Hamilton rolled his eyes, knowing his father couldn’t see his face through the ski glasses. “They probably aren’t even Cahills, Dad. We should just keep going.”
    Eisenhower drew himself up to his full height. Hamilton could see him flexing meaty fingers through his winter gloves. “No son of mine is going to act like a cowardly shrimp! Holts! Move out!”
    Madison, Reagan, and Mary-Todd all fell into formation, but Hamilton’s legs refused to move. He stood there, staring down his father.
    “They could be innocent backpackers,” he said. “Or scientists. Or — or explorers. You don’t know they’re Cahills.”
    Eisenhower leaned forward and put his face very close to his son’s. “Of course they’re Cahills,” he snarled. “No one else would be out here! Now get moving!”
    Something hot was boiling inside Hamilton, something that wouldn’t let him back down. He had done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of during the Clue hunt, most of them on his father’s orders. Grace Cahill’s mansion was burned to the ground because of him. One of the funeral attendees had been taken away in an ambulance. And that hadn’t been the last time one of Eisenhower’s strategies had landed people in the hospital.
    “You want to attack those people, fine,” Hamilton snapped. “But I won’t help you.” He turned his back on his father and started to walk away.
    Hamilton expected to hear his father’s enraged shouts as he left, but instead, the air was silent for several seconds. And then, so quietly he almost missed it, Hamilton heard Eisenhower say one word.
    “Traitor.”
    He almost stopped. His footsteps slowed, but something pushed him on. The word echoed in Hamilton’s ears for a long time as he trudged away through the snow. He forced himself to focus on getting as far away as he could.
    It wasn’t until he started shivering, even underneath his huge parka, that Hamilton realized it was getting dark. He looked up at the sky and then scanned the horizon in all directions. Nothing but the bleak snowscape, a few icy-looking mountains rising in the far distance. Leaving his family had been stupid. If he’d stayed with them, he could have controlled the situation, maybe scared the backpackers off before Eisenhower could do them any real damage. And then a worse thought occurred to Hamilton.
What if those backpackers really are Cahill agents?
They could be dangerous. His family might have needed him, and instead, here he was, stomping around the Arctic by himself.
    Hamilton immediately turned around. He started following his footprints back, but it was dark and the snowshoes didn’t leave very deep tracks. Wind was blowing the top layer of snow around in all directions, and soon Hamilton had lost his path entirely. All he could do was keep walking and hope that he’d pick up the trail again. Hamilton’s stomach clenched. If he couldn’t find his way back to his family, he’d be in trouble. His mother had been the one navigating the snowy terrain. He had no compass or GPS of his own. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as he thought of all those past explorers who had come to the Arctic like him searching for a Clue, only to freeze to death before they could return.
    Walking back through the snow at night seemed to take ten times as long as it had on the way out. The sky was almost pitch-black now, except for the stars clearly visible overhead. The temperature was dropping steadily, and the chill of the Arctic cut through Hamilton’s parka like icy knives. If only he knew more about navigating