An imaginative childhood game becomes a mind-bending reality for five cousins when they’re transported to their made-up land—now a real country on the verge of war. “An intricate sparkling web of intrigue and magic. One of my very favorites.”—Patricia C. Wrede, author of Dealing with Dragons “It captures, as almost no other book on games-coming-true has captured, the real magic of making stuff up, of running scenes and characters that stretch your idea of who and what you might grow up to be.”—Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove They thought it was a game, but it was its own world . . . Each vacation for the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played at a game they call the “Secret”—an invented, scripted world full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring, court intrigue, and the Dragon King. In the Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they actually find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. The five have arrived at the start of their game, with the Country on the edge of war. What was once exciting and wonderful now looms threateningly before them, and no one is sure how to stop it . . . or if they will ever get back home.