Gigi examines the puzzle box and finds a nearly invisible circular seam on its bottom. By pressing it, Gigi releases a shallow wooden disk and reveals a clock-like panel beneath it, with two metal arrows, twelve notches, and one notch marked with the numeral 3.

Gigi forces herself to focus on the puzzle instead of Brady, Knox, violence, secrets, or her own distractions. Brady identifies the arrows as clock hands, and Gigi turns over the removed disk to find a riddle about dawn, raccoons, a boon, and the months November, April, September, and June.

Knox quickly suggests that the answer is noon, because the riddle’s rhymes point to it. Gigi sets the hands to noon using the marked 3 as an anchor, but nothing happens. Gigi then realizes the listed months are the four with thirty days, moves the minute hand thirty minutes past noon, and unlocks the next stage.

The clock mechanism falls away, revealing a new circular section divided into wedges. When pressing the wedges does nothing, Gigi remembers that dead ends in puzzle boxes often mean something has been missed. Gigi reexamines the discarded pieces and realizes the metal clock hands may serve another purpose.

Gigi removes the hands and discovers that the hour hand is a magnet, allowing the team to continue through multiple additional steps. Eventually, Gigi, Brady, and Knox reach the center compartment of the box, where they find two cotton balls and a carved instruction: USE THEM.