Peter here again. Today at around 9:00 p.m. in Venice, Italy, intrepid Wheel of Time fan Federico located the final The Great Hunt code’s hiding place . . . and confirmed that the code was no longer there. Maybe someone saw Brandon’s friend Ryan place it on top of this photo booth, perhaps via the prominent security camera, but in any case the clue is gone.

If you have a theory about what happened to the code, post it with the hashtag #wotghfinalcode. However, all is not lost. Brandon suspected things like this might happen, so he made duplicates of all the code stickers. We’ll be mailing Federico the code. But that doesn’t mean you all have to wait to read the unencrypted text . . . by complete coincidence, Membir guessed the code in the last few hours. It’s “An Unexpected Ally” and was code #28. Jordo has now unlocked the code and you can read the full text.

Congrats to all the hunters. Federico was actually the second person to check the photo booth, but the first Wheel of Time fan and the first to get his picture taken by the booth. WoT fan Claire tracked down a tourist (Lori) who was in Venice and convinced her to check the booth earlier in the day. Even before this, not satisfied to wait, intrepid fans started making educated guesses at the partially revealed text. You can see their efforts here and compare them with the final document. Good job, everyone!