The Square Giving Circle

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This is a “meta-puzzle”, that combines the answers from other puzzles in the series.

You can find a printable version here.

Use the clues below — each relating to a previous puzzle with the same number — to fill in the 3x3 grid with letters. Then, find a path through the letter grid to complete our three-word maxim.

The path can travel up, down, left, right, or diagonally; it can even “wrap around”: the path can exit the grid’s right edge (say, at the cell marked 9) and re-enter on the matching left edge (cell 1), or vice-versa; likewise with bottom and top edges (4 to 2, or 2 to 4). However, diagonal wrap-around (4 to 6, 2 to 8, 3 to 2, 8 to 9, etc) is forbidden.

Diagram showing a pattern with gray grid and arrows indicating red flow outward from the center and blue flow inward from the sides.

As the phrase has 16(!) letters but the grid only 9(!), there’ll be some repetition. In fact, your path should meet one particular letter three times.

A 3x3 sliding puzzle with numbered tiles 1 through 9, arranged randomly, with an empty space in the bottom right corner, and an empty space slide area at the bottom.

Clues:

1. The unwatched cameras together form the shape of this letter.

2. Reciting a letter of the alphabet —one at a time, and in order! — with each tip of the cube along the shortest path, this is the letter spoken when the cube reaches “end”.

3. The used characters throughout the grid form the shapes of letters spelling two words; enter those words here: The _________ _________ of the alphabet.

4. The first letter of the city square to the right of Aubrey’s.

5. When magic is gone, only counting remains — seek the square’s place in its ordered chain.

6. The first letter in the mathy word.

7. The only letter not used as an answer.

8. The first letter in the name of the symbol that appears upon rotating the image 90° counterclockwise.

9. The letter that fills the indicated space in the ladder.

Puzzle creator: Blue

Need a hint?