Levana looked down at her legs. We all looked down at ours.Impossible,I wanted to think—but no. The moment I thought about turning to run, my legs moved on their own—forward, not back.
“The Trial has officially ended! We will see you in the beginning,” the speaker shouted, but I barely understood the words. Because with every step I wanted to takeback,I took one forward—and not just me. All of us.
Screams. Gasps. Cries.
Focus, Ora, focus!
And there was only one thing to focus on: there was no way out but through.
6
Real.
It was all real, and I was here now, in the forest, no longer bothering to try to move back. I couldn’t. My body was being controlled by something else, it seemed. Whatever kind of magic it was, it was perfectly undetectable, and I couldn’t evenfeelit to try to fight against it. The best thing to do was give in.
So, I did.
Trees around me, dark, but not that dark. There were lanterns hidden between the branches, fires that brightened up the leaves without burning them. The sound of the audience was gone, swallowed by the silence that reigned between these trees.
I looked up, and the canopy was too thick to see the Great Clock at all.
Suddenly, it was like we’d entered another realm altogether.
“Guys,” someone whispered. “Let’s stick together, okay?”
No,was my first instinct. I fought better alone. It was easier to hide alone. It was easier to disappear alone.
“We will. How else will we know how to do this?” said someone else—Reggie, if I had to guess.
I didn’t look to the sides at all, only ahead. The lights did more damage than good, it seemed, because the shadows of the trees and branches and leaves were scarier than the dark. They looked like monsters with hooks for hands coming to tear us wide open.
It’s the Turning Trials,I reminded myself. There would be no monsters with hooks for hands here. It was just a game.
“How will we know how we didthis in the first place? How can weunsomething we don’t remember doing?!” Anika said, her voice higher, sharper. She sounded pissed—and I was, too.
Not because I was here, or because some invisible force had relieved me of control over my own body—but because I’d chosen to come here. I’d chosen to apply. I’d chosen to take the test, to do my best to prove that I was fit for the trials. That I was worthy.
Too late now. The clock was ticking.
No…theclockswere ticking, plural.
“Do you…hear that?” Cook whispered—the first time I’d heard him speak since he said his name at the dining table.
And, yes, we did. All of us.
“Guys, what in Time’s Teeth…”
I closed my eyes, focused on my ears. It wasnotclocks ticking like I thought—it was footfalls. Someone was running, and they were running fast, and they were getting closer and closer, and?—
“Here they come!”someone shouted.
My eyes were open, my knives raised. Whatever was coming, I was ready for it. For teeth and claws, I was as ready as the next second.
And then it came.
Thesound.
No more air in my lungs. The soundof those footfalls rushed right through us, and beyond. Just the sound without the actual creatures. Just the sound that faded away somewhere outside the forest.
