“I can’t believe they put us to sleep like that. No warning! Nothing!” Rob complained, the moment the bell tolled at the end of class. Elric Drosselmeyer’s magic was certainly precise. The entire class woke up at the sound of the first ring—with mixed moods.

  “You dolts, we’re going to be late for dueling, and you’ll lose face for the whole dormitory!” Tristan snapped on his way past them in the corridor. He was always irritated when he first woke up, Rose had noticed—and clumsy. His book bag hit the doorframe with a loud smack! on the way out.

  “That was Jared Drosselmeyer, the heir of the actual labyrinth!” another student was murmuring excitedly.

  “His brother Elric’s a sand craftsman. What’s he even doing at the academy?”

  “Rob, wait,” Rose said, taking the bookbag that Rob was shoving in her lap. She leaned over to Victor’s desk, where for some reason, he still hadn’t woken. “Victor! Victor, class is over. Are you—”

  Victor flinched back from her touch like he’d been stung, awake suddenly and all at once.

  “Whoa,” she eased. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine,” he muttered, before hurrying out of the door just as fast as Tristan. “Bastards…”

  “Wow. Rude,” Rob stared after him.

  Rose shook her head. “I don’t think he meant us. He was a little… odd before they put him under.”

  “Well, clearly they managed to put you under. I was starting to think you were immune,” said Rob, cheerily. “How do you do it, by the way?”

  “How do you light cauldrons without matches?” she shot back. “You can do way more than I can, and I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re just a lousy tutor.”

  “So you don’t want my help in History anymore?”

  He held up his hands. “I take it back. I don’t even know how you understand him half the time.”

  “I speak whistle,” she said. “By the way, what was that class? Everyone looked different after waking up.”

  Rob steered them down the back corridor to the practice fields for ‘dueling.’

  “Hoo! Those might have been the most vivid dreams of my life. I mean, I pictured the mental wall that Baron’s always going on about, but then it was like Jared was standing on top of it laughing. Then he was walking down the walls I pictured, like gravity didn’t apply. Then, he had me on this staircase that just kept going in a circle, like it would never end. And then, there were the CHICKENS!—”

  She blinked, cutting him off before he could go on a farm-related rant.

  “He got into your dreams and put chickens in them? Why?”

  Rob looked at her suspiciously. “Right… faraway mysterious origins of Shreveport. Well. Jared Drosselmeyer is one of the labyrinth’s caretakers. Although, I don’t know what he actually does with it besides dream magic and moving rocks in the tunnels. He’s actually over the goblins, I think. And they have some WEIRD magic.”

  “Like walking down walls.”

  He walked a little quicker, and she was forced to jog to keep up with his defensive pace.

  “Well, what did you dream about?” Rob asked hotly.

  She shrugged, wondering what would be most believable. “Nothing. Homework, I think. And that’s another kind of never ending staircase, in a way.”

  Rob groaned. “Tell me about it. Let’s just get changed. Maybe Coach Talus will have something easy planned for today.”

  She snorted. “Sure he will.”

  Talus had decided that it was time to introduce them to the ‘basics’ of Dueling for Dunderheads. For those who could already practice some martial arts, there were duels on the ground. Duels with scarecrows. Duels with animated mannequins. Sparring. For some, he allowed duels in the air or water depending on race. However, for those with ‘developing’ abilities, as he called them, the alternative was to complete a circuit of obstacles on a water track while dodging mannequins spelled to hit you as hard as possible.

  The obstacles were slippery, tricky, and impossible. Worse, the water was dirty, which meant dank and reeking things for Rose’s future if she didn’t shower with the rest—which she absolutely wasn’t going to do.

  She didn’t know why, but every time there was a water event, Victor sat out. Sort of. Talus still had a mind to make him do pushups and situps by the antique-wood seating at the side of the arena, but he was the only one there. She couldn’t help but wonder if Victor was hiding some sort of creature-parts that were allergic to water. Or dirt. Or real exertion—but even she was polite enough not to ask.

  Once more, the situation of her cleanliness was dire. She didn’t just smell like an old kipper. At this rate the fishmongers would be coming for her by morning, DIRE.

  The air was also getting sharply colder. The day she’d left Dross manor, the spring buds had already come to the gardens, but here the leaves were turning, and the flowers wilting more every day. There was a river in the woods behind the locker-house that was clean enough to bathe in, and fast enough that laundry would have been easy—if she didn’t believe whole-heartedly that she was going to freeze her fingers off every time she did it.

  However, when she made to slip away from the group and head for said river, a sniveling voice from her most irritable nightmares called her back.

  “Sit with me a moment longer, Mr. Cible,” Valentin said with a smile, patting a seat beside him on the lower arena seating.

  Fred apparently couldn’t find a reason to invite her back with him, because he disappeared with the rest, leaving her floundering with her own nonexistent excuses. So, she nodded and took a seat far enough away that the filthy-fish-water scent wouldn’t get her in trouble. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as he picked himself up and plopped down, right next to her.

  “What, no friends today?” she blurted awkwardly.

  “Caro and Jule are otherwise occupied at present,” he said silkily. “But they are not who I wanted to discuss. Actually, I was hoping to discuss you.”

  He leaned in, his breath within a head-space of her own.

  “You… lied to me,” he whispered conspiratorially, thin lips twisting into a broad smile.

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  Rose went very, very still.

  “What?” she asked, her voice half-a-note too high.

  One by one the nights she’d broken curfew paraded through her head. The mornings she’d avoided showering per schedule. The food she’d smuggled. The books and supplies she’d ‘borrowed,’ and worst of all… her lack of magic.

  “Oh, no need for such stress,” he said, waving a hand languidly, as though that could dismiss her worry. “Don’t worry, I’m not angry, just impressed. You see, most students think they’ll hide an ace up their sleeves, they think they’re so clever. You can see them coming for miles, especially in a dormitory designed to weed out false faces.”

  She blanched as he leaned in further. Had he guessed what she was? And then a worse thought occurred. Is he making a move?

  He kept talking.

  “You surprised me. Credit where it is due.” He tipped his odd little cap to her. “All this time, and you’ve managed to hide your talent.”

  She could have deflated with relief. He didn’t know, then—not that, at least.

  “I’ve been here four years already, and I’ve never seen someone successfully make it through more than a week without revealing their ace; however, hiding cannot serve you for long. If I may suggest, I believe it’s time to change strategies.”

  “What is it you’re asking me?” she asked neutrally, tugging on the collar of her loose, borrowed exercise uniform.

  “Why, only what the whole dormitory is wondering,” he waved to the general air, leaning in again, this time close enough that she felt compelled to scoot back. “How is it you’ve managed to keep Baron, a professor, a master of his art, out of your head? You’ve been driving him spare for weeks, now, and I did overhear something interesting in the hallway today…”

  Her breath caught. Had he overheard the deal?

  “Baron talking to the Drosselmeyers. Warning them about you.”

  She relaxed.

  “What you need is an ally. Someone who can help you through the harder subjects. Who can give information for information. Who can—”

  “Someone who can give me my bed covers back?” she quipped dryly, ready for him to get to the point.

  “I’ll give all of them back, of course. Giving back just one set would look… suspicious, and I don’t stand by favoritism in my duties.”

  Of course not.

  Telling Valentin that there was no magical channel for Baron to find in the first place was not an option—not now, when she had no real allies, and when she couldn’t get to Gearson and Didymus. She had no silver bullet to offer, which is what she suspected he wanted.

  Plus, she added mentally. He’s already been outbid.

  “I don’t think I can offer you what you think I can,” she said carefully, making to stand.

  He stuck out a foot, hooking around one ankle, and keeping her seated.

  “I’ll be the judge of that. You would be wise to accept my offer. I…don’t think you want to make an enemy of the board of your own dormitory.”

  She smiled. “So. If there’s nothing I can give you, then you will make it your mission to make my life difficult?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “Take away my bedsheets this time?”

  “You ingrate,” he hissed. “You have no magical skill to speak of, no education—so obviously untrained. You don’t know the kind of friend I could be.”

  She hooked his ankle with her foot and tossed it away from her chair leg.

  “I think you’ve already shown me, Cross.”

  She knew that he would find a way to make her regret it, but Rose couldn't find it in herself to care as she stalked off toward the lockers, and then around back to the river. Then, she put Valentin Cross from her mind as she faced the new challenge before her.

  It was cold.

  Oh, so cold.

  Jared hadn’t exactly left her with instructions on how to find his private bathrooms, but if he didn’t soon, then she was going to march up to the doors of his dormitory and demand them outright—if she didn’t die of hypothermia, first.

  What a damsel way to die, she thought to herself dismally, as, shivering, she made her way back to the arena. Halfway frozen. Death by shivering. Willingly jumped in a river. Brilliant move, Rose, really, just—

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she heard it from around the corner of the locker building, but for once, it wasn’t directed at her.

  Rose edged around the corner of a supply shed just in time to see Caro’s fist collide with Victor’s stomach.

  “We all know your magic isn’t that strong. You took that class credit from me, and I wanna know how!” Caro was saying, watched and egged on by Jules, Valentin’s other crony. She was about to wonder where Valentin himself had gone, when the man hurled himself forward in a blur, and kicked in Victor’s knee.

  Rose covered her moth as the knee crumpled beneath Victor with a sickening snap! But fortunately, it wasn’t the sound of muscle and bone—but of metal, and wires.

  Victor’s prosthetic was knocked out from under him, and he toppled over, to the sound of Valentin’s jeers.

  “Unable to cheat in the real world, are you?”

  This. Guy. Rose felt her lip curling in disgust. One person said ‘no’ to him, and he reacted by bullying the first lone-student he saw? Pathetic. No wonder he hadn’t made official dorm leadership yet.

  “I’m not the one cheating,” Victor spat back with a mouthful of blood.

  Caro and Jules stood back for Valentin to get in another shot, and Rose knew that what she was about to do, she was going to regret.

  Well, in for a penny, as they say…

  She lunged out from her hiding place, and sucker punched Valentin right in the eye.

  Unfortunately, his surprise didn’t last long.

  “You’d damage a face like min—?” he started to say.

  Rose landed an axe kick to his head, and he fell to the ground, half-conscious and groaning. However, before she could really revel in that victory, Caro and Jules were on her. She took a hard blow to the head from Caro, and another to the stomach from Jules that sent her to the ground next to Valentin and Victor.

  Caro was about to land his dirty running sneaker in her face in a way that would probably send her to the nearest hospital for a week, when a streak of brown curls hit him from the side.

  Rob shoved Caro to the ground hard, and when Jules came for him, a quick knock to the jaw sent him stumbling back, eyes watering.

  It was a beautiful right hook that even Rose could appreciate. Rob was a lot stronger than he looked.

  Caro was just getting back to his feet when the rope got him—the magic rope that sprung from the ground like it had been planted there and doused in miracle grow.

  “Oh no…” Rose heard Victor moan somewhere above her head, and then Coach Talus arrived in the scene.

  “What. In the deadlands do you think you’re doing? Brawling outside of class? Out of bounds violence against other students? Maybe I wasn’t clear enough with the rules.

  His cropped hair seemed to bristle as he glared down at them from his scarred face.

  Rose had no doubt that he could have thrown them all to the ground without the rope if he’d wanted. For now, it was curling its way around Rob, Victor, herself, and Valentin, hoisting them to their feet and standing them in a line in front of Talus like a reverse-firing squad.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  Those of them that were all conscious shook their heads and muttered things like, “No, sir,” or, “It was clear sir.”

  Talus rubbed at his face in frustration.

  “Detention,” he barked sharply. “For all of you.”

  Rob immediately began to protest, to explain that half of them were only there out of personal defense, but Talus wouldn’t hear any of it, stopping him with a quick snap of his fingers when the rope mashed itself across Rob’s mouth.

  “Once you fight, you lose the opportunity for words. Remember that. And if you’re gonna ponce around doing something so stupid—” He glared at each of them in turn. “Then don’t be stupid enough to get caught, too.”

  Shaking his head, he set them all down, and nodded at Victor, Valentin, and Jules.

  “And get them to the medical rooms. I want to see all of you at the moor’s entrance to the labyrinth tonight at ten—no, don’t give me any of that crap. If there are other punishments for breaking curfew, then you should have thought about that before brawling in my glass. First years—” he groaned.

  With another snap, he dismissed the rope, leaving them to a very silent, very awkward trudge to the med-hall.