“I will escort my squad down into the tombs.” Settie stared down Crewel, and there was whispering among the other squads as well as their sponsors, which were an odd collection of faces and people. Gray thought some looked familiar, but through the Testing, he’d not paid too much attention to them.

  Blythe’s sponsor was a tall man with auburn hair and a strong jawline. His eyes burned a cobalt blue. “Your squad doesn’t get treatment just because no one wants to join them.” He turned an eye to Tomi, who was crying now, tears dripping off her chin. “And if you have a recruit that needs to drop out. You should let her.”

  Gray felt the rage and drank in the mana. What did people do without a wrath resonance?

  Settie stiffened and faced him. “I will escort my squad down into the tombs. I will leave them there. None of my recruits are dropping out.”

  “Maybe we should,” Gray said. “We were told if we won tonight, we wouldn’t have to get stuck in a basement. And where’ the snacks, Magistrate? We were promised snacks.”

  Midj sighed. “Mother’s oven, I miss snacks.”

  Settie turned on him. “Shut it.”

  “No.” Gray walked up to Crewel. “Two recruits died tonight and they died because I wanted a comfortable bed and food.”

  “Get back with your squad,” Crewel snapped. “All is the Testing and all is the Test. Maybe this test was to see how you handled your expectations shattered. It is definitely testing how well you handle your squad mates being murdered. Look at Doralimb. She is not sniveling.”

  Gray’s core felt so swollen with mana, and yet, more was flowing in.

  He couldn’t help but let it flow into his meridians, into every part of him, until it felt like his muscles would explode.

  There were gasps as people felt it.

  Crewel nodded, grinning. “Oh, yes, we all know how powerful you are, Grayson Fade. Even now, we can feel your core. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are playing my game…and not the other way around.”

  “Stop!” Tomi shouted. “Stop it! I’ll go, Gray. We don’t need food or beds. I can do it…I can be alone…in the dark.”

  “And think about Tee and Jay, you bitch,” Blythe hissed.

  Her sponsor, the handsome man with the cobalt blue eyes grabbed her and whispered furislouly into her ear. It seemed to scare Blythe rather than silence her.

  Freek screamed out, “That’s four people gray has killed. He’s a murderer. He’s a fucking murderer!”

  The orc sponsor, a giant cambion with rows upon rows of earrings hanging from his ears, smacked Freek across the face. “Shut your fucking hole, Fenrik. His behavior doesn’t matter. Yours does.”

  Gray found some satisfaction in that, but he was worried about Tomi. Both he and Rynn grabbed her hands and held them.

  He thought about the names he’d heard Tee and Jay and Doralimb, the sister who was now alone in the world. Gray hadn’t known their names. They were gone. It was done. But they weren’t getting their prize. He hated Crewel. He was a little shocked that he seemed to be the only one.

  Froggy’s sponsor—a surprisingly pretty woman with short dark hair, called out, “We all will go down with our squads. We have had very little time to actually speak with them. Surely, Magistrate, you can give us five minutes.”

  Crewel’s jaw muscles clenched before he said in a hiss, “Very well. Five minutes. No food. No water. No comfort. And of course, I said six hours, but it could be shorter. It could longer. Just like death, I will come for you when you least expect it. I will check to make sure the sponsors have sealed the tombs shut, so each recruit is alone in the darkness.”

  Settie rounded them up and sent them down. Gray went first, arm back so he could continue to told Tomi’s hand, which was cold and wet with fearful sweat. Rynn was next. It was completely darkness—only the mana in their cores flickered until the tip of Settie’s cane came to life, giving them light.

  It was dusty, dank, and smelled like death. The stones steps crumbled as they went. Gray remembered the stairs he’d seen in that strange temple in Old Town. These seemed to be similar—the inky, fetid darkness was definitely the same.

  Fifty feet down the steps ended in a long hallway with eight doorways sealed shut by a length of blank gray rock.

  Between the stone doorways were sculptures in the rock—they were the gods there, the twin aspects of the instincts, but there was an additional pair at the very end of the hallway.

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  Settie strode there.

  Tomi gasped at each breath. “I can’t. I can’t. This is…I can’t.”

  “I know,” Settie said. “She touched the strange pair of gods at the end, filing the stone with mana. All eight of the stone doorways rose up into the ceiling, stone squealing on stone.

  Inside there was a sarcophagus as well as shelves where bodies lay wrapped in bandages. They were going to be locked in there, the stones closed, in complete darkness.

  On the sarcophagus was a bronze bell, radiating mana.

  Settie caught him looking. “If you ring the bell, the Magistrate will know. None of you will be ringing the bhell in your tomb. No. If you ring the bell, your time at First Field is over, and you can never, ever return. It’s put there to tempt you. None of you will succumb.”

  Tomi dropped to the floor, her hands in her face, sobbing…inches away from screaming.

  Settie, still in her hat and mask, walked forward.

  Gray got in front of her. “You’re not going to yell at her. You’re not going to shame her. If you aren’t kind, I’ll ring that fucking bell right now.”

  Rynn joined him. “And I’ll leave with him.”

  Settie slowly removed her hat and mask. Her cane continued to shine, throwing unsettling shadows.

  Midj laugh came out as a grunt. “Well, if they leave, I’m not staying here. I’m not exactly afraid of dead people, but I don’t like ‘em any either. This place gives me the shivers and shakes.”

  “Feels like home,” Ames said. It was hard to tell if she was on the verge of laughing or crying. “But I would leave as well. Better to be disgraced than return to the rain.”

  Tomi continued to weep.

  Settie dropped her hat and mask. What was that expression on her face? It looked pained, and yet, she was scowling.

  “You are all foolish children,” she said finally. “We haven’t much time.”

  She bent and was gentle as she pulled Tomi’s hands away from her face. “Look at me, Tomika Ka. Look into my eyes.”

  The cat girl did. “I need to go, Captain. I’m bad. I’m useless. I’ll never, ever be any good.”

  Every one of her words was like needles being pressed into Gray’s soul. How could she not see her own goodness?

  Settie shushed her. “I thought that about myself for most of the days of my long life. Because I grew up a serving girl in the Palace of Light and Laughter. You do know where that was, don’t you?”

  Tomi’s tearful eyes widened. “In Caelvarum. It was the palace of the King Regnarum Ultimata and his queen. And the princess, Princess Cassandra. It was where…”

  “It was where Malchutt revealed himself. I was there, Tomi. I was…” Settie’s broke. The calm on her face shattered, and for second, Gray saw the little girl she’d been. The little slave girl in the palace of wonder and dragons. She fought to regain control, and she did, enough to whisper, “I was Little Dani Witherhand. Princess Cassandra was my teacher…she taught me everything, about all the instincts, about life and love and sex. And she should’ve been enough for me, but I fell in love with Prince Thraxis. And you would’ve too. Everyone loved him so much. It was why I left him without anyone knowing.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Tomi said.

  Gray felt a shiver caress his spine. Someone, he knew it was the truth. It was history coming alive, and Tomi had to know that Settie wouldn’t lie.

  Or would she? Gray had the idea she would do anything to achieve her goals, including lying to a scared cat girl about to trapped in a tomb.

  Settie continued, as if she didn’t hear what Tomi had said. “Princess Cassandra pointed at me. Her fingers were stained with the blood of her parents. She said she would hate me for all time…until the end of the world. The very end of the world. Then she battled Malchutt with everything she had. I ran. Even as the palace crumbled around me, I ran. But I was trapped under rumble, and it took me hours upon hours to climb out. For a long time, I was afraid of enclosed spaces. But only for a time.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?” Tomi asked.

  Settie smiled. “Because if you survive this, I will tell you all I know about the Fall of Alastria. Of course, I want you to keep my secrets. All of you must promise you won’t tell a soul.” Her eyes were on Gray.

  He nodded. “From one slave to another. I promise, Settie. I give you my word.”

  “Me too,” Rynn said.

  “Me three,” Midj threw in.

  They all looked at Ames. “Who would I tell? I don’t have any friends. And I hate my father. There’s no one else.”

  Settie smiled and cupped Tomi’s chin in her hand. “Remember, Tomika Ka. Grayson Fade is right about so many things. You are not worthless. You are enslaved to your own thoughts, and they are lying to you. Don’t believe them. When the doubt, the fear, the panic come, you will remember, “I am a student of Sette Sevanya, also known as Dani Bloodhand, also known as Little Dani Witherhand, who was taught courage and core from Princess Cassandra Ultimata herself.”

  Tomi took Settie’s hand and pushed it against her cheek. “I will be brave, Captain. I promise. I will be brave.”

  Settie bent and kissed the cat girl’s shaggy head. “You are brave. Don’t let your mind trick you into believfing anything different. Don’t choose to be a slave, Tomi. Not to yourself. Not to anyone or anything.”

  She then stood.

  “Now, everyone find your crypt. You might be thirsty and hungry, but you can sleep. The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living, and I will do everything I can to protect you.”

  Gray and Rynn went to hug Tomi, who closed her eyes, smiling. “And I thought it was all a story.”

  “It is,” Rynn said. “And we’re the heroes.”

  Gray felt the tears fill his eyes. He sure didn’t feel like a hero right then, but she was right.

  And then they were all in their crypts as Settie touched the fourth pair of gods at the end of the corridor. “Courage, Squad 23. Courage.”

  And then the stone slowly slid into place, sealing them in absolute darkness.

  Before he lost the light, Gray found a corner as far away from the corpses as he could find.

  The stone was cold, he was wet with sweat, and he was so thirsty. And just when the thirst was bad, the hunger hit.

  But there was a way to escape.

  He gave into his exhaustion.

  He thought of Tomi, alone, frightened, and he knew she wasn’t crying. No, because she was the student of Little Dani Witherhand.

  They all were.

  Gray found himself laughing.

  He’d been saved from slavery by another slave.

  Ot was it just another story? Just another lie?

  Maybe. But for that long, dark night among the dead, it was true enough to sustain them all, including the little cat girl on the other side of three feet of solid stone.

  He dreamed of the palace of water and stars.

  There were two new faces in the ocean of souls—Tee and Jay were under the waters, their eyes closed.

  Gray knew that others would be joining them.

  He knew that the killing wasn’t over.