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Alex swallowed and looked away from his piercing eyes. She had no idea, but if she had to guess, her finger would point straight to Lady Mystique.

Silence descended upon them until Hunter finally exhaled, “All right, we’ll leave it at that. You can go now.”

She nodded and made to escape his intimidating presence, but he called her name again just before she was out of earshot, so she paused and turned back to him in question.

“You did well, tonight,” he said. “The traps you avoided after the picnic basket weren’t intended for you and Skyla, and I’m impressed you noticed them. I know you don’t want to be in this class, but you’ll eventually realise you belong here.”

Before she could argue otherwise, he turned around with a swirl of his cape and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

“He really didn’t give you the note?” Jordan asked later that night in the Rec Room, after Bear and D.C. had been given the rundown of their class.

“Apparently not,” Alex said, She grabbed another chocolate bar from the pile, in desperate need of comfort food.

“I can’t believe your crazy Lady Mystique has returned,” Bear said. “And that, once again, you were the only person to see her.”

“I know,” Alex agreed. “I have no idea what she was doing there, but I doubt it was mushroom picking. The entire thing was so surreal.”

Jordan’s night, by comparison, had been much more normal. He and Kaiden had followed the directions on their note telling them to search for a backpack hidden up a tree. Together they had avoided all of Hunter’s traps and easily made it back within the ninety-minute window.

“I’m more curious about this Raelia place,” D.C. said. “It sounds… mysterious. Meaningful. Important.”

Alex looked over at her friend and noted the expression on her face. “You look worried, Dix. What’s up?”

D.C. shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

Alex opened her mouth to ask her more, but Jordan jumped in first.

“So, what happens next?” he asked.

Alex licked melted chocolate from her fingers. “I have no idea. Lady Mystique mentioned something about Meya, but she wouldn’t say any more when I asked her to clarify. And then she talked about Raelia being a crossroad and said I’d know what that means when the time comes.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” D.C. said quietly, looking down at her hands.

“Yeah,” Bear agreed. “Let’s face it, Lady Mystique has a habit of throwing you in the deep end.”

Alex groaned. “Can we talk about something else? Something… normal?”

It turned out that ‘normal’ took more energy than any of them had left after their full day of classes, so they didn’t hang out for much longer before returning to their rooms.

Once they were alone in their dorm, Alex asked D.C. if everything was okay.

“Sure,” D.C. said. “I just haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

Alex understood what her friend was talking about. Being back at the academy and surrounded by people—not to mention the added strain of their exhausting classes—definitely disrupted their sleeping habits. It would probably take them all a few weeks until they were back in a working routine and feeling properly rested again.

“Come on,” Alex said, turning out the light. “Time for sleep, then.”

The next few weeks flew by as Alex got used to her new schedule and ignored the urge to do something more proactive about Aven and Meya. She finally began to settle back into academy life, immersing herself in her subjects—the old and the new. Just like last year, Combat and PE continued to be the most challenging classes for her, but now she could add Stealth and Subterfuge to that list.

It turned out their first SAS class had been an easy introduction, because every class since then had left Alex bloodied and bruised from her attempts at being stealthy in various circumstances. Hunter had also begun teaching them to recognise—and practise—subterfuge in different real life training scenarios, both in and out of his class. By far, Alex’s least favourite assignment was when she’d been tasked to breakinto Professor Marmaduke’s sleeping quarters to retrieve a personal item as proof of her intrusion. She had to execute it so that she was present when the Core Skills professor discovered the theft, and Alex then had to find a way to sneak the item back to the roomwhileconvincing the woman that she must have imagined the entire thing.

Miraculously, Alex had actually succeeded in her mission. It helped that her willpower gift prohibited Marmaduke from reading her mind. Without it, Alex never would have pulled off the deceit.

She’d been taking SAS classes for four weeks now and still didn’t want to be an active participant. But she’d finally come to accept her position, sometimes even enjoying what she learned from the surprisingly patient instructor. Despite his downright scary demeanour, Alex couldn’t help but respect Hunter—not that she’d ever admit that out loud.

“What do you think, Miss Jennings?”

“Sorry?” Alex said, snapping back to the present. She was in her SOSAC class, with Professor Caspar Lennox staring down at her from his formidable height.