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I t feels like we can’t make it back to our camp fast enough. I never dreamed Ingrid would be the one following my lead through the woods.

Life is peculiar sometimes.

I’d snatched up my knife before we took off from the river, holding back a gag while wiping off the black blood from the blade. Ingrid lugs our fish and makeshift spear as we stumble through the woods.

The last time I navigated the woods at night, it ended with me running into Lamond. I absolutely do not want to meet any more strange men in the forest tonight, no matter how handsome they are.

Relief courses through me as I spot a fire at the edge of the woods. When I can hear Deah and Emmy’s muffled voices, I pick up speed with Ingrid close behind. The treeline breaks and I nearly collide into Emmy sitting on an overturned log.

“Thank gods,” Ingrid huffs as she keels over her knees.

Emmy springs to her feet, facing Ingrid and me. “What happened to you two?”

Ingrid straightens, her vivid green eyes darting to me. “Something attacked us at the river. I don’t know what it was. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Standing from her spot kindling the fire, Deah offers a skeptical look. “What did it look like?”

“Oily. Black. It had tar-like, bubbly blood when I stabbed it. Giant teeth, and it grew legs after it got onto dry land.” Shivering, I kneel down to my pack to retrieve my waterskin .

“But it’s dead?” Lotog prods, walking back from the trees toward our group. “No privacy for a bathroom around here.”

Ingrid and I share a look again, her face a silent plea. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I continue. “I had thought so. But after I killed it, I got sick. When I went back to get my knife, the creature was gone.”

Emmy drops the pan she’d pulled out of her bag, clanging loudly as it collides with the rocky earth. “Care to elaborate?”

Ingrid blows out a shaky breath. “Not much more we can say. We don’t know what happened to it. We snagged our fish”—she waves the fish still stuck on the spear—“then got out of there.”

I finally notice Westyn, who is ruddy faced and frozen on the other side of the encampment. I offer him what I think is a comforting smile, but he only gawks at me in horror.

Deah drags a hand over her face, muttering to herself. “We’ll take shifts tonight.” Turning to Emmy, she points to the fish. “We can ration that, so get cooking. We need to lay out the miserable excuse for blankets they left us.” She winces as she holds up a tattered quilt.

My attention snaps back to Ingrid as she picks at her sodden clothes. “I told you not to get into the water. Do you want to see if we can scrounge up a change of clothes?”

She smirks, but this time it doesn’t feel sardonic. “Spell-master, remember?” With a snap of her fingers, her sopping clothing dries.

I jolt at how abruptly her appearance changes, before smiling conspicuously. “Well, now I know who to come to with wardrobe malfunctions.”

After our incredibly meager portions of fish, we all lay out blankets, scattering about the campsite. Ingrid chooses the spot next to me, despite glares from Emmy. Westyn offers to take the first watch—his first words since we arrived—then agrees to come wake Emmy when it’s her turn .

Settling in, I force my anxious thoughts to settle. I hear Ingrid shifting around on her blanket beside me, so I know she’s awake. “Why did you want to sleep next to me?”

“You’re the only person in our entire class who seems to care if I live or die,” she answers so quietly, I think I might have misheard her.

But I know I didn’t.

I left a family who loved me, even if it had been necessary. “I’m sure that’s not true,” is all I can think to say.

“It is, but I’ve made peace with it.” She rolls to face away from me, and I assume she wants the conversation to end.

“I promise I have your back,” I can’t help but whisper to the dark sky.

There’s a sniffle. “Thank you for not telling them I did nothing to stop that creature.”

My heart shatters for her, but I close my eyes and force my breathing to steady enough to drift off.

I’m unsure if I’ve been asleep for minutes or hours when something snatches me from sleep. I let my eyes adjust to the darkened woods, orienting myself. Our fire is nothing but smoldering ash, so I must have drifted off hours ago.

Something isn’t right.

My eyes finally adjusting, I can see I’m utterly alone.

I scramble to my feet, going for the two knives I kept sheathed at my thigh and hip. The entire campsite is vacant. My breathing turns ragged, and I reach for the tether to Artemis. Nothing but darkness there, either.

Not possible.

Panic settles in my chest as I eye the area we’d set up last night. It’s entirely too quiet, and only the blankets remain from the rest of the group.

Rustling in the bushes snaps my attention to the thicket. Whatever it was, I can hear its steps growing more faint. Not letting my guard down, I set off in the direction Westyn was keeping watch, past the bush that rustled .

Perhaps Westyn was the one who startled me awake, and I’m being paranoid. I try to loosen the breath lodged in my throat as I round the tree he’s stationed at.

The sight robs the oxygen from my lungs.

Westyn had been brutalized. Slices cover his body and claw marks run down his face. Whatever attacked him gutted him, then left him sitting upright against this tree.

I’m falling backwards, unable to catch myself as my backside hits the ground. Pain shoots up my spine with a white-hot vengeance. I scoot back, rocks scraping under my pants when I hear a humming in the wind.

“ I told you it would not be the last you see of me ,” the voice calls to me in a harmonic register. It’s so familiar.

A blood-curdling scream rips through me as I feel the Abacae’s presence coil around my body.

I jolt upright, inhaling sharply. Emmy is standing over me, worried lines etched on her face. “Everything is all right. You were only dreaming.” It’s like my soul is still trying to reattach to my body as I stare blankly at her.

Blinking against the morning sunlight, I find Ingrid next to me, looking as startled as I am as she props herself up on her elbows. “Where is Westyn?” I gasp out.

“What are you—” Emmy’s eyes flare in horror. “ Shit !” she yelps, dropping my arm and hurtling toward the tree Westyn had taken post at.

I shove the disorientation aside and jump up to follow her. I need to see with my own eyes that Westyn is unharmed. Emmy and I reach his post at the same time, finding it vacant. Panic vanishes, her face scrunching up. “Did he abandon his post?”

“There’s no way he would have left,” I answer, still shaking off the lassitude. I consider telling her about my dream and think better of it.

Deah nods, fussing with her braid anxiously. “Aledrya is right, he doesn’t know how to navigate by himself. Westyn is smart, he would have stayed with our group. ”

“Well, then where is he?” she demands, thrusting her hand at the empty post.

“Why are you just realizing he’s gone?” Ingrid pipes in from behind me, and I pivot to find her leaning against a tree. “Weren’t you supposed to relieve him of his post? It’s morning, you should have been on watch hours ago.”

Emmy grows alarmingly still, and I suddenly wish my primary power was the ability to dispatch. “What are you implying?”

Ingrid scoffs, Emmy stiffens at the noise. “I’m stating that you should have taken watch and didn’t .”

“Hate to break this up but feel like it’s important to tell you that we found Westyn.” Lotog’s appearance breaks the tension, his face pale and blotchy. We follow Lotog, leading us to a thicket near our campsite.

The same thicket from my nightmare.

Dizziness smacks into me as I step closer with the rest of our group.

To my horror, Westyn looks exactly as he had in my nightmare, only now he’s lying prone. I set my jaw, swallowing a scream as the others gawk at his battered body.

“Do you think it was that thing from the river?” Ingrid appears at my side, startling me from my rising panic.

I close my eyes for a moment before turning to her. “No. That thing had long needle-like teeth…those look like claw marks.” Again, the urge to tell them about my nightmare bubbles up, but I shove it back down. There’s no telling if they’ll believe that I had nothing to do with this.

Deah is green as she regards Westyn’s brutal wounds. “We need to bury him,” she says, her voice breaking through a warbling tone.

“Bury him? No, we need proof this wasn’t our fault.” Lotog’s voice rises with every word, gesturing toward Westyn.

“It’s not unheard of for Novice’s to die during Campout, Lotog,” Emmy speaks up, eyes never leaving Westyn. “You know that.”

“I do know, and I know better than anyone I would have wanted to see the body. Not simply been told where the body rests.” Color returns to his cheeks, turning his face red. His curls are limp from the humidity of this morning, his voice full of bite.

My heart breaks for him; I can’t help but wonder who Lotog lost.

Deah steps in the middle finally, putting a hand on both Lotog and Emmy’s chests. “We won’t bury him.” Her gaze lingers on Lotog. “We should have our Phoenixes alert the officers.”

I voice my full agreement with her, Ingrid watching warily but adding nothing.

Leaving the others, I walk over to what was Westyn’s pack and pull out the blanket he hadn’t bothered with. Something catches my eye in his bag once I remove the blanket.

I reach back in.

A flicker of shame flushes through me, but I’m already elbow deep in snooping anyhow. I feel the scrap of parchment I noticed and pull it out.

I stare at the single line until the words blur.

Shoving the note back into the pack, my palm finds something sharp.

Jerking my hand out, I peer inside. Westyn’s two knives sit at the bottom of the bag.

“Why would he not bring his knives?”

The sound of Deah’s voice above sends me flying backwards to my ass. “What the Beneath, Deah? You could have warned me you were looming over me.”

She raises her eyebrows, staring down at me. “Don’t be so skittish. I would have snooped, too.”

I bite my lip, staring at his pack as I peel myself from the dirt. “He left his knives, which seems odd, no?”

“I think so. I’d never go off alone without a knife. Abacae himself could show up.” She gives an exaggerated shudder, peering into his bag. The mention of the Abacae is enough to send goosebumps along my skin. “He was on watch, he would have needed them— did need them.” She flinches at her correction.

“If we’re being forthright with one another, I also read a note he had in his pack.” I throw the quilt over my shoulder and start to make my way to where Westyn’s body lies. “Wait, Abacae himself?” I stop walking, Deah moving around me.

“Yes.” She looks at me for a moment. Her braid is loose and messy. Dark circles forming under her eyes. We’re all exhausted, but as our leader, Deah is feeling it more than most. “You’ve never heard that phrase?”

“I’ve heard the term Abacae, but for this weird creature in the Woven Wall—Blocks. Whatever you want to call the space between the realms.”

Deah’s brows crash together, and she looks over her shoulder to ensure the others aren’t listening. “Did you see the Abacae in the Wall?”

“Why do you keep saying the Abacae?”

She looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Because it is the Abacae? He’s pure evil.”

There’s my heartbeat, thudding in my ears again. The blood feels like it rushes to my head in time to the eerie beat. “Lamond said they’re an irritant.”

“ Lamond told you that?”

“How long do I have to keep answering your questions before you tell me something?” I hiss back, impatience itching beneath my skin—or maybe that’s my fire.

Deah closes her eyes for a moment, drawing in a breath. When she opens them, she takes my arm as we head toward the others. “Abacae is the Overlord of the Beneath, Aledrya. He’s not an irritant, he is deadly and truly the most wicked thing in existence—but he doesn’t come to our realm.”

I stare at her, and I’m grateful she’s holding my arm because I can’t concentrate on keeping my own legs from giving out.

“I’ve only ever heard fables about him.” Her gaze becomes softer. “Maybe the Wall disoriented you and you hallucinated?”

I nod, chewing my lip. “Maybe,” I parrot.

The odds of Lamond and I both hallucinating Abacae being in the Wall are so minutiae it’s laughable. I hum that same, strange lullaby that seemed to ward off Abacae the first time, and pray to the gods it works again.