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I woke up and someone was going to die. All signs pointed to the posh prince because Khalid seemed decent, even if his father was the law. He said he wasn’t a snitch, and I didn’t gut people without proof. I was trusting like that.

I didn’t particularly care Lucian gotten out of his bag and was spooning Sage. I got vibes she would have woken us up beating his arse or at least giving him a really entertaining tongue lashing if she wasn’t into it. I wasn’t going to complain if she woke up and did, either.

No, all our fecking food was gone. Not in the some supernatural who was super quiet snuck in here and stole it to fuck with us way. There were empty wrappers everywhere. I checked the bag. There was none left.

Khalid went camping with his Da. My Da never did that with me, but I went with my childhood chum. When I ran, I didn’t want any cabbies or train station employees being kidnapped and tortured because someone spotted me at the station or in a cab and the family thought they knew where I went.

I grabbed a bunch of camping gear and left Ireland by foot for as long as I could. Khalid knew how to ration food when you didn’t have access to a kitchen and so did I. Sage took her health seriously because she could die, so it wasn’t her.

There was one spoiled prat on our team who would put Sage in danger like that. There were no stores or restaurants out here. I could go hungry. She couldn’t. I was livid.

Everyone woke up when I kicked the ponce right in the kidneys. I hoped he pissed blood for a week. I shouldn’t have let Headmaster Mykene have that giant man frisk me and take my blade. I pointed out that knives were useful in all kinds of situations when you were camping, but she claimed a switch blade only had one use and she didn’t trust me yet.

I wanted my switch blade back. We had so many good times together, I’d named her.

Khalid jumped up to restrain me and Sage jumped between Lucian and me.

“What the fuck, Liam?”

“All the food is gone. Not stolen, eaten. There are empty wrappers everywhere. He didn’t even try to hide the evidence.”

Sage looked like she’d been slapped and I didn’t know why Lucian did, too. He was the one who fucked this up for her. He knew damned well she had diabetes, and he ate all the fucking food.

“I swear, I didn’t. I can’t eat that much food and I wouldn’t do that to a diabetic.”

He did eat that much food. These were the kind of rations they gave soldiers in the field. They were dense meals that were meant to fuel soldiers who might not get to eat for a while. My Da bought a bunch of them and stocked his secret panic room in case he needed to hide from the law or his enemies for a while.

Lucian ate multiple days worth of rations for four people and he didn’t leave a single crumb. If he’d just eaten a few, we could have split things up and managed so Sage could still complete the trials.

“You were the only one who was weirdly hungry yesterday, Lucian,” Sage accused.

“Yes. I still don’t know what I want to eat, but I figured out last night that it’s not these rations. And I’m not a monster. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

Except Lucian’s guts rumbled and he was was running out of the tent puking his guts out. I was a sympathy puker, so I avoided that like I did priests, but I could still hear it. That sounded like a man who was having regrets because he ate all our fucking food.

Gross.

Lucian came stumbling back inside. He collapsed with his face in his hands.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I wouldn’t have eaten everyone’s food, even if Sage wasn’t a diabetic. I clearly did and I don’t remember doing it. That’s also an insane amount of food and even before it came back up and I realized I ate it, I was still ravenously hungry. My stomach is upset, but it still feels like I need to eat,” Lucian moaned.

I mean, this could probably be some magical thing that he couldn’t help, but at the same time, he’d just ruined things for Sage, so I still wanted to stab him.

“I’ve camped in England before,” Khalid said. “I know a little about living off the land here, but I’ve never camped in this area before, so I’d have to research a little. Foraging will slow us down, so maybe if we split up and two of us forage while the other two go after the crystals, we can still keep Sage in the trials.”

“Wait,” I said.

I could feel something. I couldn’t explain it, so it was probably magic. I needed to go outside, but I needed to do it alone. I stepped out of the tent and I wasn’t alone. I could also tell I wasn’t in any danger, even though I was pretty sure every wild animal in the area had currently come out to our tent.

They were everywhere. There were birds of prey and squirrels, but there were also deer and bears. They weren’t afraid of me and I just knew I wasn’t in danger of them. They were here to help.

Badass. They didn’t speak in words, but they communicated in images. I gave them a nod and proper reverence.

Message received. And I didn’t know who I was, but it definitely wasn’t a trickster.