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T he smell of bacon pulled me out of a deep sleep. I groaned and stretched; my face tucked in tight to the crook of ... Typhon’s neck.

I jerked away from him, feeling our hands separate as I stood, my legs shaky. “Why do you smell like bacon?”

He grimaced and pushed to a crouch. “I don’t. Someone found a stash.”

Stashes were exactly what they sounded like. Little boxes of goodies stuffed all over the place and if you were brave and smart, you could find them.

“I found it!” Marina crowed as she flipped the bacon over in the frying pan. She had scrambled eggs going, and Phyllis had a pot of coffee on the fire too.

“Oh, my gods, I could marry you.” I stuffed my fists to my belly to stop the growling.

In a few short minutes, we all had a plate of food – yup, all the plates and utensils were a part of the stash – there was even enough for Typhon because our team was smaller than everyone else’s.

Bellies full, spirits high, everyone was excited to tackle the day.

Everyone except for Phyllis. She grabbed at my hand and squeezed my fingers – hard. “Listen.”

I tipped my head but couldn’t hear anything, at least not right away. “Everyone, shut it!”

They went silent at the same time the sound grew louder. A grinding of stone, a plunk of ... water?

I looked up as the ceiling groaned, a crack shot in four directions, water spilling out of it like a shower head. “We gotta move!”

“What happened?” Ellie yelled.

“The stash,” Typhon said. “It might have had a tracer on it.”

“Oh no!” Marina yelped. “I’m sorry ...”

“Let’s head out, then. Phyllis, you got a suggestion?”

She bobbed her head. “This way.”

I thought there was only one way in and out and was about to say so when the wall opened up to reveal a hole.

I hurried the group through, counting, putting Typhon in the middle again. We couldn’t lose our flag, and I wasn’t going to lose anyone to whoever was trying to off us.

We needed each other. We’d get through this, and then ... we’d find a way to keep our house together.

We were stronger together.

Phyllis led the way deeper and deeper in the tunnels. “This isn’t right! The symbols aren’t leading us out!” she yelled back.

We were in water up to our knees now. I didn’t think we were going to drown – I mean, I had a rune spell I could use to keep breathing underwater, but I wasn’t sure everyone else could cast it. Fruck that one up and your lungs would explode.

The water rose rapidly, panic was kicking in fast ... and then it just stopped.

“Marina?” Fable’s voice quavered. “You’re glowing.”

I whipped around to see the center of Marina’s chest indeed glowing with a soft blue. She held her hands out to the side and the water circled up and around her wrists. “I can ... water ... my Quirk is controlling water.”

Her lips trembled, the tough girl act cracking as she came into her own power. “Bad beech!” I pumped a fist in the air.

She laughed, rolled her wrists in tandem. The water flowed around her. “This is so dang cool.”

It was cool, but we were still stuck.

I spun around, water sloshing as the way behind us flattened, stairs and walls rearranging so that we were looking out across a swamp the size of a football field.

All around it bushes and plants shot up, things stirred in the depths.

Here and there were small islands that looked like they would give some hope, but I could see things moving on them.

A door on the far side flashed a simple sign.

Exit.

“Typhon, is that really the way out of this room?”

“Yes. Tarquinius’s idea of a joke.”

I grimaced. “Okay, so we have to go through the swamp. No problem.”

Exactly. No problem. There weren’t sharks in swamps.

Right?

“I can’t swim,” Ellie said.

“Me either,” Gary added. “If it’s deep, we’re screwed.”

“I got you,” Marina said. “I think I can lower the water at the very least.”

She stepped forward and put her palms together, then swung them to her sides. The water level lowered a significant amount. “There’s nowhere for me to put it, so that’s the best I can do,” she said with a grimace.

I patted her on the shoulder, wishing that I could have mastered my Quirk as fast her, but knowing we all had our own journey with our new powers.

“It’s awesome. This is so much better than swimming.

I’ll go in first, test the depth. If it gets above my chin, we’ll work around that.

Maybe you can maneuver the water around us? ”

“And what about the ... things in the water?” Fable whispered.

I’d never heard her so afraid and that snapped something through me. I did a slow turn.

“You ever see The Neverending Story ?”

Two nods, one from Marina and one from Phyllis, the rest of them shook their heads. Gods, no one watched the classics anymore.

“Look, here’s the deal. There was a swamp, a swamp of sadness. And if you let the sadness get to you, you sank. I think this is the same idea, only it’s fear. It’s infecting us with fear and we have to just ... we have to be brave. Okay? We’ve got this.”

Don’t think about sharks, don’t think about sharks, don’t think about sharks.

I turned and forced myself to step into the water, sinking up to my waist. I let out a hiss as the cold hit me.

There was a bit of nervous laughter as they followed me in.

Things brushed up against our legs. Things moved in the distance. But nothing erupted out of the water, and it didn’t get that deep, thanks to Marina.

In fact, I thought we’d made it. I really did.

The creatures waited until we were about as far in as we could be before they struck.

The water exploded around us, vines and weeds wrapping around limbs and waists, yanking us up and out of the water until every one of us was dangling twenty feet up. Everyone was flinging runes, but none of them were working.

I tried a slashing rune, and it bounced off the vine wrapped around me as if it was titanium and not a plant. Snarling, I tried three more runes, each one more aggressive than the last before I stopped.

“Anyone got something that works?”

We were pulled by the vines, up higher yet, deep into the overhead recesses of the cavern. We were dangling, wrapped up in vines, and none of our runes were working. I looked at Typhon and he shrugged. “I can’t help you.”

“I know that.” I snapped.

“Why so high?” Caterina moaned. “I hate heights.”

“Look,” Phyllis said, pointing below.

Way, way below us was another group sloshing through the water – I could just make out the movement, a few voices carried high-pitched and fearful. They got to the middle of the swamp, the same as us.

The plants were faster than any person, moving like lightning as they wrapped themselves around their victims and yanked them up out of the water. They didn’t even look our way. They were too busy throwing runes, trying to get loose, the same as we had.

A light above the exit sign lit up. A literal countdown.

I groaned. “We got three minutes, guys, we gotta get out of this or we’re toast.”

And by toast, I had no doubt that we would be killed.

“I have an idea,” Fable said.

“All ears, girl.” I tried to wiggle my way out of the vines.

“Plants have been known to react to song positively. There is a rune that makes music so that you hear it inside your head, or you can broadcast it elsewhere, say, into the head of a child to soothe them at night. I’m going to show you, and then I’m going to use it.

If it works, we should be able to get them to release us. ”

I managed to twist around to see Fable flash the rune at us. “Someone grab Typhon if it works,” I said. “We aren’t losing our captured flag.”

A familiar screech from below made me grin. Nikita had been caught in the vines along with House Kirinash. If Fable’s rune worked, we were going to have two flags by the end of this.

The rune looked like a musical note hovering in the air, Fable’s magic powering it. But there was no sound. She pressed her hand against the plant stalk that held her tight, and it began to lower her to the ground.

One by one, the House of Phoenix fumbled through the musical note rune, copying Fable. Phyllis was the one to grab Typhon, and I watched as they slid down. The other team saw us dropping from the ceiling above them and began yelling, begging us to help them.

I cast the rune, not once but twice, one in each hand so that it settled into both of my palms, and pressed my right hand against the thick plant that was wrapped around me.

It began to lower me, and I swayed side to side, swinging the body of it until I was lowering right through the midst of the team below us.

“Hurry, Harlow!” Fable yelled from below.

“Get to the door!” I called back. I wasn’t going to leave without another flag and all the points it would gain us.

Especially if that flag was the reason we were on the chopping block.

Did I know that Nikita was behind us being blocked from being taken out of the games when we were injured?

No. But she was as good a suspect as any at this point, given how much she hated me, and how poorly she’d treated House Phoenix.

I wrapped my legs around the vine that had Nikita bound up and pressed my left hand against the vine.

“Don’t you dare!” she screamed.

“I wouldn’t dare.” I winked and cast a quick rune to cover her mouth, then caught the edge of her vine with a toe and spun her so that her back was to me. Putting on the handcuffs we were given couldn’t have been sweeter.

No. Not true.

The plants dropped us at about the ten-foot mark and Nikita landed in a pile of soft black mud that smelled like sheet. Her mouth opened to scream, but while no sound came out , the mud . . . it splashed in , which left her gagging.

I grabbed her around the arm, dragging her with me all the way to the exit door where my team waited.

“One more day after this,” Marina said as we stepped through, the doorway behind us buzzing as time ran out. “We’re going to win the whole frucking thing.”

I grinned, but my heart was only half in it. Because I had no doubt the worst was to come.

The final day was going to be hell.