Ember didn’t sleep again before the start of the fourth day of the exam. Whether because Ophelia had taken her horn with her or because it had been lost in the chaos, the TAs rounded up the students by shouting and banging some cookware together, which only worsened the headache worming its way into her temples. She was stiff, hungry, and irritable, and even breathing didn’t come easily.

“I guess Ophelia isn’t back, then,” Lance said, rubbing his eyes.

Ember shook her head, offering him a hand on her uninjured side. “Doesn’t look like it.” Jisu had already left, so they shook a bleary Daniel awake and followed her to the front of the camp.

The mood was somber as the five remaining participants gathered around the three graduate students. “Good morning,” the insect TA said, looking harried from what Ember had assumed had been a long couple of hours of debate with the others. “As you’ve surely noticed, Ophelia isn’t back yet, although she sent word that Craig is beginning to recover. Luckily, the medic that she sent just arrived at camp.”

Another TA, a colorful avian, nodded in support. “This will all be over soon, so do your best.”

The last TA, the mammal who had expressed her displeasure at Ophelia continuing the exam, folded her arms over her chest. “And there better not be any more rules broken today.”

“Alright, then,” the insect said, clapping once, “let’s start.”

There was a moment of confusion as the students realized that the exam was officially beginning again. As usual, Jisu was the first to take off, while Ember stayed close to Lance and Daniel. Gunther only spared them a scornful glance before disappearing, evidently unwilling to risk another confrontation with her.

Ember hesitated. It was one thing to ally herself with Lance—he had made his intentions clear to drop out once Gunther was beaten—but protecting Daniel had always been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and traveling together would only prolong the exam.

With the toad’s wide eyes on her, though, her resolve wavered. “Would you want to-”

“T-thanks for your help,” he interrupted, “b-but I think it’s safest for all of us if I find a place to hide.”

Ember breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that he understood the situation. She watched him walk away until he was out of sight, willing him to stay safe.

“Let’s go down to the stream,” Lance said, breaking the silence. “I drank the rest of my water this morning.”

Ember agreed, and they began the hike north. It wasn’t long before their view of the city’s wall was swallowed by the dense vegetation, too thick for Ember to scan with her infrared without hindering their progress.

“I’m ready for this to end,” Lance said, wiping his forehead. “I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a ranker.”

“You’ve already passed this exam,” Ember pointed out.

“At this point, I just want to see my family.”

It took Ember a second to register what he’d said. “Your family? Do they live in Mendel?”

A small smile spread across his face. “My grandparents settled here when they were young. My grandmother, my parents, and my sister still live here today. I know how lucky I am.”

“You were born here, then.”

He nodded, and Ember felt a bolt of jealousy. Would I have had what he does if my mother had not hidden me in Maple Valley?

“We’re here,” Lance said, and Ember realized that they had reached the banks of the stream. The sun had already risen midway through the sky, and it cast a glow over the gurgling water and the silver-scaled minnows flashing beneath its surface.

The ermine tugged off his boots and rolled up his pant legs. “I’m going to try for some fish or crawfish,” he explained, wading downstream.

Ember followed his lead, parting the reeds and crouching to fill her canteen. While she was usually averse to water, the riverbed was only as deep as her knees, and it was a relief to wash the dirt trails from her skin. She made her way across, holding branches to keep her balance and overturning stones with her toes.

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A splash of red on the opposite bank caught her eye, foreign against the woodland greens and browns. She drew nearer, detangling it from where it was wedged between a root and a cattail. “It’s an unspent flare,” she called to Lance, who had been attempting to grab a trout as it rushed past.

He peered over, his eyebrows knitting together. “It looks like it was carried down the river.” He sniffed it but shook his head. “The scent’s lost.”

Ember scowled. “Daniel went northwest, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but he can’t have gotten far. Maybe he doesn’t know he dropped it?”

Ember groaned. “I should take out that stupid toad myself.” She flung a stone down the stream, watching as it landed with a splash and sunk below the surface.

“You want to go after him, don’t you?” Lance asked in a resigned tone.

Ember sighed. “What if something’s happened?”

“Fine. We’ll follow the stream for a little bit, but if we don’t find him soon, we’re coming back. We need to wash our bandages and find something to eat.”

“Okay,” Ember agreed, pocketing the dripping flare.

They skirted the river for the better part of thirty minutes, stopping once for Lance to peal the edible cambium off of a linden tree. Between Ember’s stiff gait and Lance’s limp, she thought they must look a pathetic pair. She activated her infrared, watching as the flesh beneath the lesion on his calf turned the red and white characteristic of inflammation.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I’m all right for now,” he answered, but Ember knew him well enough to see the strain underneath his expression.

“Let’s turn back here-” she started to suggest but stopped as something caught her attention: a fresh trail through the underbrush, deviating from the river. She touched her fingers to the broken ends of the branches, and they came back slick with blood. “A wounded animal, maybe? Was someone hunting?”

The ermine grimaced. “I don’t think so. There’s no fur or feathers or anything.” He leaned down and sniffed at the spot, his eyes widening. “Ember, it has Daniel’s scent.”

Ember frowned uneasily, thinking of his flare—the only way of alerting the TAs—in her pocket. “We should get help,” Lance said. “It might not be Gunther who hurt him. There are bears and big cats out here.”

Ember tilted her head up, looking at the sun. We’re already miles away from camp. “You go back,” she told Lance, spinning him around by his shoulder. “Bring Ophelia if you can.”

“No way,” he argued, shaking his head.

“There’s no time for this,” she stressed. “You’re a better navigator than I am; you won’t have any trouble leading Ophelia back here.”

“But how will you find him?”

Ember gestured at the trail. “It’s as obvious as if a bull charged through here.”

“I still don’t like this.”

“Listen. Knowing Daniel, he’s cut himself on a rock and gotten lost. It makes more sense for me to go: I can scan ahead with my infrared, and I know first aid.” And I’m the better fighter.

Lance scowled. “Fine. But please, Ember, be careful.”

“I will. You too.”

He shot her one last unhappy glance and then turned back down the river, walking as quickly as he could on his injured leg.

As Ember started in the opposite direction, the creeping sensation at her back was eerily reminiscent of when she had left Naz behind to save Carn from the margay. No matter what she had told Lance, she didn’t think that Daniel had injured himself—it was far more likely that he had been attacked here, where he had left the stream, and dropped his flare in the process.

She stooped down to inspect the trail once she was out of sight of the river. Overlaying Daniel’s characteristically webbed footprints—he wore no shoes—were the marks from the soles of a pair of large boots, the kind they were issued as part of their fighter’s uniform. She began to piece together what had happened: Gunther had attacked Daniel by the stream, but his injured tendon had allowed the toad to escape and keep ahead of him.

Maybe I should leave them to it. It’s a one-on-one fight now, at least. But Ember disregarded the idea as soon as it surfaced. Either Gunther or Daniel had lost their flare: if it were Gunther’s, she wasn’t above taking the chance to eliminate him, and she didn’t trust him not to hurt Daniel even if he surrendered.

Despite her conviction, it was more difficult to follow the trail than she had anticipated. The footprints changed direction often, sometimes looping back on themselves, and deciphering them took all of her focus.

When she emerged from the thick vegetation, she found herself much farther north than Ophelia would have condoned. She was in a small clearing, and above her, the sun had begun its descent west. She could see where the trail picked up again on the other side, but something stopped her from moving on.

There was the unmistakable evidence of a campsite: the vegetation was ragged around the edges where it had been cleared, and in the center, there were the remnants of a fire with deer bones half-buried in the ashes. Unfortunately, the footprints of the campers had been lost to rain and wind.

She kicked at the ashes, feeling unsettled. Linnaeans usually had great respect for the big game they hunted, but the deer’s rotting head had been discarded along the treeline, swarming with a few straggling maggots. A wildling, maybe? But would they make a fire?

She started down the trail again, faster with the threat of dusk at her back. She would chastise Daniel when she found him; he had gone way too far north, and they would have to make camp for the night if Ophelia wasn’t able to track them within the next couple of hours.

She was thinking of exactly what she was going to say when she walked within a hair’s breadth of the crow’s corpse. It was pinned against an oak by an arrow through its chest, its black eyes unseeing and its wings suspended as if in flight.