I don’t move for a long time after they clear through the wood.

Finally, my door opens. The full sun burns my eyes like I’ve been in there for days. I retrieve my knives and stumble from the box, sucking in the warm, open air.

Ethan lifts the lid of his coffin and sits up like a vampire movie cliché.

“I thought you were dead,” I say. “You screamed like it.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.” His voice is hollow, missing the usual snark he’d lace those words with. He pulls his legs out of the box. The cut-off bottoms of his orange pants bunch around his ankles.

My mouth opens and closes.

“I did what I needed to,” he says, looking away, straight into the sun.

Faint red lines ring his calves. He let the blades cut through him and somehow managed to stay conscious and heal.

I swallow back the bile in my throat.

Nadine’s box finally opens. A small gray mouse creeps to the front.

Genius.

That kind of display of power is sure to impress our judges. All I did was a desperate balancing act. My relief slides into something deep and ugly. I push it away, leaving behind unease—not with the competition, but with myself.

“Now, that just doesn’t seem fair,” Ethan says.

He points his gun at me.

No. Not at me—just past my shoulder at the little mouse, and I’m close enough to him to jump, to maybe grab his arm and ruin his shot.

I scream at myself to move, but my arms hang dead at my sides, frozen, as Ethan aims his gun at my friend.

CHAPTER 32

I shake myself and lunge.

The gunshot tears by me, shutting down everything in its wake, leaving only a dull ringing in my ears.

I turn to Ethan. For once, no trace of cockiness lingers on his face. His cheek twitches before he turns to stone. He’s not even looking at me. His gun, still extended, shakes as if touched by a faint breeze.

I turn, following the veins of broken wood to the black, smoking hole at the center where a mouse sat just moments before.

I bend over and vomit. Then in one fluid movement, I reach a hand to each wrist and release two knives. I lunge, not bothering to call the magic to me. I don’t need it. Fury is enough to drive home my blades.

Ethan stumbles back, jerking the gun in my direction now.

I drop as a bullet cracks to life, sailing over my head.