Following Lily’s gaze, I understood why she hadn’t wanted her mother to even hear the words Falling Springs. I could make out five or six boats, each marked with a single light on the front, tied together in a line, front to front and back to back. As we approached, someone picked up a pole that one of the lights was fixed to, and used it to wave Lily to the far side of the line.

That wasn’t the wild part.

Velvety darkness had settled over the water, but the bobbing lights on the boats and a white and glowing half-moon overhead cast just enough light to illuminate the nearby shore. Cliffs stretched up overhead, five or six stories at least. The farther up I looked, the steeper the incline got, until at the top, the drop-off was sudden and complete.

In isolation, what I was seeing wouldn’t have struck me as ominous—or ill-advised. But as Lily had explained to me hours earlier, the term Falling Springs wasn’t just synonymous with this cove and these cliffs.

It was a shorthand for the activities the cove and the cliffs were most known for. Parties. Debauchery. Liquid courage.

And jumping.

CHAPTER 10

“How many of you have jumped off Falling Springs before?”

Victoria stood on the front of the largest boat in the line, the one that was anchored and holding all of the others in place. Her voice traveled along the water. In the silence of the night, I could practically feel it all around us, even from my position three boats away.

“Show of hands,” Victoria continued, before repeating her question. “How many of you have jumped off Falling Springs?”

Across the other six boats, I could hear motion but couldn’t make out exactly how many Candidates’ hands there were in the air. Beside me, Campbell’s arm was fully extended.

“And how many of you have jumped off Falling Springs in the dark?” A light breeze caught Victoria’s dark hair. In daylight, you might have been able to see shades of brown in it, but at night, with scant lighting, her long, thick waves might as well have been shadows.

Beside me, Campbell’s hand was still raised. Lily shifted slightly. Even on a boat, after having snuck out and arguably committed grand theft naval, she sat with her knees together and her feet poised on the floor beneath us, just so. Perfect posture. Perfect manners.

Based on Victoria’s questions, I could only conclude that those things wouldn’t give my “cousin” much of an advantage here.

“And how many of you,” Victoria continued with a cunning smile that I could hear in her voice, if not quite see on her face, “have jumped off Falling Springs naked?”

“When she said naked,” Sadie-Grace whispered behind me, “what exactly do you think she meant?”