I trip on a branch, lurch to the side, and catch myself against a trunk, hands slapping against jagged pine bark. The quick, stinging pain from my already-scratched palms cuts through the smokiness of Leave and the lingering spice of Now, until both words dissipate. Instead of pressing on me like a weight, the command flits gnatlike around my skull.

Dustin is long gone.

I gulp oxygen until my thoughts feel like my own again, until I’m in my body enough to feel the sweat-damp cotton T-shirt clinging to my back and chest.

Memories rise like bubbles through oil, slow and sluggish, until they explode into rich Technicolor.

Selwyn. His bored expression. His mouth spilling words into the night like a cold wind until they swept away my intention to stay and replaced it with his command that I leave. His will wrapped around my memory of the flying creature and ground it down into a pile of dust and fractured images, then rearranged that pile into something new: an unremarkable blank space above the campfire with no creature in sight. But that new memory doesn’t feel real; it is a thin, flimsy layer created from silver smoke with the truth visible and concrete underneath.

He gave us both false memories, but now I remember the truth. That’s impossible—

A voice sends me ducking behind a tree. “It’s just these four. The rest made it to the parking lot.” It’s Tor, the blond girl who’d yelled at everyone. “Can we make this quick? I have a date with Sar. Drinks at Tap Rail.”

“And Sar will understand if you’re late.” Selwyn. “This one was nearly corporeal. I had to wipe those last two kids’ memories just in case.”

I stifle a gasp. They’re both still there at the clearing twenty feet away. Whatever they’re doing, they’re working together. Tor and Selwyn are visible between trees, circling the campfire, looking up. The murky green shape is still there in the sky, flashing in and out. The four drunk football players must be absolutely plastered, because they’re only now coming up for air. They sit back, chests heaving, faces bloodied, expressions disoriented. One of them moves to stand, but Selwyn is at his side in the blink of an eye. His hand drops like an anvil on the kid’s shoulder, forcing the larger boy back down so hard and fast that I hear his knees crack against the earth. The boy screams in pain, falling forward onto his hands, while I muffle my own cry.

“Dude!” another boy shouts.