“When you guys disappear, I’ll get in trouble for bringing false recruits—even if they don’t think I’m part of a conspiracy, they’ll accuse me of being sloppy. I don’t want to deal with that. And honestly?” She sighed. “I’m ready to be done with this job. I’ll help Marcus some other way.”

Our free time wrapped up, and everyone was sent off to their dorms. Chris advised us recruits in particular to get some sleep because we had a “big day” tomorrow. I tried not to grimace. I was already sore and scraped up from today, and my work wasn’t even over.

As I entered the girls’ dorm, I found that Sabrina had been right. There were a lot of open doorways connecting halls and rooms. Because there was no air conditioning, many windows were left open as well. Curtains were hung in the room doorways to provide privacy, and those didn’t even touch the floor. It was almost a dream come true for someone needing to sneak around invisibly, especially since there were so few women around to begin with, meaning most of the dorm wasn’t in use.

Unfortunately, my room wasn’t empty. Someone had had the brilliant idea to put Tara and me together. She glowered at me as we got ready for bed and made a few seemingly idle threats about how she’d prove to everyone that she was the superior candidate. She didn’t seem like she’d attack me in my sleep, though. The problem was that I couldn’t risk her waking and seeing my bed empty—then reporting me. That meant I had to cast a sleeping spell on her, something I’d never done before.

I waited until she seemed to be sleeping naturally, then I crept out into the dark room. The curtain hanging in our doorway hung down about two-thirds of the way, allowing some light from the hall to shine in. I studied Tara’s sleeping form and braced myself for the spell. It didn’t require a lot of strength, exactly, but it did require some complex calculations. It almost worked like a drug. The amount of magic required was dependent on the person’s size. In the dim lighting, I hazarded a guess at how much she weighed. One hundred sixty? Casting too weak a spell could risk her waking early, and I couldn’t have that. So I erred on the side of caution and cast as I would for someone weighing two hundred pounds.