Jacey nods. “A little. I’ll be fine once we’re out of here.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” He leans down and presses his thumb into one of the indentations and we each do the same. Nothing happens.

“Maybe one of us needs both hands?” Niklas says.

Bram lifts the hem of his shirt and wipes the sweat from his face. “But that doesn’t make sense. It seems like they’d give us seven spaces for something that can be solved precisely with an answer of seven.”

“No harm in trying,” Talon says. So we do.

We each press our thumbs to one of the depressions in the lock. Nothing happens. We try every permutation we can think of—each of us taking turns providing the seventh thumb, different finger combinations, touching the lock one at a time in order of ascending, then descending age. Soon the metal is slick with our sweat. The room seems smaller than ever, and the air is so thick, it’s difficult to draw a proper breath.

Finally Bram groans. “I really don’t think this is the answer.”

“Neither do I,” Tessa says. “What else do we have?”

I glance toward the table. “Maybe the bones are the key.”

Tessa’s expression lights up. “Do any bones come in sets of seven?”

“The cervical vertebrae,” Bram and I answer at the same moment. Our eyes meet and something sparks between us.

“Yes!” Tessa jumps up and starts passing around the baskets “Everyone, start looking.”

Bram sits next to me on the floor and we dig through the basket together. It’s filled with small bones—phalanges, metatarsals, nasal bones. We avoid touching each other as our fingers dart around the basket, but I fight the urge to catch his hand in mine, to force him to look into my eyes, to ask him all the questions that bubble at the back of my mind. Are you just helping me out of duty? What do you see when you look at me? How could you kiss me like that if you were only pretending?

But if Latham wins, none of it matters. I’ll die whether or not Bram cares about me.

Finally I find a ring-shaped bone—the atlas—and a jolt of triumph goes through me. “Got one.”

Jacey waves her hand in the air. “Me too.”

“Good,” Tessa says, “keep looking.”

We help the others search and find precisely seven cervical vertebrae. A weight lifts off my chest. This is the answer. It has to be.