Sofia shrugged. “If it’s Master George—which I doubt—we need to do what the poem says. If it’s not him, we still need to do what it says. We’ll be really tempted to leave the square, but we can’t. Then, at the last second, whoever it is will wink us away. Poof, nice and easy—just like the chair thing.”

“How do we know for sure we’ll get winked?” Tick asked, even though the answer had just clicked in his head.

“If somebody else is doing this,” Sofia said, “they could obviously just kill us if they wanted to. Why would they go through this whole ordeal to get rid of us? If anything, now we have even more pressure to pass these tests.” She shook her fists and screamed in frustration. “This is so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

“Way to sum it up intelligently,” Paul muttered. When she gave him a cold stare, he threw his hands up. “Hey, I agree with you!”

“Wait,” Tick said, shushing them, holding a hand out. He felt a slight tremor beneath his feet, a small vibration with no sound.

“It’s coming, dude,” Paul said. “It’s coming!”

The shaking grew stronger, almost visible now; Paul and Sofia seemed to jiggle up and down. Tick had never been in an earthquake, but he knew this must be what it felt like.

“What do we do, man, what do we do?” Paul was looking left and right as if trying to decide which direction to run.

Sofia reached out and grabbed Paul by the shirt, jerking him toward her until their faces were only inches apart. “We stand in this square, Rogers, you hear me? We stand in this square!”

At once, they all looked down at their feet. Tick had to shuffle a foot closer to the others to be inside the red-lined boundary.

“She’s right,” he said as Sofia let go of Paul. “No matter what, we have to stay in the square.”

The tunnel trembled violently; Tick had to spread his feet a little and hold out his arms to maintain his balance. A sound grew in the distance, a low rumble of thunder. Whatever it was—the poem had called it a beast—was coming from the direction Tick had thought it would. He narrowed his eyes and stared that way, though nothing had appeared yet in the distance.

“This is crazy, man,” Paul said. “Are you guys sure about this?”

“Yes,” Tick said, not breaking his concentration. He thought he could see something dark, far down the tunnel.

“My brain wants me to run,” Paul insisted.

This time, Tick did turn, pointing at the poem still printed on the ground. “The message said we’d think that. Don’t move.” He looked back down the tunnel. There was definitely something dark way down there, growing larger, bit by bit.