FORT SLIPPED INTO HIS ROOM, closing the door as slowly as he could so he wouldn’t wake Gabriel. Without the light from the hall, he had to carefully pick his way around the other boy’s bed to his own, but he wasn’t going to chance switching on a lamp. It’d taken him what felt like hours to get back from the kitchen, avoiding the guards and cameras as best he could. Now, he just wanted to hide in bed for a few days and process everything that had happened.

He successfully made it to his bed without stubbing a toe or whacking his shin, which was maybe his biggest victory of the night. Now he could just lie there in silence for a minute and think about what had—

“How’d the plan go?”

Fort bolted straight up, panic exploding in his brain before he realized it was just Gabriel. “You’re awake?” he whispered, trying to calm back down.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” Gabriel said as Fort’s eyes adjusted enough to see his roommate sitting up in bed now. “I think it’s safe to assume I’m awake, yes. So? How was it?”

“We were just hanging out, like I said at dinner,” Fort told him. “That’s it. Nothing exciting.”

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, Forsythe,” Gabriel said, lying back down. “But don’t lie to me either. There’s no need. Just say you don’t want to talk about it.”

Fort felt warmth slowly run up his face. “Okay, sorry. Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough,” Gabriel said, staring up at the ceiling. “So did you get caught?”

Fort groaned. “You just said that if I didn’t want to tell you—”

“I didn’t say I’d stop asking,” Gabriel told him. “Were you stealing one of these amulets?” He tapped his chain that was now sitting on the nightstand. “Do they have ones that do cool things, unlike this one? If there are some that turn back time, I’m going to go steal one myself.”

“We weren’t stealing amulets,” Fort said, his embarrassment now setting his face on fire.

“So what were you stealing?”

“Nothing! No stealing. Can we just go to bed?”

“I did go to bed,” Gabriel pointed out. “You’re the one who snuck out after curfew. Don’t worry about that, though. I’ll tell them you were here the whole night if they ask.”

For a moment, that actually seemed nice of him. And then Fort remembered how many soldiers had seen him and Sierra in the hallways. Well, Sierra in Dr. Opps’s body, at least. “You, uh, shouldn’t do that,” he said. “Just… it’s fine. They won’t ask. Nothing happened.”

“Sounds like it,” Gabriel said.

“Gabriel?” Fort said after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, kid?”