A shock of static jolted Bastiaan’s muscles as he pushed through into the next Trial. A leaf skittered across his boot. Then a beetle.

Bastiaan stumbled to a halt. Silence pressed against his ears again. The beetle froze. What had just happened?

Myrthe bumped into his back as she emerged. “Is time still stopped?”

So it hadn’t been his imagination. “You saw it too?”

She nodded. “The mama bear. She moved. I’m sure of it.”

“I meant the beetle. The bear is worse.” He lifted his Talent Mark to eye level. The silver ring and purple smoke flickered like a thunderstorm in his skin, almost as though the two were battling. “This has never happened before.” Time flickering on and off?

“Not even when you stopped time for years?” She was trying again—trying to steer the conversation back to him and his story.

When he’d used his snap in the Spring Trial, a burst of assurance and calm filled him. Now that it flickered, he realized how much he relied on his Talent to bring ease to his mind.

He didn’t like that reliance.

Or was it that he didn’t like the lack of control taking place with his Talent? “Let’s keep moving.”

As they stepped forward as one, leaves crunched beneath their feet. Though the Stillness stopped life, it didn’t stop the wind or its motion through branches or weather. The weather repeated itself every day. Even after almost two lifetimes in the Stillness, Bastiaan still hadn’t mastered all the rules behind his Talent.

“Is this Trial autumn?” Myrthe asked. “What happened to summer? We skipped a season.”

“The Trials are in a different order every time,” he said distractedly. Myrthe was gracious enough not to push him about his years in the Stillness. Why couldn’t he tell her? She’d revealed her mistakes and regrets to him. She’d even caused the death of two boys.

It was his turn.

“So what happens in the Autumn Trial?”

“I’ve never known.” He ducked beneath an intricate spiderweb stretching between two trees. No spider hung in the middle.

She hurried past the web. “But you’ve been to the Well so many times!”

“The first time I traveled to the Well, I was a servant going along solely to provide for my master, a boy a few years my senior. Dehaan hired two men who had completed a pilgrimage to defeat the Trials for us. They were paid handsomely.” Bastiaan released a resigned smile. “Kind of defeats the purpose of the Trials, don’t you think?”

“You don’t support the Trials anyway.”

“True. Once the Trials were conquered by these men, we walked right through them before they reset, similar to how Sven entered Winter. Every time I’ve visited the Well since then has been in the Stillness.”