Chapter 84: Off the Trail

Astrid

The forest stayed quiet, too quiet, my eyes fixed on the trees while that voice kept echoing through my head. You shouldn’t be here. A breeze moved through the branches, leaves scraping against each other. Somewhere far off, another team shouted something unintelligible.

It should have made me feel better. It didn’t.

"Please tell me that’s part of the challenge," Josh whispered.

Nobody answered. Criston took a small step forward, and I grabbed his arm before I’d fully decided to. He glanced down at my hand, then at me. I let go.

"Don’t go alone," I said.

He nodded, no joke ready for once.

Eliza had closed her book, her attention fixed entirely on the trees, and that told me more than anything else how serious this was.

"Who are you?" I called.

Silence. Then movement, and a figure stepped out from behind the trees. A student, muddy uniform, disheveled hair, breathing hard like they’d been running a long time.

"Wait, you’re on our side of the challenge," Josh said.

Relief crossed the student’s face. "Thank God."

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

They glanced behind themselves, like they were afraid of being followed. "Trying to get back."

They were shaken, not pretending, mud caked into their uniform, hands trembling. Something had genuinely happened. Josh recognized them vaguely from the other academy, said they’d been on a different team.

"Where’s your team?" I asked.

"I don’t know."

That landed heavy. They explained everything had seemed normal until they reached their checkpoint and found nothing there. They’d tried other routes, the forest growing unfamiliar, until their group split apart entirely and they’d ended up lost.

Cold settled in my stomach. This sounded exactly like what had happened to us. What could be happening.

"Your checkpoint wasn’t there either?" I asked.

"No."

"Did you tell anyone?" Criston asked.

A short, humorless laugh. "I haven’t seen anyone."

Josh wanted to find a professor immediately, though Criston pointed out leaving the marked area would end our round. Josh’s expression hardened anyway.

"Someone’s lost," he said with all certainty.

"I know," Criston said, and he sounded genuinely frustrated, not dismissive.

"What do you think?" I asked Eliza.

She pointed toward another route. "There should be an official checkpoint not far from here."

"Should?" Josh asked.

"I’m not going to promise you anything."

We agreed to stay together, everyone checking in, nobody splitting off, and moved toward the checkpoint, the lost student close behind us. Voices drifted through the trees ahead, and I felt the bond spike before I saw them.

Reed. Xander. They were here.

Relief hit me hard, until I noticed Estelle standing beside Reed, their maps spread over a fallen tree.

Xander noticed the mud on my clothes, the tension in my shoulders. "What happened?"

Reed’s expression sharpened the moment he spotted the unfamiliar student behind me. I explained everything, the missing checkpoint, the altered marker, the separated student.

When I finished, Estelle spoke first. "Maybe you got turned around."

Something tightened in my chest. She wasn’t accusing me. She was offering a reasonable explanation. It just didn’t feel harmless anymore. I made a mental note to be more careful.

"The marker was moved," Criston said flatly.

Estelle’s smile faltered, then returned. "How do you know?"

"Because someone changed the same information in our material yesterday."

Reed’s attention shifted toward me. He hadn’t known.

"Yesterday?" Xander asked.

My stomach sank. I’d have to explain why I hadn’t told them.

Before I could, other teams began arriving, students recognizing the missing girl, questions flying. One Moonshade student scoffed at our map. "So you got lost."

"We didn’t get lost," Josh said, stepping forward.

I grabbed his sleeve. He looked at my hand, then at me, and stopped.

The lost student’s voice cut through the noise, shaky but audible. "It happened to us too."

Silence. Then other teams began recounting the same thing, missing checkpoints, wrong routes, separation. Nobody was laughing now.

Reed studied my map. Xander walked toward the altered marker. Estelle stayed quiet.

"Someone’s interfering," Reed said.

I felt the shift immediately. Nobody was thinking about winning anymore.

A whistle cut through the trees, and professors approached, then Aldrich himself. His annoyance faded the moment he saw the missing student. I watched his jaw tighten as he examined the altered marker, and something about how unsurprised he looked bothered me more than anything else that had happened.

"The challenge is suspended," he announced, and chaos erupted around us.

As students filed out of the forest, Estelle slowed beside me.

"You seem quiet," she said.

"I’m thinking."

"About me?"

I stopped walking. She turned back, noticing.

"Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Because you look at me like you expect something."

I said nothing. Her smile turned small.

"You really think something is wrong with me," she said.

Heat rose to my face. I hadn’t said that, not once.

"I didn’t say that," I said, walking again.

"No," she agreed, walking beside me. "You didn’t."

Then she moved ahead, leaving me behind.

I caught up with Criston as we exited the trees.

"What?" he asked, noticing me approach.

I glanced toward Estelle, already back with Reed and Xander, laughing softly.

"Did you tell Estelle anything?" I asked quietly.

"About what?"

I explained what she’d said, how she’d somehow known exactly what I suspected.

He shook his head. "I didn’t tell her."

"Are you sure?"

"I’d remember."

That didn’t comfort me at all. "Did you read my mind?"

His teasing vanished. "No."

I waited. He looked toward Estelle, then back at me.

"And I wasn’t reading yours either."

My stomach dropped. I looked at Estelle again, smiling, perfectly at ease between Reed and Xander. Nothing looked wrong.

But I couldn’t forget her words.

You seem very sure something is wrong with me.

I tightened my grip on the strap of my bag. Because there was another possibility now. She hadn’t needed Criston to tell her anything. Hadn’t needed to read my mind at all.

She already knew.