Upoying the flower’s pink liquid tents, the vines on the wall shifted, then opened into a passageway. Natalie followed the offered exit up and out, returning after a short hike into the enormous cavern above, where she’d fallen from.

  And where her friends were frantically searg for a way to help.

  Natalie, of course, had prepared some lies on the . She wasn’t the most meticulous or far-sighted pnner, but even she knew if she didn’t have expnations for what had happened, she’d end up revealing some things she would really rather not. Even telling Jordan about the event was going to be mortifying. Maybe Natalie would fo her typical policy of hoy even to her.

  Liz saw her first, then cried out in surprise and relief. A moment ter, Natalie was crowded in by the rest of her team. Even Ana’s mask had cracked into a hint of worry. Only a hint, but oony girl, aion stood out.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Natalie said, assuring them. “I’m fine. I was just … kind of an idiot.”

  Which wasn’t uill, it grated on her. She o imply she’d fallen for a trap, when she hadn’t—not really. Traps at this level of the dungeon were usually pretty obvious. Undoubtedly, Ana and Liz would make a few judgments about her for having ‘fallen’ for one. Not enough to dislodge whatever appraisals they’d made of her from the past several hours of delving, probably, with it being an overall minor thing, but they’d at least he event.

  Liz, who’d crowded up o Natalie in her franti, wrinkled her nose and took a step back.

  “And what’s that smell?” she asked.

  Natalie wisely didn’t tell the truth. Or, the full truth. “Came from a pnt monster.” In an amusingly literal manner. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t ever in danger. It was such a weird trap the dungeon didn’t go hard ohat was the general trend of traps: the trickier and stealthier, the less lethal. Proportional punishments. By implying the dungeon’s punishment had been minor, she implied the trap had been especially stealthy, which absolved her of some of the embarrassment.

  “Pnt monster,” Sofia said. “Like what?”

  “Big mass of vines.” Natalie shrugged. “Weird thing. Not in the manuals. Like I said, I’m fine, just a quick diversion. Sp on the wrist.”

  “What was the trap?” Liz asked.

  “There was something on the wall,” Natalie said. “Didn’t look like danger, but I should’ve known, I guess. Touched it. Activated a trapdoor. Fell into this room of vines and had to fight my way out.”

  All of it was true, in a sense.

  And, this being the dungeon, nobody looked at her expnation too closely. It was entirely reasonably.

  Nobody besides Jordan, at least, who gave her a questioning look. She suspected something. Natalie ined her head, just barely, to firm, and Jordan nodded baatalie hadn’t expected to slip past her attention. Jordan knew her too well.

  “Kay,” Liz said. “It’d good you’re safe, then, but we really o head back. We’re way te, now. Dunno if we make it bapus before curfew.”

  “Maybe if we rush,” Jordan said.

  Natalie hen waved for them to head toward the caver, striding forward herself.

  Rushing back. That worked with her. Further questioning would only push her into having to lie directly, and she would rather not; these were her teammates, and potentially long term ones, since, besides the hiccups, this first delve had gone well.

  “Guess we’re getting some cardio in,” Natalie said. “If we jog, I bet we make it.”

  ***

  They didn’t.

  Even rushing through the previously cleared tunnels of the dungeon and backtrag to the exit portal at a speed that bordered on reckless, then jogging through the streets of Aradon back to the campus gates, they missed curfew. Not by much. A few minutes. Unfortunately, still te.

  “No exceptions.” The older, bearded guardsman didn’t seem sympathetic to their misfortune. “Kit duty, tomorrow. Bright and early, before csses. All of you. Te’s poliot mine.”

  “It’s five minutes,” Natalie insisted. “You ’t be serious.”

  “As I said, not my policy. And not my problem, either.” He waved them forward. He’d already taken their names down from when they’d o show their IDs to get through. “Carry along.”

  Natalie would have tinued arguing, despite the apparent futility, but Jordan tugged her forward, thanking the guardsman as she went.

  “Te’s making a point,” Jordan said to her, ohey were out of earshot. “I bet if it wasn’t the first day of the dungeon being open, they wouldn’t care. But they o set the tone.”

  Natalie didn’t know about that. The guardsman had seemed a little too unsympathetic to their plight. But, Jordan did have a point, and arguing was uo get them anywhere.

  Still, it was annoying. But on the grand scale of things, a single m of w is was hardly anything to worry about.

  “Kit duty,” Liz mused. “I wonder what that’s gonna be like.”

  Natalie paused, then looked Liz’s way, amusement repg her annoyah the guardsman. “Right. Surprised they’re making an actual princess do kit duty.” Even if she liked Liz, the imagery pleased her. Princesses forced to scrub floors.

  Liz blushed and waved her hand. “I told you, I’m like fiftieth in line. I’m not a princess.”

  “Last time, you said fourteenth.”

  “Same difference. Both ways, I’m unimportant.”

  Natalie stared at her, and Liz blushed deeper.

  “I mean, like, retively speaking,” Liz said. “I guess not literally unimportant.”

  Like the rest of the party was. Natalie didn’t take offe what Liz had implied, both because she knew Liz meant nothing by it, and sedly, because it was true. She, Jordan, and Sofia were unimportant. Nobodies. As for Ana—Natalie didn’t know much about the mage, besides that she’d e from the far western reaches of Valhaur, in the mountainiohe coast.

  “We should split the loot,” Sofia said. “We don’t have time to drop it off with the treasury, but something roughly even. We’ll figure out the details tomorrow.”

  They paused their advao the barracks, standing on a paved walkway underh a street ntern. The campus was eerily barren, with curfew having ended. A smattering of others hurried forward, rushing to their lodgings. Te’s curfew was treated seriously, but more for being outside campus walls than ihem. Patrols wouldn’t start hunting down students and taking names until a half-hour after—so, fifteen or twenty minutes.

  Natalie repressed a grimace at Sofia’s words. She’d known it was ing, but hadn’t been looking forward to splitting loot. Namely, because she had a tier-one monster core filled with an iility potion tucked away in her boot. It would raise too many questions, a resource that strange. Plus … more selfishly … she for herself. For it to not be put on the Exge and split five way for the monster cores it’d earn.

  And while she inteo purposefully accept a lower cut than the rest to make up for it, the more dangerous question was … had someone been ting how many monster cores they found?

  Because, if so, then a missing one—snuck away in Natalie’s boot—was going to raise some questions.