“I don’t see it,” Ryan said.

Micah frowned and held his almost childlike drawing a little closer. With his other hand, he pointed at the wolf panting on the top of the mist-flooded hill.

Ryan saw the wolf. He saw the drawing. He saw Micah sitting next to him in a tree. He did not see the red antlers sticking out of the wolf’s head, that the drawing depicted with a smiley face. Honestly, Ryan wouldn’t even have been able to tell it was a clone if the other guy hadn’t insisted on it.

The wolf looked around a bit and ran off.

Micah sighed softly through his nose, and Ryan tried not to get frustrated. Micah seemed to think if Ryan just focussed, or squinted his eyes a little, or looked the right way, he would be able to see the worms. Well, he couldn’t. And what he couldn’t see, he couldn’t copy. It was as simple as that.

What Skill did Micah even expect him to get? Something like [Mist Simulacrum]? Ryan didn’t particularly want to retch up a mist copy of himself. Even if he did, the clone itself would be useless, because it would be made of mist. It wouldn’t be able to interact with anything. The most Ryan could imagine himself doing with it was spook monsters, check for traps, or use it as a glorified mirror.

Plus, as far as Ryan knew, simulacra costed unholy amounts of mana. And Ryan only had 37 candle flames worth of that to spend. So that settled that.

“Try again?” Micah still asked, as in, try a fifth time?

Ryan shook his head.

“Maybe we could try finding a fully-formed one that’s making a clone?”

“I’ve tried that already, Micah.”

“Yeah, but maybe it didn’t work because you were thinking of them as wolves?”

The way he asked it was so patient and just genuinely curious, Ryan had a hard time being frustrated at him at all. Micah just wanted to help, he knew. So he sighed and said, “I didn’t think of them as wolves, Micah. I mean, just look at them.”

He nodded in the general direction ahead. Micah had been pelting the wolves with his paintballs for the better part of an hour now, but like a beaten dog, they always came back to growl at them, so Ryan had an easy time spotting one if he spent a minute to look. Now, he could see white wolves running through brush and mist, and they looked … like monsters. Even without antlers.

“And it’s not like I could have thought of them as wolves, even if I wanted to,” Ryan added. "I’ve never seen an actual wolf, so I couldn’t have made that mistake.”

“You’ve never seen an actual wolf?” Micah asked him.

He frowned at him. “Have you?”

“No, but I just assumed— I thought Gardener might have taken you on a camping trip or something.”

Ryan shook his head. He’d gone camping a few times, but only with his dad or Lang, not Gardener. Though, he did want to go camping with Micah someday. Maybe after the entrance exams were over? And preferably outside of the Tower.

But the one time he had gone after getting [Mimic Beast], Ryan hadn’t seen any wolves, only lots and lots of wild birds to add to his [Bird Singing]. And he was glad for it. He knew real wolves were supposed to be as much as twice the size of Prowlers and more dangerous, even if they were shy. So he doubted even Gardener could have kept him safe if worse came to worst. You would need to be something like a [Scout] or [Ranger] for that and Ryan didn’t know any—

He frowned, halting the thought. He did know one [Ranger]. He knew that guy, that teacher friend of Gardener’s who had helped save Micah. Uh … Ryan couldn’t believe he had forgotten his name. Well, not forgotten. Just— it was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t find it.

For some reason, he kept on thinking of Gardener when he tried to think of his name. Maybe something starting with “G” then?

This was going to bother him all morning, wasn’t it?

“Oh, okay,” Micah mumbled. “Let me just try out the rest of my paintballs and then we can go collect some crystals, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ryan agreed absentmindedly, and watched as Micah fit one of his self-made ammunition into his slingshot and take aim.

Those were the two main reasons Ryan had agreed to come here this early in the morning. Micah was out of wolf crystals for breeze potions after making bottles for all their friends, and he’d made a bunch of different types of ammo for his slingshot and wanted to test them out.

With that in mind, he loosed his shot and hit a wolf square in the shoulder. The ball burst and splashed across the wolf’s body. And while it flinched at the impact and did glare at them, it didn’t seem to be wounded in any way. It wasn’t leaking light—the paintball had bruised it at most—and it didn’t seem to be reacting to the poison either.

That was what almost about a third of Micah’s paintballs were filled with—poison-essence infused water. Most of the rest were filled with eight different types of glues. A few were even held healing potions. Though, the low-grade kind. They didn’t have enough money to spend on experimenting with middle-grade healing potions. Not that they could experiment with the low-grade kind either, because Micah refused to shoot Ryan with one. As he put it, “If you won’t punch me to test out [Lesser Toughness], I won’t shoot you to test out healing paintballs.”

So the only point to making them, really, was for leveling.

Ryan was sort of glad, either way. If Micah focussed on making various healing potions, maybe he would get healing Skills from his Class? Or at least, ones that supported healing?

And he was beginning to warm up to the slingshot, too, because if Micah used it, he, by definition, would attack from a range, from far away from the monsters. Maybe if he stuck to doing that, he would get scout-like Skills from both of his Classes that would help keep him safe?

Ryan hoped so.

For now, he watched the boy shoot at retreating wolves and mumble observations to himself while he picked out different potions. That would also be a problem with the ammunition he’d made. If he had different types, he’d have to watch out that he didn’t get them mixed up.

“Can you dye them?” Ryan asked.

Micah glanced at him, frowned as he lowered his slingshot in consideration, but quickly lit up again. “Hey, that’s a great idea, Ryan. Thanks.”

Ryan was a hundred percent sure Micah would have come up with that simple idea on his own, but …

“You’re welcome,” he mumbled anyway. He liked to imagine that he could be helpful beyond carrying a shield around with him.

A moment later, Micah frowned and put his slingshot back in his pocket. Ryan checked and couldn’t find any wolves nearby either. He must have driven them all off.

“Want to—” climb down? Ryan had intended to ask, but he never got that far.

In one motion, Micah gripped the branch awkwardly, leaned back, and rolled off the branch. Ryan lunged to grab him, but Micah swung forward instead of back and landed on the hill rising in front of them.

“Hey, that worked,” he said on the ground.

Ryan realized he’d just done a simple high bar motion and quickly copied it. Even as he landed, he readied his shield and drew his sword in case they got attacked.

“There are no wolves around but stragglers,” Micah told him. “And one straggler isn’t going to attack the two of us.”

Ryan nodded—he knew of the archer-method—but he still didn’t lower his guard. It wasn’t that Ryan didn’t trust Micah, he just didn’t trust the Tower. So he kept a wary eye out as they made their way further into the Wolves’ Den.

Micah seemed to be picking out a tree based on its proximity to hills. At one a little stretch off from their last, he looked around, gave Ryan a thumbs-up, and started climbing.

Ryan followed him up and they sat around for ten minutes until the wolves walked by again. Micah showered them with stones and then paintballs this time, and surprisingly, one wolf hit by a poison mixture reacted.

It shook its head while it fled, moved slower, and almost ran into a tree. As if it couldn’t see right anymore. As if it had been poisoned by a Cataract.

Micah let out a whoop next to him and wrote down some notes in his journal. It took so long that some of the other nearby wolves got close again and Ryan eyed them warily from a few meters above.

“Okay, here’s a plan,” Micah said, sounding excited while he put his stuff away. “I’ll jump them and take out one of the wounded while you climb down. Then you guard my six and we take out the rest of the wounded around here. Easy-peasy, right?”

Ryan squinted into the distance, listened, and counted. He could hear … five? … wolves nearby. And he knew three of them were leaking light, which implied the others were either clones or new additions to this group following them.

Ryan still didn’t fully understand why wolves would follow anyone shooting rocks at them from a tree, but guessing by how they had growled and howled at Micah all morning, he’d quickly learned the other guy had the uncanny ability to make them angry.

And while Ryan didn’t like it … it was a good plan that Micah had proposed, so he hesitantly nodded.

“Wait, really?” Micah asked.

Ryan gave him a questioning look.

“I just … I didn’t expect you to agree to it, but, uhm, yeah. That’s great. Any additions?”

“Just wait until I start climbing down,” Ryan told him.

“Gotcha.”

Ryan made sure he had his emergency healing potion close by and climbed the trunk to get seated on the opposite branch. How else would Micah get down? Stupid question. Micah must have thought he was climbing the trunk to go down because he did the same maneuver as last time.

He fell back, swung forward, but this time threw himself at the closest wolf on the hill. The closest, not the most wounded. He barrelled right into it.

Ryan practically threw himself down the tree and needed a moment to steady himself on the ground. But in that short moment, Micah stabbed the wolf twice through each side of the neck and then hopped off, slashing it a few times. Almost idly, as if he were just doing it to hurry up the process of the wolf bursting into smoke. Then he met the one that was the most wounded, the one gushing light, and he—

It looked like he let it tackle him to the ground.

The wolf was on top of him, suddenly with Micah’s legs up to keep it from biting him, and after a moment, it burst as well. Ryan saw that Micah had his dagger held up. He’d used the wolf’s charge to shove it up its neck and his own chain mesh to cushion its handle pushing into him.

A third was charging him and Ryan rushed to cut it down, but Micah just ignored it. It ran through Ryan’s blade and drifted into mist. A clone. Instead, Micah faced the real one that would have been attacking him from behind now, if he had taken the bait.

By the time Ryan actually did anything useful and delivered the final blow on that one, Micah had practically killed three on his own. He collected the crystals with a tiny smile and threw a rock at a clone that was doing nothing a few yards away, making it disperse.

Ryan stared.

“What?” Micah asked him.

“Nothing. It’s just ... you’re really good at killing wolves.”

“Oh. Thanks. But I wore them down with—”

“The archer method,” Ryan said and nodded. “I know, I know. Still. Great job, Micah.”

“Oh. Uhm, thank you.” Micah blushed, but Ryan knew how easily the guy was complimented so it didn’t matter.

“Do you have enough crystals already?” he asked and hated to add, “We can always come back, you know?”

Ryan had assumed Micah would be … different in the Wolves’ Den. Maybe scared or timid. At the very least impatient that they weren’t studying. But it almost looked like he was thriving.

“I have enough for a month or two of breeze potion for you,” he said. “But you won’t need it in the Fall anyway, right?”

Ryan shrugged. He still didn’t know what he was going to do when it got colder. In the past, he’d just pushed [Hot Skin] up and carried on like it was summer. But since he hung out with Micah so much now … It had been ages since Ryan wore a winter coat or scarf. He wondered if he would look stupid.

“Then I have enough, but I would still like to check something first, okay?”

“Sure,” Ryan said. “We have time. Lead the way.”

Micah did. He knew his way better around here than Ryan. Knowing that still felt kind of weird.

As they walked, Ryan couldn’t hear any wolves nearby, but Micah made them climb up a tree and wait a few minutes every fifty to a hundred meters or so anyway. It slowed them down, but they really did have time. Micah had asked if he could come to work late today and Neil had graciously agreed, so here they were.

Eventually, they found … what used to be a tree. It had been cut down at the base, with its trunk entirely missing. Ryan wondered if it might have been a Treant that someone had slain. Then they encountered another, and another, and another. Micah slowed down as he walked through the forest of light brown stumps.

“The trees,” he mumbled with a frown.

Ryan suddenly knew where Micah was leading him. They reached the crack in the wall a few steps later.

“It’s still here?”

“You don’t want to climb down, do you?” Ryan asked him. Because there was no way Ryan would agree to that. He was prepared to drag Micah off kicking and screaming if he had to.

“No.” Micah shook his head. “I just wanted to check if it was gone by now, but … can I peek inside? Why are all the trees missing around here?”

Ryan didn’t know, but they soon found out. They squeezed into the low cave and found a massive set of wooden stairs leading down. The structure looked temporary, like rough bleachers rather than actual stairs. And it looked a little bit wobbly, too. But separate from it, there were even large support beams rising in some places of the walls and ceiling.

“Someone was here,” Micah mumbled. “Who?”

“Someone must have found it,” Ryan guessed and inched a little closer. The ground was steep here. If he wasn’t careful, he might trip and stumble forward and … well, it was a long way down. “You didn’t tell anyone else about this, right?”

The boy’s soft frown vanished and he looked at Ryan in surprise. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he said. “I did. This one guy. Uhm, I think his name was Nadir? He was a climber with two others and I—" He shook his head, looking embarrassed. "Nevermind.”

Ryan nodded. So Micah had told someone and they … they had had enough resources to build stairs inside the Tower, of the Tower’s resources, to lead into a collapsed cave system that might vanish any day? Weird. Was that really worth access to the first floor Salamanders?

Ryan inched closer and peered down over the edge. He felt a sense of vertigo looking that far down and mumbled, “You climbed that?” He hadn’t even meant to say it and immediately kicked himself for it. He'd heard from Lisa that Micah sometimes ... didn't do well when faced with his fears.

But Micah simply nodded next to him and asked, “Do you think the stairs are safe?” He looked like he was considering stepping on them to test it out for himself.

Ryan glanced at the support beams again and put a hand on his shoulder to keep him back. “No. I don't trust whoever built this. We don't even know who it was.”

“What about someone you know? Maybe we could ask Lisa to come with us and let her—”

“Look,” Ryan interrupted him and tried not to sigh. Micah still seemed to think Lisa knew everything. “I like Lisa just as much as you and she’s helped you a lot, but … I wouldn’t trust her opinion on whether or not a structure, or a collapsed cave for that matter, is safe from collapse, Micah.”

At least, he seemed to agree with that because he nodded in agreement and said, “Right.“ But he still looked like he was considering. “What about Garen? What if Garen came with and said it was safe?”

“Garen?” Ryan asked, stumped.

Did Micah think he could convince the Dragonslayer to come climbing with them …? Okay, Ryan did feel a little bit excited about the possibility of that, but he tried not to show it.

“Maybe,” he forced himself to say. He certainly wouldn’t say no to the offer. Him, climbing with a hero like that. Maybe they could ask him later? Or rather, Micah could ask him later? “Do you want to head back?”

Micah took one long last look and nodded.

Ryan sighed in relief when he could take his hand from the guy’s shoulder and herd him back out. But he did glance back at the darkness himself. Micah had climbed out of that? He supposed people were capable of all sorts of things when they had to be, but—

On their way back, they fought another wolf and Ryan watched Micah easily deal with it. He was frightening competent up here, killing Prowlers with just a dagger and a slingshot as if they were Sewer Rats.

When Ryan thought about it, the only mistakes he’d really seen Micah make were ones born of ignorance. And once Ryan had taught him everything he knew or Micah received a formal education … Well, it was hard for Ryan to imagine that he would be useful for very long, then.

Maybe he should go camping in the Tower after all. A level up seemed pretty welcome.

Sixty-two, the red number said.

They spent their afternoon and evening at Lisa’s, writing practice exams as quickly as Mave could churn them out. The man picked out about a dozen questions from a new folder at random, changed them up a bit, and put them together for the two of them.

Then the silent scribbling began.

Lisa helped Mave, rather than doing any herself. Ryan didn’t know why, but he didn’t bother asking. If she was this confident about the written exam, he wouldn’t question her.

Ryan himself was more worried about that number. Sixty-two. It was Micah’s latest percentage grade. And the one he had gotten before that hadn’t been much better.

“I’m trying,” Micah whispered desperately as he stared at the legions of red marking his answers. Mave was merciless.

Ryan wanted to reassure him, but he wasn’t sure how. Of course, Micah wouldn’t be able to learn two and a half years of material in seven weeks. Ryan hadn’t really expected him to. And he was trying his best. Considering that, sixty-two was a pretty good grade. But … it wouldn’t be enough.

If things went on like this, Ryan might not have to worry about Micah so much after all. Seeing Micah’s face now, he was having a hard time feeling happy about that.

Micah shook his head and said, “I just need to learn more. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time on the summer festival, but I still have a day. If I do another all-nighter—” He reached for his textbook.

Three more days wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, Ryan wanted to tell him, but kept silent. Micah had needed a break back then. Ryan had just wanted to help.

“Keep on doing the practice exams,” Mave said from where he sat on the armrest of the other couch. “Mental adversary is just as important as physical ones when you’re trying to improve yourself. You’ll learn more from your mistakes at this point than further repetition.”

Micah stared at him for a moment before he let the textbook drop and said, “Right.” He nodded and asked, “Another one, then. Please?” Suddenly, he was filled with determination again.

Mave handed him the next practice exam and Ryan stared at him. How had he done that, knowing just the right words to say?

He took his own practice exam and when Mave said “start” they both started writing down answers again, this time with Ryan being a little bit distracted. He himself never got a score below ninety-one despite that, but the best score Micah ever got that evening was an eighty-two. And while Micah smiled a little at that, he still insisted it had been a fluke.

“I just got a lot of questions I recognized.”

Ryan glanced at Mave, but he shook his head. So the man hadn’t been going easy on him then.

Still … eighty-two. That might not be good enough either, depending on the competition.

Eventually, Ryan called for a break and stared at a spot just above the entrance to the kitchen. “Mave,” he asked, “do you know if your door frames can handle doing pull-ups in them?”

“Of course, they can,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

Ryan almost bristled. “Because I obviously don’t weigh just a hundred pounds.”

Mave grinned a little bit wider and Ryan couldn’t help but feel the man was teasing him. He got up and said, “I actually have a work-out bar you can fasten into the doorframe. Just let me go get it.”

“Thanks.”

Ryan made Micah do warm-up stretches until then. Tomorrow was the physical aptitude test. A school training climbers could only accept students that would be able to handle themselves in the Tower after all, so they had to show a minimum level of fitness. Even so, the requirements were pretty simple. And the tests were even simpler. Running, push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups. Micah probably even would have been able to handle it a few months ago.

Still, when Mave came back, Ryan made Micah do pull-ups in the doorframe to give him a short break. Then they would go back to practice exam number four. With two tests looming ahead of them, Ryan wasn’t looking forward to the weekend at all.

The sun glared down on them from the South, and Micah shielded his eyes a little as he looked around and beheld a rare sight in front of the Tower—children. Or rather, teenagers. People aged between thirteen and … well, some looked like they were eighteen already, but that was just ridiculous. Maybe they grew up early? Some of them might have been here to support others, too.

Ryan himself looked a little older than he actually was, Micah noticed. That made him wonder how old he himself seemed to others.

But they were everywhere, like a pest. From above, it probably would have looked like one huge blob of aimless teens stuck between the wall and what some would consider a holy structure. The Climber’s Guild had rented this space out weeks ago and put out warnings with the exact times of the tests all over their guilds, so climbers would be forewarned.

Even so, some stayed and watched what was probably to them the next generation. Some parents did, too, which made Micah feel anxious. At least, Ryan’s parents had walked them to the Guild this time around, though they hadn’t followed beyond the receptions, choosing to wish them good luck as loud as they could instead.

Some climbers just scowled as they squeezed by to get to the Tower. The space between the guild and Tower was far, and they only had about half of it occupied. So as soon as they got past the wall of teens, the climbers could enjoy peace and freedom.

If they got past, that was.

Groups of registrars, officials, guild workers, volunteers, and … one Ameryth in the distance tried to get the crowd organized. There were long tables set up with about twenty different lines, and there were lists, and there were times and places where the applicants were supposed to go to be tested.

Unfortunately, there were many more children than there were tables to hand out information and participant numbers.

That was the first delay … of many.

Micah bit his lip when he realized he wouldn’t be getting back as soon as he had hoped. He only had two folded pages of paper with some dates and names stuffed into the pocket of his shorts to study. That wouldn’t last him nearly long enough, since the events were organized by age, with the youngest going first. The normally youngest, the ones who had completed the classroom already. Micah, as someone who was applying to skip grades, went last.

At least, that gave him time to trail after Ryan like a lost dog and watch him compete in the events. It also gave him time to keep an eye out for Anne, but with easily three thousand people stuffed in the open space, that was a daunting task.

Still, though he was distracted, anxious, and lost in the sea of strange people, Micah quickly realized something: Ryan was athletic.

It was something he had noticed before, of course. It was hard not to notice. Ryan was always working out and Micah had seen him in the bathhouse or revealing clothes often enough to be aware of it. Him boasting to Camille about Ryan’s strength hadn’t just been for show, either. But only now, when he saw him compared to other people of his age group that weren’t Lang did that thought really sink in.

Actually, it was during the 3000 meters run that the thought sunk in.

Micah stood in the crowd to the side of the temporary track as he watched Ryan walk up to the starting line, stretching a little while he waited for it to begin. Beside him were nine others. He had planned on cheering him on with the rest of the crowd, but then the organizer gave the signal like a teacher would during Sports day, “On your mark … Get set …”

And the moment he yelled “Go!” and clapped the wooden bars together, Ryan was off. And the others … weren’t. Not in comparison.

Micah stared in disbelief as the guy ran. He completely forgot to cheer. Ryan only seemed to be getting faster, too. Soon enough, he disappeared in the distance around the Tower and Micah began a slow walk through the crowd to meet him halfway.

When they found each other, Ryan was stretching a little, shaking his legs, and, unsurprisingly, scowling.

“That was awesome!” Micah said in form of greeting. “Just how fast were you?”

“9:50,” Ryan grumbled. “But I could have been faster. Much faster.”

“Ah. Uhm, right.” Micah honestly didn’t know what to say to that. Of course, you would always think you could do better. Micah thought that way himself. So what would he want someone else to say to him, then?

“You’ll do better next time,” he tried and immediately realized there wouldn’t be a next time. Ryan had no reason to run again, so he added, “I mean, during the next divisions. If anyone can do push-ups, it’s you.”

Ryan could even do a few push-ups with Micah sitting on his back, Micah knew, though Ryan had lain around on his stomach for a while afterward the one time they'd tried it, clearly exhausted. Still, Ryan seemed resolved at Micah's words.

With some time to kill because of delays, they stuck around and listened to snippets of other people's conversations. A lot of the others mentioned times that were much slower than Ryan’s, but there were also a handful that were faster, somehow. One girl boasted that she had run nine minutes and twelve.

Was that good? Bad? Micah didn’t know. But it was better than Ryan and he was the most athletic guy Micah knew, aside from maybe Lang. So his eyebrows shot up as they walked past her.

He thought he even saw the girl giving Ryan a quick once over … like she was checking him out? Micah considered remembering her for the future, if they made it into the school, but then the memory of him staring at a bubble of water flashed through his mind. He blushed and kept his head down and he sped up to keep pace.

I will not meddle in Ryan’s love life, he told himself like a mantra. I will not meddle in Ryan’s love life.

Ryan did the other three events with the same nine people he had run with. And eventually, one of the guys started talking to him. He was about Ryan’s age, a little shorter, with dark brown hair and the awkward smile of someone casually trying to make new friends.

He had no such smile for Micah.

“Dude, you were fast,” he was telling Ryan as they waited. “I’ve never seen you around before. I think I would have remembered that during a Sports day, you know? Which district are you from? I’m from Nistar, by the way.”

All around them, people were having similar conversations.

Ryan looked a little too distracted to participate in this one though. Again, apparently, he hadn’t done as many push-ups as he would have liked and was stretching idly.

“We’re from Westhill,” Micah offered.

The guy glanced at him, but turned to Ryan when he asked, “Westhill? I thought they were anti-Tower. Or was that Westgate? I always get the districts mixed up, you know. My final geography test was horrible, I’ll tell you.” He held out his hand to Ryan and introduced himself, “I’m Pav.”

Ryan looked like he was forcing himself to shake the guy’s hand and mumbled, “Ryan.”

“Hey, I have a cousin called Pav,” Micah said. “I’m Micah.”

Pav gave him a placating smile but spoke to Ryan first, “It’s great to meet you, Ryan. So you want to become a climber? What Class do you have? Oh, and what Path? Do you already have a group?”

“Yeah, I do,” Ryan said and pushed Micah little. “It’s full.”

Micah got the hint and they simply walked away. He still glanced back at the now-scowling Pav and mumbled, “That was rude.”

“So was he.”

“Eh.” Micah shrugged.

Of course, people wouldn’t normally want to hang out with anyone younger than them. Micah guessed their classroom’s alleyball group was an exception to that, but Ryan seemed to treat it as the norm. Or maybe that Pav really had just been rude. He’d started to treat Micah like he was Ryan’s annoying little brother.

Either way, Micah honestly didn’t care a few seconds later. He had too much on his mind to think about strangers. So after Ryan’s last discipline, they headed to Micah’s testing area.

Surprisingly, the group applying to skip grades wasn’t much smaller than any other group had been. Micah would have easily estimated the number he saw at around a few hundred. But the most important thing about that group was that he finally spotted Anne.

She was with another girl who had red hair and freckles Micah could see from a distance. She seemed too old to be a part of this group, though, and too silent to be hanging out with Anne, who was just as animated as she had been the last two times Micah had met her.

He didn’t know if he should wave. What if she didn’t see him?

But even as she spoke in a way that reminded Micah of Garen, Anne kept on an eye on the crowd rather than her friend. So eventually, she looked in his direction. And Micah couldn’t but smile when he saw her see him. There was recognition in her eyes.

He stretched an arm up and waved.

She waved back and called, “Hey, Micah! You’re here? Awesome.”

“Right back at you!” Micah called back.

She smiled at him and went back to talking with her friend. And then a few moments later she waved at someone else … and then someone else … and—

Well, it turned out. Anne knew a lot of people. And some of the ones she had waved to were eyeing Micah now. Well, either him or Ryan standing behind him … probably Ryan standing beside him. All day, people had been paying attention to Ryan and not him.

But as the events began, Micah couldn’t help but think, Anne didn’t shout over to any of the others, did she? He smiled as he shook his head a little. No. No, she hadn’t.

“Good luck,” Ryan told him when it was his turn to head to the starting line.

“Thanks.” Micah knew he would need. At the last minute, he remembered to give Ryan his folded study papers that he still had in his pocket.

Anne wasn’t a part of his group, sadly, since they were divided by gender. But Micah was a little too nervous to pay attention to that right now. After confirming with a helper, he and nine others got ready, stretching a little bit, and braced themselves against the ground.

“On your marks," the man said. "Get set … Go!”

There was a snap when he clapped the wood together.

Micah ran … and four of the others overtook him. His eyes widened when he saw and he almost missed a step before he wanted to chase after them, but he had to remind himself that this wasn’t a sprint. He had three kilometers ahead of him, so he had to pace himself.

Still … it was hard doing that with those others running ahead of him.

What had been so impressive about Ryan sprinting off during his run was that he ran so fast during a 3000-meter run. That he could keep it up, Micah knew. And of course, Ryan always got at least a ninety-one on his practice exams, always studied, worked out … when Micah looked at those four strangers running ahead of him, he felt like it showed his situation perfectly: He was falling behind, even more so than he already was.

Half a year ago, Ryan had apparently had troubles lifting Micah up to carry him. Now, he could lift Lang up to throw him.

And Micah? Micah was basically jogging right now.

He had to do better, to get into that school, to impress Anne, to do what he wanted to do. But most pressingly, just to keep up with his friend. More people than just that girl and that other rude guy whose name Micah had forgotten had noticed Ryan today, after just seeing him once. And Micah still remembered what Lisa had told him those few times, that he might end up being a dead weight someday, that he might drag Ryan down.

So Micah thought of that as he ran. And he ran faster than he was used to, and then a little bit more. Halfway through, his side began to sting and he just adjusted his form and breathing a little before he decided to ignore it. As he neared the finish line and saw three people still ahead of him, he sped up. The last stretch he ran in a sprint. A messy, sweaty sprint done entirely out of breath, but a sprint nonetheless.

And the moment he stopped running, he bent over and braced himself against his knees as his throat burned and he gasped for breath. The helper who had measured his time told him it was 13:25. That … wasn’t good, was it? It wasn’t good at all.

“Of course, it’s good,” Ryan told him a few minutes later.

Micah didn’t think so. He should have spent more time doing those exercises Ryan had shown him … and spent more time studying. He just should have done more from the start, two years ago.

“Here, look,” Ryan said and showed him a piece of paper Micah knew all too well. “The minimum requirement is eighteen minutes, Micah. You’re almost five minutes faster than that. That’s awesome.”

All Micah could think was that Ryan was almost twice as fast, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he just did as Ryan had and tried his best during the next three divisions. And by the end of them, he glanced back at the chart and realized something.

“I passed.”

He’d actually passed the physical aptitude test already. Just a few hours in the sun in a crowded space behind the Climber’s Guild—almost two hours longer than it should have been—and one test was down. Sure, it had been easy. But still—

“I actually passed.” Micah smiled.

“You want to study now, don’t you?” Ryan asked him.

“Of course I want to study now!”

In his mind, Micah was two hours behind schedule. Stupid teenagers and stupid organizational delays.

He gave Ameryth a half-baked stink eye as he headed into the shade of the Guild. Surprisingly, the woman turned around from where she stood behind the tables, halfway across the space, and looked right at him. She stretched her arms out helplessly and shrugged a little.

Micah’s eyes went wide and he almost stumbled back in surprise. The woman started laughing a little at that, too softly and too far away for him to hear it, but it was definitely because of him.

How had she known? Micah almost shivered. Creepy.