The mole dragged one sharp claw across the match's red head. Snick — a spark, and then flame swallowed the whole match. It set the burning thing on the floor, skewered the great turkey on its long claws, and held it over the fire to roast.Lena went to the corner and propped Zane up. "He's alright. Just out cold."Cole and Wes hauled Ben to his feet. The six of them — Penny had crept back, white and silent — sat as far from the mole as the cavern allowed. Which was not far. There was no escaping the crackle of the burning match or the unbearable smell of roasting meat.Bright fat ran off the bird and dripped hissing into the flames. Cole had never smelled anything like it — no seasoning at all, just turkey over matchfire, and the scent of it bored straight into the back of the skull. Six stomachs growled in miserable chorus. Nobody dared move; the claws and the teeth saw to that.The match burned down to ash, and the turkey was done. The mole settled onto its haunches, eyes gleaming,

For a long time no one spoke. Then, in the corner, the Great Mole scraped at the dirt and whistled a thin, jeering tune, watching them sidelong as it gnawed something bloody.The truth, when it came, was not the one Cole had built.He'd assumed she'd killed by accident — a parent, most likely — and that being young and naive she carried no guilt and had spun her clumsy lies to cover it. He was wrong on every count."So you all think I'm the Stowaway," Penny said at last, and her voice had changed. The frightened child was gone; what came out was cold as iron. Her head snapped up. "Fine. I killed him. But that wasn't murder. It wasn't." Her eyes were wild. "How can it be murder, when I'm the one who gave him life? He never should have lived. He shouldn't have."Lucan's brow furrowed. "It wasn't your parents."A bleak, helpless thing crossed her face. "I'd never hurt my mom and dad. They were so good to me. I killed the thing that should never have been born."And then even the slowest

Cole did not know it, but elsewhere — on the First Floor of the Spire, in the nest of a turkey the size of a tiger — the egg's twin had just changed hands.The giant turkey lay dying in a spreading pool of its own blood, claws still red with a man's, gabbling weakly, unable to rise; one more blow would finish it. It was lucky only in that the man who'd gutted it had no strength left to stand either.The turkey ground out, "Gobble… Stowaway… eat you…"A man in black, one leg torn away by the bird, drenched in his own blood, his left arm punched through with holes, his right arm ending in no hand at all — instead, from the wrist, a vast black spike had grown, a brutal awl of black-violet metal. He coughed red, flicked the arm, and the terrible spike vanished, the wrist becoming a battered ordinary hand again. On both arms he crawled into the nest, reached into the heart of the straw, and lifted out the white egg the turkey had hidden there."Put my egg down!" the turkey howled."You kep

Under the tall pines, Mr. Reyes spoke low. "I'm sorry. We were genuinely afraid you were a bad man — a Stowaway. We couldn't take the smallest risk. This is the most dangerous hour of the day, and you came in the middle of it; we had no way to be sure of you. Better to be wrong and turn someone away than to let one of them through."Cole nodded. "Eleven at night to two in the morning. Deep sleep. It's the most dangerous stretch of the day — if someone means to strike, that's when they'll do it."A student piped up. "That's exactly what Cassie said."Cole glanced at the short-haired girl in the center of the group.Mr. Reyes sighed. "You're right. We were afraid someone would creep in under the dark and kill us in our sleep. Eldridge had over a thousand people, students and staff. When the Spire said the game had begun, most of the school vanished — and we were left with two teachers and sixteen students.""Where are the rest?" Cole asked.The teacher's voice went dry. "They're here."

The first gunshot tore the silence apart.Cole twisted and threw out an arm, shoving Mr. Reyes off his feet. In his sharpened sight a silver bullet drifted, almost slow, through the space the teacher had filled, and buried itself in the wall — and Cole's eyes snapped to the line it had flown, fixing the shooter's position."Toby," he said, low and fast. "Kill the gym lights."A nail shot through the air and smashed every bulb. The world dropped into black."Cole — what are you doing?" Wes hissed.Cole crouched and, with a speed no one could follow in the dark, drew a clean circle on the floor. The others saw only that he'd dropped down; none saw what he did. He stood."Drawing a little circle," he said, even, "to curse him."The students slipped out of the gym by its four separate doors.Another round split the dark and punched through the concrete floor."A police pistol's effective range is fifty meters, a hundred at the outside," Toby whispered.They moved in three groups. Wes and