Upon emptying the flower’s pink liquid contents, the vines on the nearest 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 searching for a way to help.

Natalie, of course, had prepared some lies on the way up. She wasn’t the most meticulous or far-sighted planner, but even she knew if she didn’t have explanations 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 forgo her typical policy of honesty even to her.

Liz saw her first, then cried out in surprise and relief. A moment later, 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 on the stony girl, any emotion stood out.

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

Which wasn’t untrue. Still, it grated on her. She needed to 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 note the event.

Liz, who’d crowded up next to Natalie in her frantic concern, 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 plant 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 on me.” That 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.

“Plant 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. Slap 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 explanation too closely. It was entirely reasonably.

Nobody besides Jordan, at least, who gave her a questioning look. She suspected something. Natalie inclined her head, just barely, to confirm, and Jordan nodded back. Natalie 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 need to head back. We’re way late, now. Dunno if we can make it back to campus before curfew.”

“Maybe if we rush,” Jordan said.

Natalie nodded, then waved for them to head toward the cavern’s exit, 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 can make it.”

***

They didn’t.

Even rushing through the previously cleared tunnels of the dungeon and backtracking 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 late.

“No exceptions.” The older, bearded guardsman didn’t seem sympathetic to their misfortune. “Kitchen duty, tomorrow. Bright and early, before classes. All of you. Tenet’s policy, not mine.”

“It’s five minutes,” Natalie insisted. “You can’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 needed to show their IDs to get through. “Carry along.”

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

“Tenet’s making a point,” Jordan said to her, once they were out of earshot. “I bet if it wasn’t the first day of the dungeon being open, they wouldn’t care. But they need to 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 unlikely to get them anywhere.

Still, it was annoying. But on the grand scale of things, a single morning of working in the kitchens was hardly anything to worry about.

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

Natalie paused, then looked Liz’s way, amusement replacing her annoyance with the guardsman. “Right. Surprised they’re making an actual princess do kitchen 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, relatively speaking,” Liz said. “I guess not literally unimportant.”

Like the rest of the party was. Natalie didn’t take offense at what Liz had implied, both because she knew Liz meant nothing by it, and secondly, 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 come from the far western reaches of Valhaur, in the mountainous regions near the 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 advance to the barracks, standing on a paved walkway underneath a street lantern. The campus was eerily barren, with curfew having ended. A smattering of others hurried forward, rushing to their lodgings. Tenet’s curfew was treated seriously, but more for being outside campus walls than inside them. 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 coming, but hadn’t been looking forward to splitting loot. Namely, because she had a tier-one monster core filled with an infertility potion tucked away in her boot. It would raise too many questions, a resource that strange. Plus … more selfishly … she needed it for herself. For it to not be put on the Exchange and split five way for the monster cores it’d earn.

And while she intended to purposefully accept a lower cut than the rest to make up for it, the more dangerous question was … had someone been counting 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.