Arlo clicked her tongue. “Of course the exit was behind a bookcase.” She scowled at him, as if his very presence was somehow an insult. “The room was literally one big bookcase. How could it not be?”
Riot glanced up at the ceiling. “Trapdoor. False ceiling. One of those ladders that drops from the attic.”
“Please silence yourselves,” Shaun-bot said, stilted and weird, as if piping down was like turning your cellphone to mute. “It’s starting.”
Leah stepped through the bookcase as Shaun and Arlo hurriedly crossed the room, following close on her heels. Neela grabbed Persey’s arm and dragged her forward behind them with Wes, Mackenzie, Riot, and Kevin packing in behind.
Persey blinked as they stepped from the wood-and-leather-and-Tiffany-lamp reception room to the blinding light of the corridor. It was lit from above and below, with fluorescents running the length of both the ceiling and the translucent floor, and Persey winced from the brightness, squinting her eyes as her pupils fought to dilate. A far cry from the old-school library, the hallway made Persey feel like she was walking through a spaceship, and she half expected to pass a window with a panoramic view of stars and galaxies.
“Where are we going?” Mackenzie asked, her voice close behind. Persey glanced over her shoulder and saw that Mackenzie walked at Kevin’s side, as near to him as she could get without actually holding his hand. Persey had zero interest in who Kevin chose to spend his time with, but for some reason, the idea that it might be Mackenzie was irritating.
Leah ignored the question, sticking to her script. She was really good at that. “From the moment the competition begins, there will be no stopping it.” She pivoted mid-stride so she was walking backward as she addressed them. “You have to keep moving forward, never back.”
“Why would she say that?” Neela chattered anxiously. Without waiting for an answer, she turned her questioning from Persey to Leah. “Why would you say that? Why would we want to go backward? Is there something dangerous in there? Do we need a safe word? What could we possibly be doing where we’d need a safe word and what would it be? Linoleum? Amoxicillin? Has to be a word you wouldn’t say in everyday life but I don’t remember signing a waiver before we started, so if there’s going to be anything potentially dangerous involved I feel like we should be adequately informed beforehand so we can make an educated decision about our further participation.”
Persey marveled at her lung capacity.
“Does she have an off button?” Arlo asked.
“Do you?” Persey may have only known Neela for like an hour, but she already preferred her harmless prattle to Arlo’s constant negativity and targeted condescension.
Leah paused at the end of the hallway before a door, laying her fingertips on the handle with a dramatic flourish. “Keep your eye on the clock. If it ever reaches zero, you will lose. You will all lose. Which means you need to work together. Do you understand?”
“Don’t go for the buzzer beater,” Wes said. “Check.”
“How utterly cliché,” Arlo added.
Mackenzie smiled. “Him or the game?”
“As you move further through the challenges,” Leah continued, “it might help to remember why you’re here in the first place. This is a test of your aptitude.” Persey wasn’t entirely sure why Leah used that word again, but something in the back of her brain suggested it might be important later, so she made a mental note. “Some of your strengths are tactile, others scholastic, but whatever your talent, I wish you good luck.”
Leah paused as she opened the door with a flick of her wrist.
“You’re going to need it.”
THE ROOM LEAH USHERED THEM INTO WAS DARK—SHOCKINGLY so, after the blinding white lights of the hallway—and as they shuffled through the doorway single file, Persey unconsciously reached out her hand and touched Neela’s shoulder, using her as a guide so she didn’t bump into anything. The lights from the hall hardly penetrated the new space; the darkness seemed to repel the light, pushing its beams away. She could vaguely discern the outline of an object right in front of her—a low, elongated structure that looked like some kind of shelf or wall—and though she could sense rather than see a smattering of large furniture pieces staged nearby, she couldn’t make out any details.
Persey fought the urge to flee back into the hallway. She really, really, really didn’t want to be there. She could feel a