“Feel free to hurry it up, guys!” Dex called from where he now stood beside Grady, the mud up to his chin—and creeping higher.

“Ah, but we can’t,” Bronte told him. “Because your intrepid leader is allowing one of your teammates to fall behind.”

Sophie glanced over her shoulder, scowling when she found Stina still where they’d left her—and she really wished she’d noticed before Bronte had to point it out.

“It’s just mud, Stina!” Sophie said, rolling her eyes as she turned around to face her. “You can shower it off later.”

“Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to shower it off later,” Stina argued, backing farther away from the sludge. “I think I’ll just wait here with Sandor.”

“Not an option,” Sophie told her, trying to think like a leader.

The Council had put Stina in Team Valiant for a reason. She was also their only Empath. And she knew lots about magsidian and shadowflux thanks to meeting with Lady Zillah.

“You have two choices,” Sophie decided, placing her hands on her hips—even though most of her torso was under the mud, so the effect was somewhat muted. “You can wade in now on your own. Or I can have Sandor pick you up and toss you in.”

“Everyone votes for option B, right?” Dex asked.

The chorus of “yes” was definitely unanimous.

“I hate all of you,” Stina informed them as Sandor stalked toward her with a smile that looked downright gleeful. “Fine. I’ll do it on my own—back off!”

She moved to the edge of the mud again.

And then she just stood there.

“Ten seconds,” Sophie warned. “Then it’s Sandor dunk time! Ten… nine… eight…”

Biana, Dex, and Wylie joined in the countdown as Stina made a noise that was part growl, part moaning whale.

“Four… three…”

Stina muttered a string of words that would’ve made Ro proud.

Then she shuffled into the mud, trying to move slowly and carefully. But two steps in, she lost her footing and…

SPLASH!

“For the record,” Dex said as Stina burst back to the surface looking like a sludge beast and screaming like a banshee, “this might be the greatest moment of my life.”

“Oh yeah?” Stina asked, scraping her muddy curls off her face and running toward Dex with pretty impressive speed, despite the resistance caused by the muck.

“Better?” Sophie asked Bronte as Dex received a thorough Stina-dunking and Biana scrambled over and tackled her.

“Not quite what I’d imagined,” Bronte noted, dodging several splats of flying mud. “But I suppose the method was still effective.”

“It was,” Sophie agreed.

“I have no doubt that you can be an excellent leader, Miss Foster,” Bronte told her, his voice a bit quieter. “You just need to believe that and truly commit.”

It wasn’t much of a compliment—but coming from Bronte, it was pretty huge.

“I’m trying,” she promised, not sure if he could hear her over all the squealing and slopping and squishing sounds.

Stina, Biana, and Dex had dunked each other so many times, it was now impossible to tell their muddy forms apart.

“Is there a certain place where we’re supposed to let the force drag us under?” Sophie asked Bronte. She’d been assuming it would happen naturally once their heads were covered. But Dex, Biana, and Stina were now muddy from head to toe and were still at the surface.

“Once you reach the exact middle of the pool,” Nubiti explained, popping out of the sand again, “you’ll want to close your mouth and eyes and surrender to gravity. We will do the rest.”

The “we” in that statement felt strangely ominous.…

“I’m assuming there’s a trick for how we breathe once we have to stay under?” Wylie asked Nubiti.

“No secret,” Bronte told him. “Just hold your breath. And trust the trap.”

Sophie winced at the familiar words.

She’d been given the same instructions the day that she and Alden sank into Exile—and considering how horribly that trip went, she had to remind herself that this time would be different.

This time they weren’t going to the planet’s most secure prison to meet with a murderous Pyrokinetic.

And she wouldn’t be performing any horrible memory breaks—nor would there be any surprise mental breakdowns or shattering consciousnesses.

Her abilities were also working properly this time.

Well… mostly.

“Do you not want to do this?” Grady asked, probably misunderstanding why her lips had dipped into a frown. “You don’t have to.”

“Uh, yes she does!” the blobby brown creature who sounded like Stina insisted as it stalked toward Sophie—but the other two mud monsters dragged her back, even after Stina latched on to Wylie, taking him with her as the four of them became a tangle of thrashing limbs and flying mud in the center of the mud pool.

“See you on the other side!” Biana’s voice shouted from among the chaos, and Dex added, “TEAM VALIANT FOR THE WIN!” Then there were sharp intakes of breath and some strange gurgling sounds as all four teammates sank under the muck.

“They’re going to make quite the entrance into Loamnore,” Grady said—his smile fading when Sophie barely laughed. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Of course.” She waved a muddy arm at all the grossness around her. “How could I not be?” But the joke clearly wasn’t going to fly as an answer. So she admitted, “I’m just… nervous. I meant to do more research before we came here, but there’s been so much going on that this visit snuck up on me.”

She glanced at Bronte, wondering if he’d call her out for focusing too much on finding her biological parents. But he was studiously examining his muddy fingernails.

Grady waded closer to Sophie, draping a muddy arm around her shoulders. “I’ll let you in on a secret, kiddo. You could’ve spent the last week rehearsing for this visit every single day and you’d still be nervous—and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m nervous, and I’ve been to Loamnore numerous times! These kinds of assignments are intimidating. So don’t be too hard on yourself, okay? You’re doing great.” He kissed her cheek, leaving a muddy chin print on her neck as he whispered, “And remember, you have lots of backup. Your friends may be goofballs, but they’re also talented and fearless. And you know I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.”

“Thanks,” Sophie told him, spinning to pull him into a real hug. “Guess we should probably catch up with the others, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure if we don’t, they’ll find a way to destroy something,” Grady agreed.

Sophie had assumed that Bronte would go next, but he held back, so Grady went, telling her, “Point your toes when it’s your turn—it’ll make it go faster. And keep your mouth closed—trust me on that.”

“I will,” she promised, pressing her lips together to prove it.

Then Grady was gone—sucked down the mudhole, leaving Sophie alone with Bronte, and she straightened up, bracing for another lecture.