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“Definitely regret waking up,” I agreed before we followed him.

My first thought was that the quicksand actually felt rather pleasant against my ankles as it immediately swallowed my feet: soft and silky, like one of those clay face masks some Wild Whisperer girls liked to use on the weekends.

Then the mud seemed to grip my calves, molding to my entire body and pulling me under with surprising force that made a gasp shoot out from my throat.

I kicked instinctually, but the mud only tightened its hold on me, like ribbons constricting around every limb. The surface rose to my waist, then my chest.

Then my neck.

I sucked in a deep breath, willed myself to calm, and remembered Mrs. Wildenberg’s words: a buzzing hum intervened by loud and frequent clicks.

Already, my classmates around me were attempting their own versions of this, low, vibrating sounds intermixed with the ticking of many tongues. I let out a hum of my own, keeping it as low as possible, feeling the vibration of it in my submerged throat.

The mud slid up to my chin, and my lips trembled.

I made a clicking sound with my tongue, remembering the sundews from last year, before resuming that low hum.

Click. Hum.

Click. Hum.

The saltiness of the mud coated my lips, and I pressed them together, tilting my head back to inhale through my nose, a watery blue sky searing into my vision.

Around me, a few people screamed.

Panic surged through my bones. Before I knew it, I was trying to kick and flail, to reach for Emelle or Rodhi or Gileon…

Only to realize I couldn’t move at all. The mud rose to my nose, and I caught a last view of the world before I squeezed my eyes shut, thick, silky darkness rising above my head as the ground swallowed me whole—

The mud twisted around me, squeezing me tight.

No, not mud. Something else. Something that jerked me upward, like ropes raising a puppet, until I was coughing and spluttering and gasping above the surface.

Then flying in midair.

With a thump that knocked the air from my lungs, I landed on solid ground. After a sharp inhale, I looked over my shoulder just in time to see a cord of woody flesh as thick as an arm slink back beneath the surface. The roots of the cypress trees.

All around me, my classmates were being flung out of the quicksand, too, landing beside me with sounds that ranged from high-pitched squeals to deep grunts. Rodhi slammed into the ground on my left while Emelle fell to my right, both of them plastered in mud from head to toe—as was I.

All the while, Mrs. Wildenberg beamed at us, still standing in the same position at the quicksand’s edge. She brought her hands together in shaky claps.

“Oh, bravo! You all did wonderfully for your first time! As you can see, the root system stretches further than branches or vines, so if you ever find yourself in this kind of position in the future, you’ll know exactly what to call on.”

“In the future?” Mitzi Hodges exclaimed, pulling herself upright. She raised her voice so Mrs. Wildenberg could hear. “I’m sorry, but when will we ever find ourselves encountering magically-altered quicksand in real life?”

“Why, dear.” Mrs. Wildenberg blinked several times, genuine confusion etched in every wrinkle. “We live on an island alongside thousands of Element Wielders. Any one of them could alter the ground we walk on.”

For a moment, nobody spoke, the insinuation sinking into us. As far as everyone else knew, the Esholian Institute was meant to teach us how to become productive citizens, capable of working in harmony and surviving natural threats and disasters side by side. But what Mrs. Wildenberg was saying… was she really trying to prepare us for some kind of battle against the other sectors? Or did she know, did she feel, that something even bigger hovered on the horizon?

I glanced up at the quicksand again, and that’s when I saw it: a single rhino beetle fluttering in furious circles over a bubbling spot in the middle of the mud.

A scream tore out of my mouth as I realized that one person hadn’t successfully called on the roots.

One person hadn’t made it out.

“Gileon!”

Even though the shout fled from my own lips, every other muscle of mine froze with terror, locking me into place.