As I started down the hall, I heard a sound from the darkness ahead.

It was a sound like the susurrus of fabric as someone walks along.

I stopped. "Hello?" Holly?

Nothing.

I held the lamp behind me. The space darkened, but my eyes adjusted slowly. I saw nothing.

Without further incident, I made it to the door of the newly designated holding room. It was an office supply room. The three cots barely fit—each was pushed tight against the shelves and boxes of the three doorless walls. There was an iron stand with a platelike top just inside the door, the two pillar candles placed on it provided soft light. Maria was on the cot to my right, snoring. She was alone.

Hunter and Amber must have gone to the restroom or something. Hunter would have to come back here to retrieve her scroll before she went to Desdemona's test. Still, leaving Maria alone seemed rude. I sat down on the left-side cot, placing the lantern beside my feet and my scroll on my lap. The others' scrolls rested under their respective cots.

In the dark, as my ears grew accustomed to Maria's regular snores, I gave in to my fatigue and lay down, clutching the rolled paper scroll to me.

The sound of voices in the hall brought me sitting upright, just as Hunter and Amber stepped in. "You're back," Hunter said as they neared.

Something seemed different about her. I couldn't put my finger on it. "Yeah."

"Was it terrible?" Amber whispered, placing a third pillar candle on the plate.

I hesitated, yawned. "It wasn't easy."

"At this point, it can't be easy," Hunter whispered. "Any of it. Or there would be no point." She slipped the scroll from under my cot and headed back to the door. As she placed her hand on the knob, there was a knock. Hunter quickly stepped back to allow space for the door to open. Lydia stood in the doorway.

"Are you ready, Hunter?"

"Yes."

"Good luck," I said. I handed her my tea light lantern.

"Sure. And thanks."

Again, she seemed quite happy. Odd.

"I'm going to see if I can copy her," I said to Amber as I pointed at Maria.

"Don't blame you." She sat on the vacant rear cot.

My eyes were shut before I'd fully stretched out on Hunter's cot.

Moments later, as I was again beginning to doze, I heard Amber sit up, stand. My head lifted and my eyes opened. "Where are you going?" I whispered.

"Restroom."

"I thought you just came back from there with Hunter?"

"She had to go then. Now I do."

"Let me go with you."

"No, rest. I'll be fine." She retrieved the pillar candle from the stand near the door.

"Alone?"

"I was just there." She rolled her eyes at me. "It's just the other side of the stairs. Besides, the policemen are still around. Don't worry." She left.

My toes twitched in my shoes; I felt torn. Let Amber go alone, or leave Maria alone. Again with the no clear choices. So I stood and went to the doorway, determined to stand there with the door open, listening, waiting.

The hall was so dark. My ears strained for a sound, any sound other than Maria's snoring.

A minute passed. And another. Too many.

I took another candle from the stand and left Maria, walking down the hall. Pillar candles are unhandy to carry and not very bright.

"Amber?" I called softly. The shadow of stairs lay ahead. She'd said the restroom wasn't far past this. "Amber?"

A shadowed alcove in the wall held the restroom door. Amber would be in there.

I heard movement inside.

My hand slid around the chilled metal handle, pulled.

Amber stood there, one hand on the counter not far from where her pillar candle sat. The other hand clutched at her chest. Her eyes were wide. She fell to her knees. Her hand dropped from her chest, red spreading down her shirt. Her mouth opened and moved, but no sound came out. She leaned, falling.

I shot through the door, rushing toward her, candle dropping from my grip as I reached to catch her. I managed just enough to keep her skull from bouncing on the floor. "Amber! Amber, no!"

My hand went to her chest. Blood welled over my hand. Amber clung to my wrist. Then her grip went slack. "No! No!"

"Yes."

I turned.

Holly, in the doorway of a stall, held a knife. In the light from Amber's candle on the counter, the blade's edge gleamed black with blood, dripping to the floor. Her face was flecked with dark spots, as was her hair, her V-neck tee, and her hoodie. The essence of a life, taken, in drops.

My first instinct was to rage at her, to scream and demand answers. To beat the shit out of her. But my mouth opened and what came out was, "This is what would make your mother proud?"

Her mouth became a firm line. "Yes." Her eyes gleamed as she stared down at me.

"I don't understand."

"She was murdered by scheming witches like her. And like you." Instantly her knife hand shot up, dripping blade-point down, and she came forward.

In one swift motion, even as Holly's arm started stabbing down, I rose and used my momentum as I kicked out, knocking her knife hand up and away. She turned her face toward her arm, surprised, and I punched her hard in the jaw. She fell and the knife skittered away.

Holly was young, small, and clearly inexperienced as a fighter. She could have killed her victims only by surprising them. I felt bad for her as I pounced on her and took her by the hair. I whacked her head on the stone floor to daze her. Then, still sitting on her, I jerked one of her shoes off, ripped the shoestring out, and tied her hands behind her back, tight. I took her other shoe and unstrung it; then I bound her ankles, pulled them up, and knotted the ends of the strings together.

"Oh my god!" she groaned. "Oh my god! That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Yeah, I bet." I stepped toward the restroom door.

"Holy shit!"

It wasn't Holly's voice. Slowly, I turned.

Amber was sitting up, staring at Holly. Amber began to laugh.

"You're okay?" I stammered.

"Yeah." She ripped open her shirt and pulled an elaborate fake «chest» away from her own. As she turned it around, she revealed it was some bizarre device with plastic tubing all through the back.

Over her shoulder, she said, "I didn't invoke my stone!" as if talking to the toilet in the stall behind her. She giggled again, turning back to me. "And I'm so glad I didn't. I would've missed the show. Somebody finally kicked your ass, Holly! Goddess, you should see your face."

I stood there, dumbfounded, motionless. What the hell was going on?

The back of the restroom—both the floor and the wall itself—rolled open like a garage door and the fourth Elder stepped into view, eyeing me suspiciously.

"For twenty years, I've been re-creating this test in some fashion for every Eximium I've been a part of. Never have I seen the like."

"All right already," Holly exclaimed. "Untie me! I think she chipped a tooth!"

"What the hell is going on?" Realization began to seep into my brain, but I couldn't believe it.

"I love this part!" Amber said, getting up and stepping to the open doorway. She pulled out a half-full gallon jug of red fluid and began refilling the chest mechanism. "No one died here tonight. Not Suzanne, not Lehana. Not me." She grinned. "We are all part of the fourth test."

I blinked rapidly. "The paramedics, the police—"

"Part of our group."

"Then… Suzanne and Lehana… you and Holly… aren't real contestants?"

"Never were." She capped the mechanism's well, put the lid on the gallon jug. Removing her shirt, she replaced the chest mechanism, attaching it to her bra with Velcro. From a hanger, she took a shirt identical to the one she'd been wearing—except this one had no bloodstains—and put it on.