They’re coming right for us!”

Fen didn’t look back, but instead picked up her speed and began weaving left and right, trying to throw the rhino off. The great horned oaf kept pace but much less gracefully, ramming into other candidates and knocking them over with a series of bellows and crashing noises. Morrigan looked over her shoulder, watching Noelle’s friend stare ahead with wide-eyed terror, unable to steer or slow down, unable to do anything but clutch at the reins for dear life.

Fen ran faster and faster, widening the gap between her and the crowd; the rogue rhinoceros alone stayed close on her tail.

“Just let him past us!” Morrigan shouted, but Fenestra didn’t hear, or perhaps didn’t listen. She was a mad thing, single-minded and possessed… but she was also panting heavily now, beginning to lose stamina.

Suddenly the rhino was thundering alongside them, shaking his enormous head.

“Watch out, Fen!” yelled Morrigan as the beast shoved violently into them from the side. The girl on the rhino screamed. Morrigan threw herself down onto Fen’s furry neck and clung on tight. The Magnificat lost her balance but quickly recovered, taking a defensive swipe at the rhinoceros. She sliced him right across the face with her long, sharp claws, and he bellowed in pain.

Morrigan lifted her head at the sound of another piercing scream behind them. She turned just in time to see the rhinoceros stumble, throwing his rider off. The girl fell to the ground with a sickening thud. The rhino tumbled horn over hooves and then, struggling upright, charged away down the nearest side street, his greed for a golden target apparently forgotten. He bawled loudly as he fled, the deep gashes in his leathery face weeping blood, all fierceness and aggression vanquished by just one slash of Fen’s mighty claws. Fenestra hurtled onward, finally free of her pursuer.

The rider, Noelle’s friend, was left in the middle of Grand Boulevard. She shook her head, looking dazed. The rest of the candidates were catching up and would soon be upon her. Here and there targets exploded in the background, sending clouds of bright pink and red dust into the air, coming closer to where the girl sat unmoving on the ground.

Morrigan looked ahead. A hundred yards away, Grand Boulevard opened up into the enormous cobbled plaza of Courage Square, and at the center she could see them—four golden targets, placed evenly around the edge of an elaborate fountain. Morrigan could just make out the fifth target in the fountain’s center, at the top of the statue. It gleamed gold in the sunshine, held aloft in the mouth of a concrete fish.

They were close—so close. There was nobody ahead of them. Courage Square was empty. She could really win this, she could get a golden target—

But Morrigan looked over her shoulder again.

The girl was still there. She seemed frozen in time, staring back at the wall of hooves and colored dust that was barreling toward her with no sign of slowing down.

Morrigan’s heart sank.

“Fen, we have to go back!” she shouted. “They’ll trample her.”

Fen didn’t hear, or if she did, she was ignoring her. Morrigan tugged roughly on her ears. “Fen! She’ll be killed!”

Fenestra growled. “You do realize this is a competition?” But even as she said it, Fen was turning back, racing to where the girl sat helplessly, clutching her leg.

“Faster, Fen!”

Fenestra put on a burst of speed, making it to the rhino girl just in time to scoop her up in her teeth and jump clear of the oncoming crowd, down a side alley off Grand Boulevard. The other candidates stampeded over the empty spot where the girl had sat seconds earlier.

With a fierce shake of her head, Fen threw the girl onto her own back to land in front of Morrigan, where she sat shaking and crying. “Oh, stop your sniveling,” growled the Magnificat.

Morrigan guided the girl’s trembling hands to the thick fur on Fen’s neck and helped her get ahold of it. She flinched as the last few candidates and their steeds barreled past, kicking up clouds of dust and keeping Morrigan, Fen, and the rhino girl stuck firmly at the margins of the race. It was hopeless. The golden targets would be gone within seconds.

“Maybe,” Morrigan said in breathless desperation, “maybe we could go back to the green targets, or—or the yellow—”

“Get a grip,” said Fen.

“I can’t just give up, Fen! There might be one left somewhere—”

“No, you idiot, I mean get a grip on my fur. And hold tight.” Morrigan did as she was told, and Fen reared backward. “We’re still going for gold!”

The Courage Square fountain was like the scene of some apocalyptic battle. The four golden targets stationed around the fountain had already been hit… but that one final target remained, yards up in the air, still gleaming in the mouth of the fish statue, untouched. Water churned underneath the statue as dozens—maybe almost a hundred—children waded through it, waist-deep, having abandoned their steeds to go on alone. They shouted and gurgled, pushing each other under the water in their desperation to get to the target. A few had already reached the statue and were climbing up its fins and tail, kicking out at the candidates underneath who tried to pull them down. It was a nightmarish scene, and Morrigan hated the idea of joining in.

But Fenestra wouldn’t be stopped. She reared back, took a running leap, and bounded over the backs of the abandoned horses and ostriches and zebras around the fountain, using them as stepping-stones. She launched from her powerful hind legs and soared through the air over the other candidates, landing at the top of the statue, wrapping her paws around the fish’s head, and digging her claws in.

“Hit it!” Fen shouted.

Morrigan reached up as high as she could, her fingertips nearly there… nearly there…

But Noelle’s friend was closer. She seemed to have recovered from her fall and was climbing up on Fenestra’s neck, shoving her knees right between the giant cat’s shoulder blades. She reached up, and Morrigan reached up behind her, and at the very same moment they both hit the target.

BANG!

It exploded in a cloud of golden dust, coating the other girl’s face, white clothes, and long, swinging braid in the color of victory…

…and missing Morrigan entirely.

“One at a time, please, one at a time!” shouted the harassed-looking Society official. “Now, who hit the target? Who rode the big cat?”

“I did,” Morrigan and the other girl said together. They turned to glare at each other.

“I did,” repeated Morrigan. “I rode the big cat.”

“And your name is?”

“Cadence,” interrupted the other girl. “My name is Cadence Blackburn, and I rode the big cat. I hit the target.”

“No, I hit the target! I’m Morrigan Crow, and the Magnificat is my steed. Cadence fell off hers—she was on the rhinoceros—and we went back to—”

“I was sitting in front,” cut in Cadence. “I was sitting in front, so you see I must have hit the target. Look at me, I’m covered in gold!”

The race official looked from Morrigan to Cadence and back again. “Is that true? Was she sitting in front?”

Morrigan was flabbergasted. She couldn’t deny that, in fact, Cadence had been sitting in front of her, and that was why she was covered in gold dust. But that was ridiculous! A silly technicality couldn’t mean anything—it just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.

“Well, yes, but… only because we turned back and picked her up. She would have been trampled otherwise!”

The official snorted. “Think that’s going to get you a place in the Wundrous Society, do you?” He shook his head. “Why does everyone think valor and sportsmanship are going to win them any favors? We’re testing for tenacity and ambition, not bloody niceness.”

“But that’s not the point,” said Morrigan desperately. “The Magnificat was my steed, and she climbed that statue for me, not for Cadence. I hit the target! This is just—”

“Nonsense,” said Cadence in her low voice, like the hum of a wasp. She stepped closer to the official and looked up at him. “That cat was my steed. I hit the golden target, and I will go through to the next trial.”

The official handed her a little golden envelope, which Cadence pocketed with a look of triumph as she ran off.

Morrigan could have screamed at the unfairness of it, but no sound would come out of her mouth. Instead she leveled her gaze at the race official, cold and accusing.

“That cat was her steed,” he said, shrugging. “She hit the golden target. She will go through to the next trial.”

Morrigan deflated like a punctured bicycle tire. She was out. Game over.

At that moment Noelle sauntered past, surrounded by friends. She too was covered in shimmering gold dust and held her gold envelope like a trophy. “I saw a pink target on the corner of Roderick Street and just decided to go for it, I don’t know why. Maybe because pink’s my favorite color,” she said breezily. “Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the hidden gold targets! Guess I’m just lucky.” She looked back at Morrigan, grinning at the sight of her still-white clothes.

Roderick Street, Morrigan thought bitterly, remembering what Noelle’s patron had whispered to her at the starting line. Roderick! It wasn’t a person; it was a direction to a golden target. Noelle hadn’t been lucky at all—Baz Charlton had helped her cheat! He told her where the hidden gold target would be.

No wonder she’d been the only candidate to know about the secret dinner! Baz was telling her secrets, handing her everything she needed to win the trials.

Morrigan slumped on the edge of the fountain, overwhelmed by outrage at Cadence’s and Noelle’s cheating, and by the crushing agony of her own defeat. She felt so foolish. Even worse, she felt terrified of what would happen next. She’d be kicked out of Nevermoor, of course, and then… and then…

The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow reared up in her mind’s eye like a great black swarm, blocking out the sun and casting the day further into darkness.

When Jupiter heard the story, he was dumbfounded. Fenestra was furious.

“Where’s that official?” she fumed, pacing back and forth and baring her yellow teeth. “I’ll take his clipboard and shove it right up—”

“We have to go,” said Jupiter suddenly, looking over his shoulder. “We have to go right now. He’s here.”

“Who’s—oh.” Morrigan’s stomach dropped somewhere south of her knees. Snaking through the crowd of candidates and patrons was a small brigade of brown-uniformed police officers, led by perhaps her third least favorite person in Nevermoor (after Cadence Blackburn and Noelle Devereaux).

Jupiter grabbed Morrigan’s arm and started to march her in the opposite direction, only to find their way out blocked by yet more brown uniforms. They were surrounded by Stink.

“I’ll be seeing those papers now, Captain North.” Inspector Flintlock, his face positively glowing with self-righteousness, held out his palm. “Hand them over.”

Morrigan held her breath. Would she get a chance to go back to the Deucalion, she wondered, before they deported her? Would she be able to say goodbye to the residents, and pack her things, and—Hawthorne! They couldn’t make her leave without saying goodbye to her friend, could they? She looked frantically around Courage Square, trying to see him one last time. Had he hit a target? she wondered.

And the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow, said a small, panicked voice inside. Will they be waiting for me at the border?

“To which papers do you refer, Inspector Flintlock?” said Jupiter, smiling pleasantly. “The morning papers? They’ll all be lining cat litter trays or wrapping fish-and-chips by now. I must say it is marvelous that you’re trying to keep up with current events, Flinty. Good for you. Let me know if you need help sounding out the big words.”

Flintlock’s jaw twitched, but the smile never left his face. “Very witty, North. Very witty indeed. I refer, of course, to your… former candidate’s Free State passport, her residential papers for the Seventh Pocket, and her educational visa for Nevermoor. The papers which, with one look, will convince me once and for all that your former candidate has every right to reside here in the First Pocket of the Free State, and isn’t in fact a dirty illegal smuggled from the traitorous Republic under cover of night.”

“Oh, those papers,” said Jupiter. “Why didn’t you say so?”

With a dramatic sigh, he made a show of patting down his jacket, pulling his pockets inside out, and even feeling through his luxurious beard for the nonexistent papers. Morrigan might have laughed at him, if it hadn’t been the least funny day of her life.

“I’m losing my patience, North.”

“Yes, sorry, they’re right here—no, sorry, that’s a hanky. Bear with me.”

Morrigan wondered if she should make a break for it. If she could sneak past the Stink while they were distracted, she might make it to the nearest Wunderground station.

She stepped sideways casually as an experiment. Nobody grabbed her. She looked around—the Stink were focused entirely on Jupiter and his paper-finding circus act. She took another step away, then another, remembering how Hawthorne had sidled off from the scene of the crime after his toad-spilling episode. Just a few more steps and she’d be swallowed up by the crowd and could run for it.

“Morrigan Crow!” boomed a voice. Morrigan froze. This was it. She was going to be arrested. Goodbye, Nevermoor. “Morrigan Crow! The girl on the cat! Where is she? Has anyone seen Morrigan Crow, the girl who rode the cat?”

It was the race official. He spotted her and came waddling over, waving an ivory envelope in his hand. “There you are! Thank goodness I found you. Here, this is yours.”

She took the envelope. “What is it?”

“What’s it look like? Your invitation to the next trial, of course.”

Morrigan’s head snapped toward Jupiter, who looked as stunned as she felt. Flintlock’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He looked like a goldfish that had been turfed out of its bowl and lay gasping for air on the carpet.

Morrigan hardly dared to hope she’d heard correctly. “But… but you said… but Cadence—”

“Well, yes, but there was… an incident. Bit embarrassing, actually. One of those blooming unicorns turned out to be the Pegasus with its wings tucked away and an upside-down ice cream cone glued to its head. Can’t believe we didn’t spot that earlier. Very cruel to the poor thing, of course, and totally against the rules. Even if they weren’t using the wings, the rule book clearly states that no flying animals may be used in the Chase Trial. Anyway, that candidate’s been disqualified, which means a place has opened up, and, well…” He looked a little sheepish. “Due to the, er, unusual circumstances surrounding your—er, well, we thought it was only fair. Congratulations.”

The man shuffled off, leaving Morrigan overjoyed, gazing at the precious envelope in her hands as if it were carved out of diamond. It wasn’t gold—it wouldn’t get her into the Elders’ secret dinner—but she couldn’t care less. “I got through,” she whispered, then more loudly, “I got through to the next trial!”

She ripped open the envelope and read the note inside aloud.

Jupiter laughed—a loud, explosive, joyful laugh that reverberated in Morrigan’s ears. Even Fenestra gave a wheezing chuckle. Morrigan felt like jumping up and down. She’d never been so happy, so relieved.

“Brilliant, Mog. Brilliant. Sorry, Inspector, you’ll have to wait for those papers. At this time, the question of Morrigan Crow’s citizenship remains a private matter for the Wundrous Society. Ha ha!”

Inspector Flintlock was practically foaming at the mouth. “This isn’t over,” he threatened, and in his rage he slammed his baton onto his own thigh for emphasis. Morrigan winced—that had to have hurt. “My eyes are everywhere, Morrigan Crow. I’ll be watching you—both of you. Very closely.”

The inspector turned on his heel and marched away, followed closely by his brown-coated brethren.

“Creep,” Fenestra called after him.