Page 82 of Raelia

She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, but when her torso was suddenly yanked upwards, she shrieked and opened them again, and was astonished by what she was seeing.

Her classmates’ backpacks had each released a parachute, and those parachutes were easing them safely to the ground.

Alex let out an incredulous laugh, and she heard some of the others joining her.

“Everyone okay?” Declan yelled over the sound of the wind and the churning water below.

Alex couldn’t hear everyone’s responses clearly, but it looked like they were all fine. Pipsqueak in particular seemed to be having a grand old time.

As they sailed closer to the water below, Alex began to worry about what would come next.

“Declan!” she yelled. She had to call out twice more before he heard her.

“Yeah?” he yelled back.

“The raft! You have to inflate the raft!”

He couldn’t hear her over the noise, so she tried to mime it out for him. Her attempt failed miserably, so she spelled out theword R-A-F-T in the air. After a few repeats, his eyes widened with realisation and he looked at the crashing rapids below them.

Since his backpack was acting as a parachute, Alex could see he was struggling to reach around and get the raft out. By his third attempt, she was nervously watching the river come closer and closer. When she was low enough to feel the spray on her face, she heard Declan’s victorious exclamation, but that was all she knew before her parachute unattached itself and she fell the remaining distance into the icy mountain river.

Submerged, Alex was tossed and turned as the current dragged her along, unable to draw breath as she was churned through the rapids. Just when she began to fear losing consciousness from oxygen deprivation, something yanked hard on her pack, and she was pulled roughly out of the water and over the side of the inflated raft. After coughing the river out of her lungs and inhaling some much needed air she was able to see that all her waterlogged classmates were already in the vessel, grasping onto the rope-handled sides.

“Can somebody please tell me what this nightmare has to do with Stealth and Subterfuge?” she asked through chattering teeth.

No one could answer her. They all held on for dear life as the raft moved them swiftly along the rapids.

After about half an hour of mind-numbing bumps and repeated body-soaking splashes, the river calmed and they slowed to a more comfortable pace.

“Everyone alive?” Tom asked, uttering the first words any of them had spoken since Alex’s outburst upon entering the raft.

Once they’d all acknowledged they were okay—relatively speaking—they decided to make the most of their situation and eat some dinner. The sun was disappearing behind the mountains surrounding them and very soon they would have no light left. That thought alone caused Alex to shiver, and thechill left over from the icy water didn’t help her lack of warmth. She wasreallycold.

“Here, Alex,” Kaiden said, and when she turned his way, he blew some kind of glittery, gold dust into her face.

She sneezed twice before wrinkling her nose at him. “Why did you…?”

Alex paused mid-question when she felt the most pleasantly warm feeling rush around her body. An instant later, every part of her—including her hair, clothes and backpack—was completely dry.

Her mouth dropped open and Kaiden grinned at her. “My turn.”

He handed her a small metal tin filled with glittering dust that she recognised from her medical kit. She looked around and saw that everyone was using the powder in the same way, so she dropped some of it into her hand and, after hesitating only a moment, blew it into Kaiden’s face.

He closed his eyes as the warmth enveloped him, and just like Alex, a moment later he was dry.

“Whatisthis stuff?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.

“Quick-Dry,” Kaiden answered. “You’ve never used it before?”

“Never,” Alex admitted as she handed the container back to him.

“That’s weird,” Kaiden said, but he left it at that, much to Alex’s relief.

The group ate their meagre dinner of camping rations in silence as they drifted along the river. By the time they’d finished eating there was almost no light left.

“How are we supposed to see the next arrow?” Skyla asked.

“I think we’ve had all the instructions we’re going to get for the day,” Declan said. “Hunter’s last note had ‘sweet dreams’ at the end. I’m guessing we’re supposed to sleep here.”

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