We slow to a walk once we reach the bottom of the mountain, pretty much lost. A tug in my gut tells me we should go east further, but Minho says we should go west.

"Look," I say, rather grumpily, "Who has the top score in geography again?" I stop walking and turn around to look at him. "Just trust me, okay? I've got a pretty darn good sense of direction."

"Ok, ok," He says. "Don't you think we should start mapping this out?"

"I'm going to count how many steps it takes from here to Beleg. Shouldn't be that many, 'cause I'm sure the city's just hidden by the trees."

He nods and I start counting, going directly east. Fourty-two steps later, we break through a dense hedge of bushes and into a the backyard of a small wooden house.

"Woops," I say, backing into the foliage again. Minho follows. "It looks like the mountains here are basically in Belegian citizen's backyards. If I'm right, we should go east another half mile or so and we'll get to a road."

"Sounds good to me," He says. "But we should stay off the road, just in case some soldiers or police are around."

I quickly map out what I can see from our vantage point, also relying heavily on my prior knowledge of the city. Then we head east, masked my the thick forests until a road leading up the mountain comes into view.

"Yuck," I say, pointing at the road. "We could've just followed this down here. Either way, though, we really need to get to work."
Minho and I stay off the side of the road, in a small oroyo that follows it directly into the city. From there on, we try to stay out of the streets as much as possible and map out everything in sight. It's hard work, but since I've memorized most of the maps of the city in geography class, it's not too hard.

I can see why the trainer, as annoying as he his, wanted us to come down here to see the city for ourselves. It's hard to explain, really, you have to see it to fully understand it.

The outskirts of Beleg that back the mountains are heavily forested. The trees thin out after a few hundred feet though, and lead directly into backyards, fenced off with wooden posts. The interesting thing is, the backyards of each small cabin did not share fences- each yard had it's own fence that wrapped around the property completely, and didn't rely on anyone else's fence to do the job. That meant that a two or three foot interstice was left in between the fences on each property, allowing for a path to be made. What made it worse was the fences were 6 or 7 feet tall, and neither me or Minho could see over them. We were left basically clueles on how to navigate the series of alleyways created in between people's houses. This made the mapping out process a lot more dificult than it should have been. Hundreds of tiny alleyways had been created through the fencework, and we only had around 2 hours left to map it out.

We wander around cluelessly for about 20 minutes. Every so often we'll hear people and have to duck into a different alley to make sure they don't see us. The further into Beleg we get, the more people we encounter, and it becomes harder to avoid them.

Finally, I say, "Look, this would be easier if one of us could see over the fences. You wanna give me a boost?"

Minho's cheeks turn pink, but he tries to act like my suggestion didn't bother him. "Um, I don't know..."

"Would you rather I lift you up?" I ask, putting a hand on my hip. "We're running out of time here, and I honestly don't think I can hold you up long enough."

"Okay, okay," He says, his cheeks still flushed. "Just don't get mad at me if I drop you."

"I'm heavy, but I'm not obese," I say, raising an eyebrow and grinning.

Minho grins back and shakes his head. "Okay, then how should I do this...? Do I get down on all fours, or...?"

"Just hold your hands like this," I say, and interlock my fingers together just so.

He copies me. "Like this?" He asks.

"Yup," I say. "Brace yourself." He bends his knees and locks his arms as I put my foot in his hands. Then I stand up.

"Woah!" I exclaim, grabbing for the fence to my left. I hold onto it to steady myself.

"Sorry," He says. I look down at him and his eyes are smiling. "You aren't obese."

I can feel my face get hot. Was that a compliment? 

I look up from him and look around, shaking off the embarassment. There was a house below me, and it's yard was fenced off by the fence I was hanging onto, obviously. The yard was pretty normal- just a bunch of grass and flowers. I turn my head right, across the narrow alleyway we're standing in and notice the house is identical, as is the fence. We're surrounded by a grid of houses and fences.

Honestly, I can see why we got lost. The expanse of houses is dizzying- there must be at least 50 in each direction. I scrunch my eyebrows together and count how many in each direction. Then I realize it's a 10x 15 grid, each house representing one unit. As the houses reach the backdrop of the forest, I notice that the fence gets increasingly smaller. I also note that every five houses in each direction there's a lamp post, with what looks like a gas lamp attatched to the top.

"Minho, you can put me down now," I say. He lowers me carefully to the ground and then looks at me expectantly.

"Well?" He asks.

"We're pretty much in a grid of houses and fences," I say. "Each house is a unit on a 10x 15 grid. Every five houses there's a gas lamp, which means at nightfall someone has to come around to light them."

"Wow," He says. "You're pretty observant." I smirk at him and sketch what we just found on the map, using a ruler. I dash the lines of the grid to show that there are fences.

"Okay," I say when I'm done. "Let's keep going."

We head straight, because from what I saw, it would lead deeper into the city, towards the castle.

A few dozen intersections later, I can see in front of me the end of the fence maze. Flashes of color and movement contrast starkly with the dark brown and monotony of the fences ahead.

We both stop walking and glance at eachother. "There's lots of people ahead," I say.

"Yeah. I think we should turn back."

I agree readily.

We head directly back the way we came, across the strange path and through the maze of fences. Then we head directly up the mountain, the way I assume we came. I count 42 steps directly west, to make sure we're in the right spot, then head South West at a trot up the steep rocky path.

We arrive back to the tree first, 5 minutes early. I drop to the ground, exhausted from the steep climb up the mountain.

Minho crouches down next to me, his panting and mine creating a raspy rythym.

"Ha," I breathe with a small grin, "We did it."

"Yes ma'am," Minho replies jokingly. "Now where is everyone else?"

"Probably got lost. You're lucky to have gotten paired up with the best geologist in the class."

"Ha, ha," Minho laughs sarcastically, standing up. He offers me his hand which I take. I pull myself onto my feet and look over to my right just as a runner comes in. It's Abigail. She was paired up with the eldest Johnson boy but he's nowhere in sight.

"Elizabeth, Minho," Abigail sputters, her face red as she bends over to catch her breath, "Ed collapsed."

Ed. That was her partner's name.

"What!?" Minho asks, startled. "Why? Where?"

"In the middle of the city. I think he was dehydrated or something," Abigail pants, her face twists up as she tries to hold back tears. "You were right, Elizabeth. This whole thing is so stupid. We shouldn't have been left to go down there by ourselves..."

"Look," I say calmly, walking over to Abigail and looking her straight in the eyes. "Us worrying isn't going to help. He probably won't stay passed out for long. Now can you tell us exactly what happened?"

"Well, we were running, see, and he all of a sudden just fell over..." She takes a few deep breaths. "Almost towards the center of the city."

Minho's facade of calmness slips. "What!? That's right by the castle! There are tons of people all over the place up there!"

"I know, I know," Abigail says. "That's why I'm so worried. I managed to hide him in a small alley behind an old store but... I don't know if I can find it again off the top of my head..."

I look knowingly at Minho. It would be stupid for all three of us to go- too much attention would be called to three young people wondering around with another young person that's knocked out. At the same time, it may be hard for just two people to deal with Ed by themselves, and without Abigail remembering exactly where she put him it would be a race of time to see if we could find him before nightfall- assuming he hasn't woken up and wandered around.

"Maybe we should wait for the trainer to get back," Abigail suggests. "Lynn." I raise an eyebrow. That was the first time I'd ever heard someone call him anything other than 'the trainer'.

"Yeah," Minho agrees. "We should just wait for a few minutes. Then you and either me or Elizabeth needs to go get Ed. We can't leave him out there by himself."

~

We wait for longer than we had planned, but still nobody is back.

Abigail breaks the silence. "Look, we need to go. I'm worried."

I nod. "Who should go? You for sure," I jerk my head towards Abigail. "I think it would be bad for me to go since I'm not actually Belegian and I stand out so much."
"Okay," Minho says. "I'll go. You stay here. When the trainer gets back you should explain."
"Yeah," I reply, suddenly worried. It was so dangerous out there- wouldn't it be better if I went in their place? "You guys stay safe."

They both grimace as a way of thanks and turn their backs to me, jogging away from where I stand, alone.

I watch them until they dissappear out of sight, and then I slump down against a nearby tree.

Where could the trainer have gone? He wasn't going to go on this excursion with us, was he? Was that why he wasn't back yet? I contemplate climbing up into the tree and telling the cheif what happened. But what would that do? What could they do? It wouldn't be smart to send a search party down into Beleg. Too many people would be risking themselves.

With a sigh, I pull my knees up to my chest and look upwards. I see wooden slates far above the ground, blending into the tree branches. They shake slightly with the wind, and I realize those are the slates of bridges connecting platforms above.

Suddenly, I feel so insignificant. Here, all alone under these thousands of trees that stand so strong and tall. And I feel so small.

A wave of self doubt washes over me and I find myself wondering why I haven't given up on this test yet. I had been her the shortest out of anybody yet I thought there was a possibility I could be the best. Not only that, but my body's aching from all of today's activities- how could I withstand more challenges to come?

I shake my head and stare heatedly at my hands in front of me. Didn't I want to do this earlier? Don't I want to be the one to avenge Landion and overthrow Beleg?

Yes, I think. I definitely want to be the one to save my people.

~

After another hour, nobody is back yet. I stop pacing circles around the trees and glance at the sun's position in the sky. It must be at least 4 o'clock. Only around three hours of daylight left. My heart jumps into my throat as I hear a rustling sound behind me. I spin around on my heel, ignoring the sharp protests in my leg and scan the area.

Two boys stumble out of the foliage and fall onto their knees a few hundred paces away. I jog as quickly as I can over to them, and ask, "Are you guys okay?"
The larger of the two, who I recognize from training, shakes his head.

"We got caught," he says. "Near the castle. A few guards were chasing us and then we got lost."

The other boy, who I've only seen a few times nods and then adds, "It took us a while to get them off our trail without causing too much of a commotion with the whole city." He looks around and says curiously, "Is anyone else back yet?"

I tell them what happened with Ed and Abigail, and how there's no sign of the trainer anywhere. "Minho and Abi have been gone for around an hour so far. I just hope they can make it back with Ed before nightfall."

The two boys think for a second. "Shouldn't we tell the people above what's been happening? Like the cheif?" The second one suggests.

"I thought about that," I say. "I didn't want to cause too much commotion with the trainer if he was just a little late from doing whatever he does."
"Yeah, Mike, I think you're right," The first boy agrees with the second.

Mike nods. "Where is the trainer anyways? It's not like he was going to come help us. Shouldn't he be here already?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea. But lets go break the news to the leaders above."