The closer I got to Evarlin, the bigger it looked until I couldn't possibly imagine what all of the space was used for. The gates themselves were larger than my house and almost two metres thick. At the moment they were open, but I didn't fancy anyone's chances of getting in if they were closed.

The instructor glanced back at all of us admiring the fortress and I was surprised to see a faint smile on his lips. "You'll get used to it," he told us as we entered the courtyard.

But when I was standing in that open space, I couldn't conceive ever getting used to this. There weren't many people on the grass training field, or scattered along the balconies that protruded from the walls all around. However the few people there were seemed to fill the space more than a thousand others would.

They laughed and joked cheerfully, poked fun at each other and held loud conversations, not caring who heard them. In the centre of the courtyard, a pair was wrestling while a circle around them shouted encouragement and advice. Along a narrow walkway, several more practised archery with sleek silver bows.

This was a place where everyone could be themselves. This was my sort of place.

Everyone was wearing the same uniform of black edged with silver. The colours symbolised a moon in the night sky, the namesake of the Moon Guard. I had always admired the clothing when I saw the members of the guard around my neighbourhood.

When we were noticed, the vigilantes didn't fall silent. Quite the opposite actually, if anything they talked even louder. Somehow I wasn't surprised.

"Go and sit on the grass. Tammie will be along in a minute," the instructor told us in a bored voice. He then proceeded to sit down on a bench just out of earshot and fell into conversation with a group of older guards.

We formed a very awkward circle, split distinctly into two groups. One half was the prince and his followers, the other was Ethan's cronies. I took a neutral spot in the middle with Alex, having no desire to choose a side. Another thing I couldn't help but notice was that despite trying out for a guard who governed every family equally, we still grouped with others from our house. It was sad really.

"Alright, everyone. We're going to do some team building!" a cheerful voice announced. A woman in her early twenties with the distinctive red hair of the Winterusk family joined the circle. I assumed she was Tammie.

There was a low grumble of dissent, but she wasn't dissuaded. "We'll go around the circle, saying your first name, age and why you're here."

She put extra emphasis on the whole first name thing. As if we didn't already know everyone's family affiliations from school. It didn't matter to me ... at least, I tried not to let it matter. Sometimes, you couldn't help getting a bad impression of a person if you knew they were a Curringham.

She looked expectantly to the kid unfortunate enough to be sat to her right, who didn't bother to conceal her groan. "Olivia and sixteen," the girl said. "I got bored of school."

The next boy was the one Kaeden was always talking to. He looked like he would prefer to be swimming in a shark infested ocean than sharing and caring with the group. "Ben," he finally forced out. "I'm seventeen, and I'm here to prove my father wrong."

It was the prince's turn then, and the whole group sat up a bit straighter. We were all interested in what exactly he was thought he was doing here. "I'm Kai, I'm also seventeen. I'm here because I figure I can either sit around on my ass, getting fat and lazy until it's my turn to keep the throne warm, or I can actually do something useful."

He didn't really talk like a prince. Although to be fair, he made a good point. Most princes just sat around and waited for their parents to die. I wasn't sure how I felt about giving the future king a nickname, but Kaeden was a bit of a mouthful, so why not? I missed the next few introductions because of my intense thinking, and I finally refocused when Alex started speaking.

"Well I'm Alex, I'm 5,961 days old and I'm here for the vine." That statement was greeted with looks of extreme concentration as everyone tried to translate that into years. I felt sorry for them, I really did. These people hadn't signed up for math.

Then all too suddenly, the eyes were on me. My eyes flitted across the faces, avoiding the prince's gaze for some unknown reason. "I'm Sav, and I'm seventeen."

"And what brought you here?" Tammie asked, not unkindly.

Why was I here? I supposed it was because of Seb. Everything seemed to be because of Seb.

I'd have to think of something else to say, because I wasn't about to bare my soul to these strangers.

"Loyalty and guilt," I finally said. It was the truth, just a very brief version of it. My eyes lifted to meet Kai's for a brief second, and I saw a flicker of curiosity there. Everyone else had moved onto Patrick, who was mumbling some story about fish.

Good. I hated it when everyone was looking at me. Unlike Bon Jovi, I was more than happy to be just a face in a crowd. Even my looks reflected that. I had never been extremely beautiful, but I wasn't horrifically ugly either. In the middle, that was my place. Always had been, always would be.

I listened quietly with the others while Ethan explained that he wanted to be able to beat people up. His friends all said something similar. Now that I looked really hard, I realised they were similar in looks as well as personality. The kind of rough similarities that comes with being distant relations.

I began to notice that the division in the group wasn't just between Ethan and Kai: it was between the houses. The prince's father was a Davengard, and his mother was a Llewellyn, so he had both of those houses sat on his side, while Ethan, a purebred Rochester, had the support of that house. Alex and I were the only ones who neglected to sit with their family.

Once all the introductions were finished, and I had committed at least a few new names and faces to memory, Tammie showed us where we were sleeping. She led us through a maze of stone corridors so extensive I didn't think I would ever find it again. Finally, we stopped outside a long, empty stone room with only a fireplace, a single cupboard and several dusty windows.

"Enjoy," she said. Most of us were gaping openly.

"Excuse me, I think there must be a mistake," Olivia complained. "You haven't given us any beds."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did no one tell you?" Tammie didn't sound sorry at all. "We don't give candidates beds."

Kai shrugged and sat down on the cold hard floor, taking this development in his stride. Ben joined him without hesitation. Personally, I stayed gaping in the doorway with everyone else until we got a satisfactory reason why we couldn't have beds.

"And why is that?" Ethan sneered.

Tammie gave him a disdainful look that increased my opinion of her by a thousand-fold, but she did answer. "It's to see what you're made of. There will be days out on patrol when you can't sleep in a bed. We don't feed you either. Finding and cooking your own food is training in its own right, as well as not giving you anywhere comfortable to sleep."

After dropping that particular bombshell, she fell silent and watched us closely. She could have told us just before we went to sleep, then left without having to listen to the whining. No, there was a reason we were finding out now. Maybe she was watching our reactions, to see who was the most adaptable. Had Kai already worked that out? Was that why he had sat down?

I grabbed Alex's wrist and tugged him over to the corner by the fireplace, where we would be warm at least. I peeled off my mud-caked jacket and made myself comfortable. Tammie didn't bother to hide her smile. Another point to me.

One of Ethan's followers whom I thought might be called Becky lay down smack in the middle of the floor, saying something along the lines of, "Screw this, I'm tired."

"Do we have to share with the boys?" Olivia demanded. "What do we do about changing?"

"If you're not mature enough to work something out, you have no place here. I also hope we can trust you not to start fornicating the second I close the door," Tammie told her with a hint of amusement.

Olivia huffed and sat down heavily. Then, like what had happened at the obstacle course, the others followed in dribs and drabs. None of them looked particularly happy about it, but they did all sit down. Tammie explained one last thing before she closed the door, "You're on your lunch break now, kids. I suggest you cooperate."

There was a brief pause when everyone eyed each other warily. Becky continued to lie in the middle of the floor, oblivious to the tension. Finally, Kai decided to speak up, "We need to find food."

"No shit, Sherlock," Ethan snarled. "Find your own food — cooperation my ass."

Whoa, that was a lot of hatred. Somehow I didn't think their enmity was just because of the competition at the obstacle course. No, this went back a lot deeper.

"I wasn't talking to you," Kai said calmly. "I was talking to Sav."

It took me a while to process that by Sav he meant me. Why did he mean me? Why would he talk to me at all? I felt an annoying rush of pride. Yes, I had seen the prince at school plenty of times over the years, but this was the first time he saw me. Even being acknowledged by the heir to the throne was probably a privilege.

"Sav?" Ethan practically spat. "Why the hell would you want to talk to her?"

Did I do something to this guy? I didn't think so. Maybe he just hated everyone and everything that didn't belong to his group of minions.

"Because she's winning," Kai replied. I blinked in surprise.

"No, she's not. She didn't even try that last obstacle," Ethan frowned.

Kai smiled, a cool smile from someone who had spent their entire childhood learning the finer details of politics. "Exactly."

Ethan seemed to decide he was crazy and not even worth talking to. He started a conversation of angry muttering with one of his friends. Kai turned me with a satisfied look that told me that had been his intention all along. "So, any ideas?"

Oh, crap. Everyone was looking at me again. Nice and calm. Try not to mess up. "There's obviously hunting," I blurted out. "Or we could steal food from the kitchens. Given that this is a law enforcement organisation, I don't suggest the second one."

"My thoughts exactly," Kai said and grinned.

"The only problem is we can't hunt until the moon is up," Ben said.

"Foraging, then. We'll find some berries and roots." I tried to sound more confident than I felt. I didn't really know much about foraging, except not to eat Nightlock, courtesy of the Hunger Games. Was it even a real plant? Somehow, I didn't think so.

"Does anyone actually know the first thing about foraging?" Kai tried. In reply, he got a bunch of empty looks and one lazy hand waving in the air.

"My dad tried to teach me about plants," Becky explained. "Maybe I should have listened."

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing," Kai commented dryly.

"I know enough to scrape together a meal," she continued. "As long as you don't mind throwing up when I get it wrong."

Seventeen of us went out to forage in the woods. Becky was the only one from the Rochester house, given that Ethan had refused to go anywhere with Kai. I was starting to suspect Becky was a Lochwood, a family famous for their bushcraft skills and give 'em hell attitude.

She split us up into small groups when we entered the woods. We had to collect any plant that looked remotely edible, so she could examine it when we go back. Of course I would end up with Kai. The Moon Goddess really had it in for me, combined with Alex's talent for disappearing when I needed him.

The light from the midday sun scattered through the leaves to create a spotted pattern on the forest floor. Early spring was showing its effect on the plants. Green buds were growing everywhere and young flowers provided the occasional splatter of colour. Even the ferns were making a comeback, sprouting up at the base of trees.

"What about this?" Kai nudged a small, weedy plant. "It looks like the one we study in biology."

I frowned and knelt down while the rest of our group carried on moving. He was right — it was almost identical. "Thale cress," I decided. "It was the first plant ever to have its genome sequenced."

He looked vaguely impressed. "Can we eat it?"

"It's in the Brassicaceae family. Most of them are edible, but you should check with Becky." But when I turned back to look at him, he was already chewing the plant up. I tried not to throttle him. If the heir to the throne died from food poisoning, I was not going to be held responsible.

"Why didn't you say anything when I asked about foraging?" Kai asked through his mouthful.

"Because I don't know what the plants look like. Give me a Latin name and I can tell you a fair amount, but it's not really practical."

He made a face as he swallowed the cress. "I've got to say — the flavour isn't amazing."

A few minutes of walking later, Kai spotted a bramble bush and started combing through it. "It's a pity it's spring, or we could have blackberries."

"I used to go blackberry picking when I was younger," I admitted, leaving out that it was Seb who took me. "We'd make jam and pavlova out of them."

"So did I. There are hundreds of bushes in the woods around the palace," Kai sighed.

"It doesn't seem like a very princely activity," I grinned. Talking to him was easy somehow, even easier than with Alex.

"You know, we don't spend all day learning to walk with books on our heads," he snorted.

There was a patch of nettles directly in my path. "Do you reckon we could make nettle soup?"

Kai wrinkled up his nose. "I suppose. Although I can't guarantee that I'll eat it."

I tried to pull my sleeve over my hand so I could grab them safely, before realising I had left my jacket behind. Instead, I kicked at the nettles with one foot, hoping to dislodge them. All it achieved was me getting stung where my trousers met my socks. I hissed at the surge of pain. Kai gently moved me out of the way and seized the plant with his sleeve.

"You could have just asked me, y'know," Kai said with amusement.

"I'm far too proud for that," I muttered, rubbing at the rash that was rapidly growing.

"Don't touch it. That makes it worse. Find a dock leaf," he scolded.

"They don't do anything," I grumbled. "It's a placebo for the little kids."

Seb had tried telling me the same thing several times. Apparently, there was some alkaline effect that neutralised the sting, but I had never found it helped. A much more effective remedy was to feel sorry for yourself for the next half an hour.

We wandered through the forest until my arms were overflowing with plants. We never managed to find our group again, but it didn't really matter. They were all useless anyway. By the time the pair of us made it back down the maze of corridors to our room, everyone was already back.

I got a sinking feeling as I saw all of the foragers standing outside the room, crowded in an anxious circle around someone. Freaking perfect. The last thing we needed was teen drama to spice up the afternoon. As I got closer, I realised that my friend was the subject of everyone's curiosity. Kai tensed up beside me and for good reason.

Alex's face was covered in blood.