8
We slipped into the crowds and toward the central encampment, but something wasn’t right. I stopped and looked around. Nothing was obviously wrong. People thronged from booth to booth. Children wound in and out of the strangers chasing one another. All seemed perfectly normal, and yet-
Caius paused and half-turned to me. “Is something wrong?”
A chill ran up and down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “Don’t you feel that?”
Caius frowned. “Feel what?”
“The air, it feels different,” I explained as I studied the area around us. “It’s just. . .there just feels like there’s this tension that wasn’t here the last time we walked through.”
Alex swept his eyes over the people and frowned. “It’s already begun.”
“What’s begun?” Caius questioned him.
Alex retu
