The entrance to the cairn was an enormous maw in the side of the hill, ready to swallow Bel whole. In the light of the nearly-full moon, she could make out the stone pillars that framed it, an obvious sign that this was not some natural cave formation. It was a clear night, and as the wind kicked up she could hear the strange, unmusical tones that gave the Whispering Cairn its name.

She, Sergiu, and Alina stood a dozen paces back from the gaping hole. Behind them, in a loose semicircle, were the rest of the eleven teenagers that made up the Night Walkers.

Sergiu pulled his arm back and then snapped it forward, throwing a dimly glowing rock right through the center of the mouth. Bel watched the blurry streak get swallowed by the darkness, heard the rock hit the ground and skip, then skip again, and again, and again, each one fainter than the last. Alina had assured her that they “never throw it far.” Sergiu wasn’t sticking to tradition.

Alina turned sharply to face him, clearly furious. “What. The fuck. Was that?”

Sergiu met her gaze, with an annoying, see-how-clever-I-am grin on his face. “A lucky throw, obviously.” He shrugged his shoulders, apparently trying for sheepish, but he just couldn’t let go of that stupid grin. Bel didn’t believe a word of it, but said nothing. There was nothing she possibly could say that wouldn’t make this worse.

Bel knew he was both lying and not. No one’s aim was that good all the time, so yes, there was no doubt that it was a lucky throw. But he had also been trying to pitch it as far as he could. So lucky throw or not, he was deliberately being a dick, and he had managed to strike gold.

Alina had him pegged, too. “A lucky throw. You’re such an asshole,” came her retort. She turned to Bel and said, softly, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes! She does! If she wants to be a Night Walker, she has to do it.”

“Shut up, Sergiu!” Alina snapped, turning her head to glare at him briefly before facing Bel again. “You don’t. This is bullshit. We never do it like this and he’s being an ass. We’ll redo the throw.”

From behind them, a girl’s voice called out, “No redos! You only get one throw.”

Alina didn’t even turn around. “You don’t get an opinion, Neena! Stay out of it!”

“She’s right, though,” Sergiu said, smirking. “One throw. If it goes in, it’s good. That’s the rule.”

“We don’t throw past the first junction, Sergiu, and you know it.”

“But it’s not a rule, ‘Lina.”

Bel knew he had her there, and she could see Alina knew it too, the way her eyes sank, the slight—very slight—drop in her shoulders.

“I can bring them around. Trust me,” Alina said quietly, her voice gentle and encouraging.

The spats between Alina and Sergiu were all but legendary among the Night Walkers. For two years they had jockeyed for status in the little family they had created, neither ever able to permanently get the upper hand.

Bel knew how this argument would end: Alina would lose by winning. If she convinced the others to redo the throw, they’d think she was going soft. Playing favorites. Even if they never said it aloud, the damage would be done.

Bel liked Alina. She was kind and smart, and didn’t mind hanging out with someone three years younger. Most importantly, she was the one who’d encouraged Bel to join. Bel wasn’t going to repay her by costing her standing with the group.

Bel didn’t know for sure why Sergiu had a problem with her—he was the only one in the circle that voted against her initiation—but she could make a guess: no one had joined before they turned thirteen, and Bel was barely twelve. Sergiu’s had been outvoted ten to one, and this was his response.

“I’ll do it,” she said, meeting her friend’s eyes.

“Bel, it’s…” Alina lowered her voice further so others couldn’t hear. “Look, there’s a reason why we don’t throw the stone that far. Sometimes there are animals living in there. They think it’s a cave. The farther back you go…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ll do it,” she repeated.

“If you do it, he wins.”

“No. If I do it, he loses,” she said with a sly smile.

Alina thought about this, then smiled back. “Okay. Go show him what you’re made of.”

Bel turned to face Sergiu and said, loudly, clearly, and with conviction, “Give me the lantern.”

Sergiu’s disappointment was obvious. Bel knew he’d wanted her to chicken out; forcing Alina to ask for a concession would have been a silver medal. Now he had nothing. He reluctantly picked up the lantern at his feet and handed it over.

“OK,” he said tersely, “You know how this goes. You get one turn of the sand glass. Find the stone, bring it out.”

The Rite of the Stone was ingenious. Bel didn’t know how it worked, whether it was magic or alchemy or something else, but it worked: Sergiu’s rock glowed faintly in the dark, but in the light it was just a dumb rock, and you couldn’t tell it from any of the others. To find the right rock once you were in, you had to extinguish the light. This is where the Night Walkers got their name.

Bel opened the shutter in the lamp and let the red light spill out ahead of her. This bit was Alina’s touch: red light, she’d explained, preserved your night vision, and some animals, including a few predators, had trouble seeing it. It was a lot dimmer than a normal lantern light, of course, but nothing about this was supposed to be easy. Bel didn’t want to know how much the red glass had cost. That was probably Sergiu’s doing. When he and Alina weren’t too busy arguing, they made a formidable team.

Bel had to admit that Sergiu was actually pretty cool for a boy, despite whatever issue he had with her personally. As the son of a mine owner, he had no business hanging around with teenagers whose families had to scrape to get by—some of their parents probably worked in his dad’s mine—but he never held that over anyone or put on airs. Here, he was just another teenager, and a pretty decent one at that. Sure, he could be irritating and obnoxious, but that was true of a lot of people.

Bel crept into the cairn, picking her way carefully across the rocks and boulders. Once properly inside, the walls and floor smoothed out into a long hall of worked stone. She could see initials—some carved, some done in ink—just inside the entrance. These didn’t belong to Night Walkers, of course; theirs would be much farther in. Any idiot could make it this far, and they would still be in the light.

As she moved, Bel pictured the stone’s flight, imagining its arc as it fell. The junction appeared at the edge of the lamplight, bathed in red. The stone, she figured, had struck the ground just this side of it, then skipped down the hall beyond. She closed the shutter and let the darkness close in around her, turning her head from side to side. Nothing. Onward.

She reopened the shutter halfway and pressed on. At the junction, she closed it again. Nothing, as expected. The names carved here—if you made it this far, you made sure your record was permanent—were mostly ones she recognized. Shahab. Rita. Sveigh. Petre. Neena. And, of course, Alina and Sergiu. Those brave few who spent the night in the cairn did so here, too. Bel hoped to join that exclusive club someday.

A breeze kicked up, sending more of the atonal music echoing through the hall. The echoes were louder here, some sounding faintly like voices. Bel ignored them. Most kids thought the cairn was haunted, but real hauntings were rare. The rumors were probably started—and encouraged—by the Night Walkers themselves.

Most were just social circles, but sitting around gossiping wasn’t Bel’s idea of fun. A few were little more than gangs of petty thugs, which was absolutely not her thing. But the Night Walkers? They were different. They did stuff. Stuff that mattered.

And best of all, they did most of it at night.

A lot of kids were afraid to go out in the dark. The Walkers lived for it: scavenger hunts, capture the flag, exploration, hunting, all by moonlight. Sergiu and Alina taught them real skills and made it exhilarating. But doing any of that in the dark took nerve, and that was what the Rite was really about. If you couldn’t make it through this, you’d never make it through the rest.

The junction was behind her now, and instinct told her it was time to check again. She closed the light and slowly scanned the darkness. Just as she was ready to move on, she saw it: a faint glow straight ahead, maybe another ten feet away.

She cracked the light open just enough to see the floor without losing sight of the stone. She had maybe two minutes left. She crept forward until the glow vanished at the edge of the light, closed the shutter, and inched the final few feet through the darkness. The stone reappeared ahead. She stumbled on her last step, catching herself against the wall, then bent carefully and closed her hand around it.

From up ahead, she heard a low, canine growl. Alina’s voice echoed in her head: Sometimes there are animals living there. They think it’s a cave. Bel froze. The growl came again. A wolf? A coyote? A wild dog?

She forced down her panic. It was pitch black: she couldn’t see it, and it couldn’t see her. It probably caught your scent when you stepped inside. You startled it when you almost fell. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached into her pocket, dropped the stone into it, and pulled out a glass vial filled with cayenne, capsaicin powder, and black pepper. It had cost her every copper she had, but it was her only contingency plan: mask her scent if something picked it up, or give it a faceful if that didn’t work. She hoped she wouldn’t need it.

With the vial clutched in her right hand, she used the tips of her fingers to crack open the lamp’s shutter as she turned it around in her left. Dim, crimson light spilled out behind her, giving her the barest outline of the passage. Just enough to keep her footing as she slowly stepped backwards.

The growl came again, but softer this time. Less angry. It just wants you to leave. Keep backing away. Don’t. Run. Except she didn’t have time for this; she didn’t want to give Sergiu the satisfaction of seeing her fail (a part of her brain suggested that, perhaps, she didn’t have her priorities straight, but the rest of it was running on adrenaline and wasn’t listening).

The next growl was shorter, softer, less threatening, and with time running out she risked a faster step. No response.

Confident she was in the clear, she turned around and walked at a brisk pace, resisting the urge to break into a run. She slipped her hand back into her pocket, replacing the vial before she accidentally peppered herself, and pulled out the stone. You did it! You actually did it!

Bel exited the cairn with half a minute to spare. The group whooped and hollered as she casually walked up to a sullen Sergiu and dropped the glowing stone at his feet.

Alina was absolutely beaming. She laughed as she closed an arm around Bel and pulled her into a hug. “Welcome to the Night Walkers!”