Clara Lopez was runner number eighty-seven, which meant she had fourteen and a half minutes to stand at the mouth of the Dimensional Labyrinth and think about dinner.
The arena had been rebuilt again in the afternoon. The fortress platforms were gone, and in their place stood a single black structure the size of a city block: smooth obsidian walls three storeys high that swallowed the light instead of reflecting it. Screens around the stands showed slices of the inside, but only slices. Nobody watching could see the whole of it. Nobody inside could either. That was the point.
Vice Headmaster Valerie had read the rules at five o'clock, in a voice that carried to the back row.
