Page 39 of No Greater Sorrow

“There’s something in the distance. I think they're statues,” Violet said, pulling herself up enough to stick her head over the canopy of leaves. She still wore the dirty hiking boots that’d been on her feet when Aleja and Nicolas found her, awaiting death at the hands of a being trapped in an Unholy Well.

“Statues?” Aleja ran her thumb along the ridge of the folded note in her pocket. The first Trial had been awful, but something told her she would be wishing she was merely facing a version of herself before this day was over.

Violet dropped to the ground with a soft plop. With the Second’s well water flowing through her veins, she moved more like her old self—confident and easy, despite the heavy armor on her torso. “I think we should take some of these figs with us. It might be a puzzle.”

“What makes you say that?” Aleja asked.

“Haven’t you ever played a video game?”

“I don’t think the Second is basing these Trials on…” Aleja struggled to think of a title, but for all the opulence at the Miami estate, her aunts and uncles had never allowed gaming consoles—not when they had chess and fencing to practice. “When were you ever a gamer, anyway?”

“I was on chemo for years as a kid, Al. I had alotof time on my hands. Help me out with this.” Violet motioned for Aleja to pluck the figs on the lower branches. Together, they gathered as many as they could hold. The figs were large and soft enough to feel like organs—likehearts—in Aleja’s arms. Again, she was hit with a sense of unease.

Violet was right about the statues. Garm gave a low huff as the three of them stepped into their massive shadows. Aleja had never seen the ruins of Greek and Roman colossal statues in person, but she imagined this is what they must have looked like when they were new—towering over ancient cities like the gods they depicted.

All three were carved from a different colored marble. At the center, in rich brown stone with flecks of gold, was what she assumed to be the First. The woman’s body was full, with large breasts and a rounded stomach, reminding Aleja of a different sort of statue—prehistoric Venus figurines, so old their true meaning was unknown. Though the First’s facial features had worn away over time, Aleja spotted the curve of a gentle smile. It was an expression Aleja returned until she noticed the hole in the woman’s chest. It was the same size and shape as the glass heart in her satchel.

Her mouth went dry, but she forced herself to look at the others. To the First’s left was the Second, depicted in red marble as the winged man Aleja saw throughout the rooms of the palace. A broken crown lay at his feet, and he leaned forward with an empty hand outstretched to the viewer in offering. The figs would fit perfectly.

The final statue was jet black and gleaming, with a blindfold wrapped over its face. Nothing else was visible of the man’s body, aside from the bare feet poking out from the bottom of his robes. And there was something odd about those robes that wasn’t just decay from wind and rain. They werescratched. Hundreds of small eyes peered out from the marble folds.

“Are you totally geeking out right now?” Violet asked.

“I think you were right about the figs but let me enjoy this for a moment before something goes horribly wrong. Wait, there’s an engraving on the base of the First,” Aleja said and read aloud, “‘Without a heart, I sleep. With a heart, I weep.’”

Aleja barely got the sentence out before Violet was scrambling up the Second’s statue. In a moment, his hand was full of plump fruit and Garm gave a yip of victory. Aleja wondered if she should mention that she had the First’s heart in her satchel already, but Violet spoke first.

“I have a confession to make. I already have the piece missing from the Third.”

She wouldn’t offer that information if we weren’t working together, right? Aleja asked her inner voice.

We’ll find out.

Violet swung her backpack to the front of her body and fished out an indigo-colored stone in the shape of an eye. “I had to take it from the Authority in the first Trial. That’s why it was chasing me when you found us,” she explained.

Why didn’t she tell you that until now? Aleja’s voice asked.

It’s not like she knows about my heart, she shot back.

Again, Violet climbed, this time up the Third’s statue, to an eye-shaped hole among the scratches in his robe. As she dropped back to the ground with a grunt, Aleja thanked the gods that she was in this Trial with someone athletic. Her wrist still throbbed.

“This seemsfartoo easy. Where do you think we can find the last piece?”

“I… already have it,” Aleja said, hardly hearing herself over her inner voice’s admonishment. Garm too must have sensed her sudden hesitation. From the corner of her eye, she caught the way his tail stopped moving.

“That’s great. I can put it up there,” Violet said shakily.

Something cold moved through Aleja. She stared at Violet’s face, searching for anything behind the tentative expression of hope, as if she’d truly started to believe the Second might let them off easy this time.

“I’ll do it,” Aleja said, remembering her instructions.Whoever places the glass heart where it belongs may continue to a special reward.

“Are you sure? Your wrist is still messed up, and the last time I watched you try to climb something you slid off with all of your limbs stuck out at once.”

Aleja swallowed, again searching Violet’s eyes. Violet had spentmonthslying to Aleja before she’d disappeared, and Aleja hadn’t suspected a thing until she found a scrying mirror containing a hellhound that knew Violet’s name.

Her tongue grazed her incisors as she struggled to formulate an answer. Violet offered to make the climb again, but the sound was distant over the roar of anger between Aleja’s ears. Anger that came from both Aleja and the older, deeper parts of herself. Anger at the Second.

Of fucking course, he would do this to them.

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