Page 34 of Quarter Labyrinth

Cool water slipped down my throat. A soothing chill spread to my entire body. Everything in me ached to drink again, but I waited to see what would befall me.

Clark set his jaw. “That was reckless.”

“The best things are,” I said back, hoping I wouldn’t regret my words in a moment.

A minute went by slowly, and my confidence seeped back in. “I think I’m fine.” I took another drink before Clark could say anything. It tasted just as fresh.

I slurped now, taking as much into my hands as possible to tip it down my throat. It’d been a day since my last drink, and I could down this entire fountain before being satisfied.

Clark knelt beside me, taking in the water nervously at first before matching my gusto.

It was a while before either of us came up for air.

“So,” Clark said as he wiped his mouth dry. He sat back on his knees to allow his gaze to flicker toward my arm. “When were you going to tell me about that? Because I know it’s not a sailor tattoo from the Silver Wings.”

I looked down to where part of my heart tattoo peeked out from my sleeve. With a sigh, I rolled the fabric back for him to see. “I would have told you when I understood it, I suppose.”

Clark peered close as if it were an assignment in school. He’d always done better in school than I had. Perhaps he could figure this out.

“I thought I heard something yesterday,” he said as he leaned close to my skin. “Did Aurelia gift this to you?”

Gift was not the word I’d use. “Aurelia?”

He glanced up. “The Stone God? Her name is Aurelia Brightspire.”

I blinked at him. Of course he got her name. “Yes, though she neglected to tell me why. I got the sense that it was for her enjoyment, likely just to watch me be confused the entire time.”

“I don’t think so. In the stories, nothing Aurelia Brightspire did was ever without purpose.”

He must have seen the dumb look on my face, for he grinned. “How well do you know the Stone Gods?”

“Not as well as you apparently. I always thought they were myth.”

“They are. They were the Children of the Labyrinth once, then turned to myth as time went by, now morphed into gods. Whatever their name, they are all connected to the labyrinth, for it began as their playground.”

My frown only deepened.

He laughed. “You really know nothing about the labyrinth, do you?”

“I didn’t think you knew anything either. Where did you learn this?”

“School. While you were ditching class with the other Seaweeds to jump cliffs, I was studying.”

Clark said it so casually, but I heard the twinge of pain there. Clark hadn’t fit in with the other Pearls, but he wasn’t a Seaweed, so he didn’t quite fit in with us either. He teetered between the two groups, always uncertain which way he’d fall. While I at least had some playmates when I was younger, he didn’t have anyone until we grew close.

It’d been a great source of entertainment for me, watching him flit from group to group as if he were a leaf caught in the wrong wind. Until I realized he was a kid searching for his place in the islands, and I recognized myself in him.

A friendship took hold between us, and its roots ran deep.

“In school, we were supposed to do book reports. I know you hardly did them, but I found old catalogues of the Stone Gods, still called Children of the Labyrinth at the time of the writings. Aurelia Brightspire is one of the oldest ones, who wandered into the forest as a girl searching for a piece of magic to save her crumbling family. When it didn’t work, she entered the forest again, searching for a way to turn back time to a place where her family was whole. When that didn’t work, she entered the labyrinth a third time. Whatever she sought, no one knows, but she never left the labyrinth. Story goes, that with each QuarterLabyrinth, she latches on to a competitor with a story for the ages, and is filled with hope that she can do something to fix them. We are lucky she didn’t choose us. Aurelia’s touch is cursed, her yearning too sharp—her meddling leaves scars. Her chosen person leaves more broken than before.”

I lifted my arm, where the red, gold, and brown tattoo pulsed.

“Did she choose me?”

“No. Her mark is a pink orchid. Whatever this is, it wasn’t in the books, though I’ll search the book I purchased at the market for a clue.”

Clark and his books. Though if he found something about this tattoo in that large tome of his, I’d owe him an apology.

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