Page 36 of Quarter Labyrinth

Clark, though pale, shook his head. “The smell would indicate the body has been here for a while. Whoever did this is long gone.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t sleep here now.”

He reached past me to close the door. “We can sleep downstairs. At least rest for an hour while I look for food. You hardly slept last night.”

I hardly slept because someone in the labyrinth kept yelling, and I didn’t inherit Clark’s ability to sleep through a storm. But he was right. If I holed up in one of the rooms on the lower level, I might find some rest before we continued.

“I’ll try, but you need to be safe out there.”

“I will be.” Clark stayed long enough to watch me settle into a gap between a velvet sofa and the wood-paneled wall, before slipping out the door. I heard its loud creak as he shut it.

For half an hour, if the clock in the house worked properly, I tossed and turned. Finally, I accepted I would get no sleep in the same house as a corpse, and I dragged my way out of the cold manor and into the ceaseless rain.

Other than the rain, a strange sort of silence locked the forest. It sat too still. Too watchful. Shadows grew long in the evening sun. I put my back to the cumbersome manor to sift my eyes along the shrubbery in search of berries we could eat, or pockets of water I could drink from, or anything to feel useful before Clark returned.

I’d wandered for mere minutes before a rustle of branches rooted me. It came from the west.

Slits between budding maple trees affording me a view of a clearing where buttery sunlight rushed to meet stone pavers. The light caught on the sharp angles of a statue there, one of a boy with a face so handsome he might not be real, with his head bent and shoulders drawn down. He held a sword in one hand, and a necklace in the other.

But the statue hadn’t made the leaves move or branches crack together.

That would be the boy who was very much alive, and covered in blood. I hid behind the nearest trunk as this dark-haired boy dragged a limp body to the base of the statue where he dropped him.

The body flinched. Whoever it was, he was still alive.

I tightened my hold on my axe as I debated whether to step in. But from the looks of it, life was fleeing him too quickly to be saved now.

The stronger boy drew a rattling breath, audible even from my hiding spot. A misery clouded it, like his sorrows ran layers deep. It was only after the second ragged breath that I realized he held back tears.

When he spoke, his voice shook with a righteous sounding anger. “For Luke,” he declared. Then he raised his blade and finished the job.

I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them, the body was unmoving, and the killer had sheathed his blade.

He fell to his knees, looking up at the statue. As he did, a swath of his dark hair fell away from his eyes, and I could see him clearly.

Leif.

My heartbeat tattoo was pounding fast. At last, it matched my own emotion. This was the boy who stood to gain the same thing I once did—the rights to his father’s trade empire. If he could win the Shallows as well, he’d control all the major shipping routes on the Hundred Islands, completely unchallenged.

More than anyone else, I couldn’t let him win.

Once more, I debated using my axe. I could throw quick, strike true, and not worry about Leif again.

Then his gaze climbed the length of the statue and a pale tear cut a sharp path down his cheek.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I half expected my heart tattoo to stutter, or cease beating altogether. He knelt like a shadow come to life, his figure cloaked in quiet intensity. Dark hair, as deep and untamed as the midnight sky, fell in soft, unruly waves around his face, framing hard-set features carved with a graceful hand.

I’d seen him at the market, with the crowd cheering for him even as he waltzed into the labyrinth with a key they so coveted. He’d been adored, and he put on a big show for his audience. But here in the labyrinth, I saw someone else. I saw someone broken, haunted by whatever this statue meant to him, and coated in blood from someone he’d just slain.

He was the beauty of a dying flame, and I just wanted to get closer to feel his warmth.

That wouldn’t be wise. I should flee.

I took a step backwards, and Leif’s head jerked upward. The tear that had made a home on his cheek was flung to the ground, and his expression hardened. I pressed myself tightly against the trunk of the tree while the tattoo on my forearm picked up its pace again.

It chose a beastly time to make more noise. I begged it to obey as a crunch told me Leif moved.

Away or closer?