Page 45 of Quarter Labyrinth

Quickly, I crouched in the thick of bushes, pulling myself into a tight ball to look around. Thorns snagged my skin and raked until red showed. Something moved ahead. It wasn’t Dimitri. The shape of it looked more like Leif, and he hunched over a limp figure on the ground.

I flinched at the sharp sound of steel.

Clouds parted for moonlight to wade in, allowing me the view of Leif’s face as he stared down upon his next victim. He trembled, but the hand holding his dagger didn’t waver.

“I had no choice,” the voice—female—sputtered. She clutched a hand to her abdomen where an arrow had pierced her.

A silver bow gleamed over Leif’s shoulder.

The girl choked on something, making her words strained. “Someone threatened us. Said we had to kill him or they’d kill us.”

Leif pressed the blade against her throat. “Who?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed until a drop of blood slid down her throat. “Tell me who wanted Luke dead, and I won’t kill you.”

She made a sound I couldn’t place. Was that laughter? Then she said, “Liar.”

He made a low noise in the back of his throat. Then he sliced, and her laughter ended.

Leif stayed on his knees for a minute later, staring at the body, his chest rising and falling heavily, and his shoulders sagged as if the weight of the world pressed against them. I ought to return to Clark. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away. When Leif finally moved, it was to clean his blade with a sigh that rattled through his whole body.

Then he stood, adjusted himself into a posture of indifference, and cut a path through the trees leading away from me, leaving behind the scent of copper and a girl with lifeless eyes.

TWENTY-TWO

I stood, running my hand over the rough bark of a tree, trying not to look too closely at the girl. Too much time had passed. I needed to return to Clark.

Clark had returned to wait near the entrance to the stone maze, still as a statue with his back to the rocks and a watchful eye on the forest. It took a moment to spot him in the dark of the night, and when I did, it took another moment to recognize him.

Perhaps the shadows played tricks on me, but the Clark before me was not the same as the boy who’d left Haven. It hadn’t been two weeks, yet the never-ending quake inhis bones settled, leaving behind a calmness as if nothing in this labyrinth could shake him. He braced a hand on the sword I’d purchased for him as if it were his second skin and flicked his head to right a fallen strand of his red hair.

Clark had always been too tall for his own good, so even when he gained muscle from working for the blacksmith, he still looked like a plank stretched too thin. But the way his shirt had been half-tucked into his trousers, the folds of it laying just right over what muscle he had, it suited him.

I’d been so worried that following me into the labyrinth would ruin him.

The labyrinth didn’t break him. It brought him to life.

Clark placed himself like a shield in front of me to walk. “The others took a right up ahead. Let’s go.”

It took us less than twenty minutes to find them, and almost took a sword from Ivar before he recognized us.

“Glad you made it. We will go for a few hours more before making camp,” Harald said, as if we were lighting a fire and unrolling mats for a peaceful night of sleep instead of balling ourselves into the darkest shadows we could find and hoping to make it through the night.

From how often Harald glanced at the sky during evenings, I knew he followed the star. But he didn’t tell anyone else that.

Harald didn’t trust us any more than we trusted him.

It wouldn’t surprise me if one of these nights, we woke to find him and Tove had slipped away.

We walked for hours, and Clark and I received our second water and turkey leg of the season. It’d come faster than lastseason. Either summer wouldn’t last as long, or we would have to face the rest with no refreshments. Either way, we gobbled up our servings happily.

Once more, I shared the last of my water with Tove while Clark offered his too freely to others. Some of them had paid for food to be delivered during the seasons as well, various forms of meat, cheese, and bread. Scraps were given to others to combine with their stash of chickweed and dandelions until we all convinced ourselves we were full.

The grumble in our stomachs said otherwise.

I offered to take first watch. Harald said he’d join me, and the two of us took post near the mouth of the pavilion we’d claimed for the Seaweeds, keeping watch as the others drifted to sleep.

I placed my axe between my feet while I fiddled with my necklace. One made me think of Father, the other of Mother. The more I went through this labyrinth, the further away they both seemed, and the more impossible the future I’d dreamed of became.

You will not win the labyrinth.

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