“I guess it does,” I reply, but if it comes to a showdown with the monster, Gregor is the first one I’m pushing.
We come to our first turn and Gregor lets me make it ahead of him. I go slowly and poke my head around the corner. A torch is inset into the hedge wall casting a wide swath of flickering orange light. No monster to be seen.
We make a few more turns going deeper and deeper into the maze. The torches aren’t consistent and sometimes all we have to go on is the faint light of the moon. The walls are too tall and the maze too deep for the moon to penetrate all the hedges’ shadows.
After another left turn, we come to a dead-end.
“Looks like we need to turn around,” I say. But when we make the next turn—the only turn—we come to another dead-end.
“Fuck,” Gregor says. “It’s a shifting maze. Fucking hell.”
“We’re boxed in?” I run my hand along the hedge wall looking for a trap door or a hidden opening. I find nothing. “This can’t be right. How are we supposed to get out?”
A roar echoes through the maze. The hedges tremble as if they too fear it.
“Well, look at the bright side,” Gregor says, “at least in a hedge box, we’re safe from whatever that is.”
Someone screams.
Shouting follows.
Haven.
My heart starts thumping wildly in my chest.
“Looks like I picked right by you, orphan.” Gregor folds his arms over his chest and manages to look pleased with himself while our fellow descendants are maimed somewhere beyond this wall.
“You’re disgusting,” I say and continue poking at the walls.
“It’s about time the Knightfall dynasty fell.”
Another scream echoes through the maze and panic washes through me. I feel an all-consuming need to go. To fight my way through the maze and find Haven and—
My hands tremble at my sides. Heat builds in my gut and flows through my arms and down to my fingers.
“What’s going on with your hands?” Gregor asks.
When I bring them up in front of my face, I realize they’re glowing again.
And that’s when it clicks.
Part of Hades’s second gift was meant to be used in the shifting maze.
Gods, could I be any more dense?
Now I just have to hold on to the power long enough to get myself through the maze.
I put my hands to the hedge row and the leaves curl in on themselves, but this time, instead of burning to a crisp like the floor in my room, the leaves shrink to buds and then disappear entirely. The branches pull back like...like they’re ungrowing themselves.
“Whoa,” Gregor says.
When there’s a hole taller than me, I step through to the other side.
Behind me, footsteps pound at the earth. I turn just in time to see a minotaur come crashing through the other row. It captures Gregor in the wide span of its bristly, muscular arms and then bites into Gregor’s shoulder with its sharp incisors.
Blood spurts from the wound and splatters across Gregor’s face. He screams and thrashes.
Unthinking, I move to chase after him, but the hedge grows in on itself and no matter how much I lash at the branches, I can’t penetrate them.
“Gregor!” I shout.
I hear the unfamiliar but unmistakable sound of bones snapping beneath the maw of sharp teeth.
Oh gods.
My stomach sours. I clamp my hand over my mouth to silence my breathing and to keep the contents of my stomach from coming up.
The hedge trembles as the hoof beats grow closer. The minotaur snuffles and the branches crack as the minotaur’s massive hands reach through.
I think it can smell me. If I stand here frozen any longer it’ll soon see me too.
What a tasty meal I would make.
I turn and run.
Chapter 32
I follow every turn of the path, wending back and forth as the minotaur crashes through the rows behind me like they’re made of paper.
Panic flutters in my throat. I can’t seem to catch my breath.
I don’t want to lose this trial.
I don’t want to be eaten!
I stumble into a wide opening and look around.
There’s a fountain in the center. A shield with medusa’s head on it is erected in the middle. Her snake hair stands off the shield’s perimeter and water sprays from their open mouths. Stones are set in the ground in a cross-hatch pattern and there’s a torch at four other hedge openings.
I must be in the center of the maze.
I have only enough time to take in that fact—that I’ve made it halfway—when the minotaur crashes through the other corner.
I bite back a shriek and turn—
And slam right into Haven.
There’s blood running down the side of his face. His eye is black and swollen, his lip split and bleeding.
He clamps his hand over my mouth and yanks me into the fountain. His other arm wraps around my waist and he draws me tight into him.
“Shhhh,” he says at my ear, his warning nothing more than a whisper of breath.
The minotaur stalks around the maze center, snuffling at the air.
Water sprays around us and my hair sticks to my neck.
The minotaur comes around the fountain and stops two feet from us. It’s yellow eyes flash in the firelight as it tests the air for our scent again.
What’s happening? How does it not see us?
For a stupid minute, I think it must be blind to water and then I realize—
Haven is casting an illusion and shielding us from the minotaur’s vision.
I didn’t know he could do that.
I didn’t even know it was a possibility. I thought his power created an illusion of fear.
But suddenly I’m grateful for it as my heart pounds in my ears and my breath flutters uselessly in my throat.
The minotaur turns to us. Haven tightens his hold on me.
I hold my breath, eyes wide as the minotaur looks right at me down the long, curved angle of his snout. It’s mouth parts, its teeth gleaming in the moonlight. There’s still blood on his incisors and painted on his whiskers.
Don’t breathe.
Don’t move.
Don’t do anything.
The water trickles down my back and down my spine.
I can hear nothing over the rapid beat of my own heart.
The minotaur turns and stalks away.
When it’s gone back into the maze, Haven lets me go and I double over to suck in a breath. I’m soaking wet and shaking all over.
“Thank you,” I croak.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He climbs over the fountain’s ledge and shakes the water from his hair. When he’s satisfied, he slicks it back with a rake of his fingers. Some of the blood has washed from his face, but a cut just above his colorless eye is still weeping red. “Where’s Gregor?”
I must pale at the mention of his name, because Haven just nods and looks away.
“What about the others?” I ask.
“Same Fate,” he says. “You and I are all that remain.”
How can that be?
How can I be the last one standing with Haven Knightfall?
Hestia’s words come to mind: I suspect your future will be worthy of an epic ballad and I look forward to the day that I’ll hear it sung.
But I don’t know how to be that person she thinks I’m destined to be. I don’t know how to be epic or heroic or strong or any of the other adjectives that describe an elite member of Hades’s House.