Recklessly, impulsively, I knew suddenly what path I needed.
I just needed to step out onto it.
The need for Fieran was the breath in my lungs, like the instinctual intake of breath before I had leapt from one rope to another during the Trials.
I retraced my way through the glowing garden, searching for the place where we had shifted from the underground passages to the moon-touched surface.
The luminescence dripping from trees and flowers had glowed inthe corner of my vision long before we emerged. I had been distracted by Tay and the letters from home. I’d stupidly believed my brother would be walking back with me, guiding me. That we would always be looking out for each other.
I couldn’t find the entrance back to the labyrinth.
A murmur of voices rose nearby. I dropped to crouch behind a bush.
Despite the garden’s beauty, a thorn caught my hand when I rested it against the ground, and when I tried to carefully pull away, my skin tore. Blood welled up, glowing faintly as if infected by the surrounding luminescence. I crawled further into the darkness, thorns tearing through my leggings, and pressed the wound to my mouth to salve it.
Two Fae voices drifted closer, the cadence light, careless. Male. Unhurried.
The voices receded. I held desperately still until all was silent except for the sound of birds and the slither of something nearby through the brush.
I looked back and caught a glimpse of an arch made out of trees, framing three rough-hewn stone steps sunk into the ground. Had Tay caught my sleeve to guide me up a few steps while I mused over Lidi’s letter? Yes, I was sure he had, and my heart leapt.
My need to reach Fieran pounded through my body like a drumbeat. Like I would only be safe by his side.
I waited a few long heartbeats, listening, before I carefully eased my way out of the brush, the branches tugging at my clothes as if they wanted to keep me there, and then darted across open ground toward the arch.
A dark figure swept down at me, too fast and silent. I threw my arm up over my head to protect it.
“What do we have here?” a voice drawled, amused and low.
The creature landed neatly on a Fae man’s shoulder, sleek feathers folding as if in satisfaction. The Fae hadn’t been there a breath ago, but now he loomed before me, tall and sharp as a blade just drawn from the scabbard. The moment the bird settled, he moved with impossible speed.
His hands closed around my shoulders, pinning me in place. “A little runaway servant?”
“No,” I said.
“No?” He tilted his head, birdlike, the creature on his shoulder shifting its claws. His mouth was smeared with a faint luminescent sheen—as though he’d been feasting on something in the garden—and when he smiled, the glow lit his teeth in a way that made my stomach turn. “Then perhaps you’re a servant running errands in the dark. Very careless of your master. They deserve to lose their things.”
“I’m a shifter.”
His long, narrow fingers dug painfully into my shoulders. “Mortals aren’t to lie. Just because you can, filthy little thing.”
“I mean it—I’m going home—” I raised my finger to point at the arch.
He let out a little laugh. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me take you there.” He dragged me with him, my feet stumbling over roots and moss.
As we reached the entrance to the arch, dread shot through me.
A crooked door stood open at the base of the stairs, and the scent of rotted flesh washed through me.
This wasn’t the path back to the labyrinth.
It was his nest.
Cold certainty slid down my spine. The moment we stepped below those interwoven branches, I would never come out again. I swallowed my instinct to wrench away. I’d only get one chance to escape him.
