“It’s moving!” She gasps with disbelief. Aliz’s eyesight is better than mine, so it takes me a few seconds more to realise that she’sright: The stone leaves on the rose’s stem appear to flutter, and the petals open just a little wider.
“Maybe this is it,” I say, not fully understanding what I’m looking at. She takes my hand, and we remain still, waiting for the stone to move faster, change, reveal a door. But nothing happens. “Or not,” I add.
I attempt to draw a new path on the map, resting the paper on the wall, afraid the stone might start moving.
“I feel like you’re not freaking out enough,” Aliz says, staring at the engraving, whose stone leaves still flutter, as if blown by an invisible wind.
“Did your sister dabble in witchcraft?” I ask, and it wouldn’t shock me if Ada did, considering what’s in her magnum opus. But Aliz shrugs, whispering that at this point I know as much about Ada Astra as she does.
“If I’m right, we might actually be next to the centre of the maze,” I say, staring at the solid wall. I wait for the Gaelic words to appear on it again, but they don’t.
“The library is behind this wall?” Aliz asks, standing closer.
My gut tells me it is. But there’s no door. And I doubt the dean will approve a request to knock down a wall that is most certainly enchanted.
“We need to get here,” I say, pointing at another line on the map, the south point of the hexagon. It takes us nearly half an hour, running into walls I’d missed, before a distinctly floral scent reaches my nostrils. We pick up the pace, the endless walls coming to a sudden halt.
I expect to find a rosebush like the one in the maze.
Instead, we find an alcove decorated with the same intricately etched engravings as the last wall, surrounding an altar with stone vines.
Inside the alcove is a single rose and, behind it, a black candle.
“This must be it,” Aliz says. I nod, still staring at the altar. “But there are two doors.”
“You take the right, and I’ll take the left,” I say.
“Or”—she grabs my hand before I can step forward—“we can take one door at a time, so neither of us gets lost.”
“Fine,” I say. After a deep breath, I open the left door.
A gust of cold air carrying a faint, damp scent hits me in the face. But I can’t make out a library. Even Aliz with her superior eyesight says there’s nothing beyond the darkness. I tighten my grip on her fingers and without another word we step into the shadows.
The hand that was in mine vanishes. I whip my head around, but Aliz is gone. There are no candles in here, but slowly, my eyes adapt to the thick darkness.
“Aliz?” I call. My voice doesn’t echo. I don’t even hear myself. I just know I spoke. The brick walls are covered in moss and something that looks like kelp and barnacles. And strangely out of place, there’s litter, plastic bottles and empty trays of fish suppers.
I can’t see the end of the tunnel. The ground is vibrating, and just as I reach down to pick up a piece of plastic, I hear it. A roar, something colossal. I stare ahead, stupefied, expecting a monster.
Instead, it’s a river.
A wall of clear water races towards me so fast I don’t have time to reach the door before it crashes against me. My head hits the wooden door, and water shoots up my nostrils and into my sinuses. Instead of just dying or passing out as I should, I fight with the handle to open the door, my empty lungs burning.
And then, the voice:
A phiuthar ghràdhach,
tha m’ fluil agad.
Ach tha thu fhathast nad chadal.
I dig my nails into the door even as the current crushes me against it. Then the river is in my lungs, in my eyes, and in my ears, and everything fades, my scream caught in my throat.
When I open my eyes and cough, expecting to vomit a river, I see Aliz. She’s on the ground, covering her head, her breath short.
We’re back out in the hallway between the two doors and beneath the altar with the rose and the candle. And I’m as dry as a bone. “Aliz?” I croak, expecting to find my vocal cords shredded. Butthey’re fine. I’m fine, somehow. I breathe out, clenching my fists to stop my hands from shaking.
“Did you see a river?” I ask, and she finally looks up, lowering her arms. She’s gone a full shade paler, washed out, her lips purple.
