Morgana narrows her eyes at me but doesn’t look angry, just thoughtful. “Was Need working on behalf of the Council?”
I close my eyes, trying to remember my meeting with Need. “No, she said that the Council couldn’t be trusted and that she was using me because I could.”
Morgana nods. “Then she’s going behind the Council’s back. She wanted to kill us quietly.”
I frown. “But why? Why now? Why not just use another mortal, centuries before me, to act as a secret Keeper for Leon, to take you guys out?”
Morgana sighs. “That I don’t know. And I’d really like to find out.”
I nod, relieved to not be the only one who’s in the dark.
“There’s more,” Sin continues ominously. “Arianna has been in the prison below the Council’scastle for centuries. Until last night. Last night, they brought her out.”
“That’s great news!” I exclaim. “Now we can free her!”
Sin shakes his head. “No, we still can’t get to her. And this fate is worse than the prisons.”
My heart drops at his words.
Rosie speaks, her voice soft, “I left three days ago to spy on the Council. We can’t apparate into there, and I have to be very careful, because they’re looking for me. But there’s a garden there, and I can sometimes project my energy through the mycorrhizae.”
I remember the garden, but Rosie’s lost me.
“I’m sorry, the what?” I ask.
“Sorry – the mycorrhizae,” Rosie repeats. “They’re an underground network of fungi that connect plants together. I was able to apparate into the Otherworld, far from the Council’s castle, and send my energy through the network. It took ages to find a route to the Council’s garden, but I found it. I’ve been listening for days, and then this morning, I could hear them. The guards were laughing about having Arianna back outside. They put her into their maze and were making bets on how long it would take for her to kill herself.”
Recognition dawns. The maze next to the Council’s garden – the one Leon helped build. Where soldiers go crazy, wandering for days, thinking they keep getting lost and not finding the exit.
“We can’t enter the maze. It’s a trap. There’s no escaping it unless you already know the way out. They’re trying to draw us out, no doubt, to get you back, Vivian,” Morgana says, sounding dejected.
I’m still standing from my earlier outburst. But my mind is far away, remembering walking through the tall hedges with Leon. I try not to think about what else we did in there.
“I can,” I whisper.
Sin hears me. “You can what?”
“I can get her out,” I say, looking at them all. “I know how to get through the maze.”
Chaos erupts at my words.
Damien and Magnus start yelling about how I’m too injured to go. Rosie starts crying again and Sin is lecturing me about the corrupted Keeper bond.
They keep getting louder, but I ignore them, my eyes locked on Morgana. She says nothing either, watching me appraisingly.
“We can’t help you once you’re on Council territory,” she warns.
The others go quiet at her words.
“Morgana, you weren’t here when Vivian arrived. The corrupted bond causes her so much pain that she can’t even walk if she’s away from Leon. She will crumble the second she’s back in the same realm as him. It won’t work,” Sin argues.
I whirl on him. “I’m not the same person you picked up outside Leon’s castle, Sin. I have Cassandra’s memories back, and it’s made me much more resilient to pain. I can handle it.”
Sin crosses his arms, taking me in like he’s deciding whether to believe me.
I narrow my eyes at him and glare at everyone at the table. “Let me make myself clear. If you want any chance of working together to bring down the Council,you will apparate me over to the Otherworld. I will not abandon Arianna.”
Morgana sighs. “If Leon knows you can navigate the maze, then this is most certainly a trap.”
