He laughed as he swung his arm back, just barely, then slammed the sharp tip onto the wood. It went right through. It pierced through the shiny, smooth surface, and when Reggie pulled himself up, it held his weight just fine.
The rest of us got to work right away.
I was actually eager to do magic. Father was right—these trials had really turned a new Ora in me. I was excited to close my eyes and imagine an identical copy of Reggie’s climbing axe in my hand, and I almost screamed when the magic rushed from my chest and down my arms.
My Life Clock was in my pocket. I didn’t reach for it—couldn’t without risking a fall. I didn’t even dare look down, but the magic still came. I stillfeltthe longest hand of the Life Clock moving, even if I couldn’t see it. Magic slipped out of me, thick smoke against my skin—and then metal touched the palm of my hand. Cold, smooth metal.
More laughter around me, more cheers. My eyes opened to find a copy of Reggie’s axe secured in my fist, my fingers wrapped tightly around the handle.
I could hardly believe my eyes. Holy Hour, it had actuallyworked—and it hadn’t been difficult at all. Not even close to how it was before. The way the magic responded to me was incredible, like it had been waiting for my call its whole life.
The realization hit me all of a sudden—we hadn’t even scratched the surface of what the Labyrinth truly was.
My hands were shaking when I called for more magic to make another one of those axes, and this time my eyes remained wide open. I saw the purple smoke slipping out ofthe palms of my hands, covering them completely. It left behind an identical axe before it faded away.
I laughed, too. The ease with which the magic moved wasincredible.I finally understood why everyone was so obsessed with it.
Before the minute was over, all of us were equipped with two climbing axes, and boots that didn’t slip.
Just like that, we climbed the branches without trouble and finally saw where they ended.
19
Another level, identical to the one we’d been in.
That’s where those smooth branches had brought us—toanotherlevel, not the top of the tree.
A few of the others cursed under their breath.
“What in the world?”
“Where are we supposed to go from here?”
“It all looks the same, the same, the same!”
“Is time going to slow down again? Or are we going to move in fast forward now?”
A few were already looking at their Life Clocks to check the time, but I doubted that was it. We’d completed that level. This challenge was going to be different. I just knew it.
“What if—” Seth started, but this loud groan that came from somewhere in the distance cut him off abruptly.
We all turned, hearts in our throats. Whatever that was, it couldn’t be anything good. We all braced ourselves, looked around and waited…
That same sound came again a moment later from right over our heads—and it came from the tree.
Everything came to a halt again.
“They’re getting paler,” Silas whispered, reaching out a hand for one of the rings on the branch next to his head, but never touching it.
He was right.
Every single branch around us was suddenly groaning, like something was squeezing the wood from the inside, and every single ring on the bark lost half the glow it had when we first came up here.
Then…
“Oh, no! You shouldn’t have come here. You poor, poor souls—you shouldn’t have come!” someone cried. Someoneclose.
We stopped once more, looked around with our breaths held.
