Chapter Fourteen
Emmy springs to her feet first, then hauls Marion up after her.
“That bitch,” Marion snaps. She hugs her arms tight around her middle to keep from shivering.
“Shh,” Greer replies, gesturing across the clearing where the queen sits in an elevated chair like some kind of tennis referee. She’s draped in furs to protect against the biting night air, and she has a pair of delicate gold opera glasses pressed to her face.
She’s surrounded by her footmen, who are holding trays of steaming drinks and draping blankets across her lap.
“Where the hell are we? And how did we get here?” Emmy asks.
Olive pushes herself up onto her hands blearily. Her ginger hair is loose around her shoulders, and her eerie fingernail-less hands are covered in what looks like flour. “A sleeping tincture, I think,” she says. “A footman accosted me in the kitchens and poured something vile down my throat.”
That explains the bitter taste in my mouth. The idea of someone looming over my bed in the dark to knock me out makes me want to vomit.
The lights of Kensington Palace flicker in the distance. We’restill on palace grounds, but the darkness around us is complete. In front of us is a solid wall of trees, their leaves rustling like phantoms in the dark.
We all jump at the sound of snapping twigs.
A footman appears, holding a lantern. In his other hand is a silver tray and a folded square of parchment. He stares at us, unnervingly still, until Emmy takes the paper from him.
She unfolds it gingerly and reads out, “‘The prize is in the middle. Good luck.’”
“A prize in the—” Greer questions, but she’s cut off by the groan ofsomething.
I stretch my hand out in front of me and feel a wall of small, waxy leaves. I wheel around and feel the same on the other side.
“It’s the hedge maze.” Marion puts it together at the same time I do.
Relief courses through me. We’ve already done the maze in the light of day. I remember the way well enough.
We can no longer see the queen, but I am certain she’s watching us through her opera glasses.
Greer takes off running, disappearing into the depths of the maze, her white nightdress trailing behind her like a ghost.
Olive bursts into tears.
Seeing her in such distress stokes the fires of my hatred for the queen. “It’ll be all right,” I tell her. “Please don’t cry.”
I take a step toward her, but then the ground shakes again and more hedges spring from the ground, growingup,up,up, until I’ve been cut off from the others completely. My blood runs cold as I realize that this isn’t going to be anything like this afternoon’s maze.
“Ivy?” Olive shrieks.
“Olive? Emmy? Ivy?” Marion calls back. The hedges have separated us all.
“Who’s there?” Emmy shouts.
Then Olive starts screaming.
That’s when I run.
I whip around. In front of me is a fork, the hedges at least ten feet tall.
I cut to the left, another fork, left again.
Olive’s frantic screaming is getting fainter.
I look up to the sky and try to get my bearings. What was it the footman’s note said?The prize is in the middle.
