From the corner of my eye comes a flash of white. Emmy emerges, running, from the opposite hedge. She’s faster than I am, closer too.
Greer is there too, but she’s come out on the wrong side and has to turn in a full circle to face the direction of the goblet.
I’m so focused on her, I don’t even see Faith until I collide with her. Both of us topple to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Our skulls crash together, making my head spin.
“Yes!” Emmy exclaims in victory. She snatches the goblet from its perch and reaches inside, producing a small roll of parchment and reading out in confusion: “‘You win.’”
“What?” Faith half moans from where we’re both splayed out on the dirt.
“That’s what it says.You win.”
“Damn you, Ivy!” Faith shoves me hard in the shoulder, rolling me off of her.
“You ran into me!” I shout back.
Our bickering is stopped by a deep rumble. The three of us freeze as the hedge maze sinks back down into the earth, swallowed by the soil as if it were never here at all.
What was once the maze is now a large dirt field. The only evidence it ever existed are the cuts and scrapes all over our bodies.
Marion is a few yards away, but it takes me a minute to locate Olive. She’s nothing but a lump, curled on the ground in the fetal position at the place we all started.
“Olive, honey!” Marion shouts, and runs for her. “Are you all right?”
Olive doesn’t move. We all run for her.
Faith’s dark hair is in knots around her shoulders. The silk scarf tied around Marion’s curls has been torn, and clutched in her hand is a pearl-handled switchblade. A cut across Greer’s eyebrow drips blood down her cheek. The hems of our nightdresses are caked in mud up to our knees. Emmy holds a kitchen knife in one hand and the golden goblet in another.
As if on cue, the weapons turn to dust, dissolving in our hands in a shower of ash, just like the swan.
Across the lawn, the queen is still high up on her referee’s chair, the opera glasses pressed to her face and trained on us.
The other girls seem to have forgotten she’s even there, but I can feel her watching us. I can’t help myself. I paste a big, fake smile on my face and wave.
Marion makes it to Olive first and turns her on her back gingerly.
Her eyes are squeezed tight, and she’s crying softly.
Marion has to unwind her arms from around her middle to haul her to her feet. “Darling, shh, it’s all right,” she soothes. It takes Olive a few moments to come back to herself. She blinks her wide eyes and wipes away her tears with one of her smooth fingers.
She sniffles. “I hate the dark.”
“It’s all over now.” Marion comforts her, but there’s an edge to her voice that makes me wonder if she believes that’s true. We’ve still got twelve weeks of this.
We all startle at the sound of footsteps in the dark. Queen Mor has come down from her chair, still wrapped in furs, a tiara on her head. No mud stains her shoes; she’s as pristine as always, her expression like ice.
“Well done, ladies,” she says as she approaches us. “I do love a game.”
We stare at her, our breathing ragged.
“Congratulations, Lady Emmy. You’ve won a favor: time with Bram. He’s all yours for dinner, evening after next. The rest of you will see him at the Grosvenor Cup Regatta tomorrow. Carriages at eight a.m. Get yourselves cleaned up.”
She walks away, but turns back and adds, as if it’s an afterthought, “And remember, let’s keep our little games between us, yes?”
Chapter Fifteen
We hobble back to Caledonia Cottage, Marion and I supporting the weight of Olive, who is in such a state of shock she can barely walk. Emmy’s ankle is twisted. Greer’s face is still bleeding, and Faith gingerly touches the spot where our heads collided.
The cottage is dark and still when we return, no baths have been drawn for us, and no staff wait at the ready to help us get cleaned up.
