He shifts, rolling his body even closer behind mine so that his chest presses into my back, his arms curling around me just under the blanket. He’s careful not to grope or grab, but the heat of him is overwhelming. It’s like being cradled by a furnace. Or a tree, alive and insistent.
I want to push him away, but I don’t. Not because I’m weak, but because I actually like his warmth. This weight.
“You smell good,” he murmurs into my hair. “Like rain and sweetness."
“That’s just sweat,” I say, but my voice is smaller than I mean it to be.
He laughs softly. “Sweat is honest. Most things in the fae world aren't.”
We lay like that, not talking, for a long time. I count my heartbeats until I lose track.
Eventually, his breathing slows, and I think he’s asleep. I relax, and the memory of earlier, of his hands, of the wolves, starts to soften at the edges of my thoughts. My eyes wander around the clearing as sleep tugs me closer.
Across the fire, Cassius leans forward, and suddenly, a pair of eyes glint, surprising me as I realize they’re focused on me. Cassius, not focused on the labyrinth, but watching us from the shadows. I realize he likely heard everything that just took place and saw everything that happened.
For a moment, I wonder what he sees. I suspect it though. I suspect he sees a girl making a terrible mistake. The very mistake she was warned not to make.
3
Alette
Day comes with a grayness that makes it hard to say if it’s really morning or the pale ghost of night refusing to leave. The hedge overhead doesn’t let sunlight through so much as it filters it. When I wake, I can’t tell if I’ve slept an hour or a year. My eyes burn, and every part of me aches, but I’m alive, and so is everyone else, at least for now.
Sylvian’s arm is still flopped over my ribs. He’s so deeply asleep that a black beetle has made a nest in the pit of his collarbone, and he doesn’t even twitch when I flick it off. Cassius is gone, but I’m sure he’s not far in this terrible place. Oberon sits near the edge of our little clearing, sharpening a stick with a chunk of river glass. Ashton is awake too, already grinning at me like it’s a private joke that I’m still breathing. But best of all, both of them are dressed.
“Up and at them, princess,” Ashton sings. “The birds are singing, the dew is dewing, and you look like the wrath of god.”
I pull the blanket tighter and make a show of rolling my eyes, but inside I’m grateful for the jab. It’s easier to be angry than scared. Getting up, my blanket wrapped tight, I grab my now-dry clothes, bag, and weapon, and I turn a corner to hide behindthe hedge, just far enough to be sure they can’t see me, before getting dressed once more. Back in my clothes, bag slung over one shoulder and dagger at my hip, I finally feel a bit more like myself.
Heading back to our campsite, I spot a small black carcass on the edge of the firepit, picked clean. A half dozen black crows fuss over it, stabbing and shrieking. Meat is cooking on a couple large rocks that have been placed near the fire.Probably crow meat. Which is creepy.Oberon’s eyes never leave the hungry crows.
“Breakfast,” he grunts. “If you want it.”
I take some reluctantly, eat the stringy gross meat as quickly as possible, and dig out a piece of dried fruit from my stash. It’s sticky and sweet, washing away the awful taste of crow, delicious after feeling never quite full enough on this trip. The food helps to bring me back to myself too.
Sylvian rises and dresses without shame near the fire, while I try not to stare, then he cleans up his bedding from the night. He grabs a hunk of the crow meat and chews it like beef jerky. I’m guessing it’s not very tender. Thinking about everything in front of me makes it easier to not think about Sylvian. Or our naked bodies pressed against each other. Or the taste of his lips on mine.
Stop thinking. Stop going down that route.
None of us talk much. No one seems eager to bring up the fight, or the wolves, or what Sylvian and I almost did under the hedge. Instead, we finish eating, Cassius returns, and we pack up and start moving.
“I don’t like it,” Cassius says. “Nothing is alive in this place.”
“Except the crows,” I say.
He nods, expression unreadable. “That’s all that’s left.”
The crows follow us as we walk. They’re not always the same ones, but they look alike, eyes like hard seeds, beaks crusted withfilth. They hop from branch to branch, keeping pace, sometimes flying ahead and landing in our way, waiting as if to guide us somewhere. Or maybe just to watch us starve.
Is it because we likely ate one of them this morning? Or is it the goddess’s work?
Everywhere we go, the paths narrow. The hedge rises higher on each side, the air pressed and sharp. I keep thinking I hear the scrape of claws on bark behind us, but every time I look, it’s just Ashton, whistling, or Oberon snapping twigs underfoot.
We hit our first dead end before noon. The corridor pinches off in a wall of roots and leaves that looks intentional. Like the whole damn labyrinth. Oberon tries to push his way through it, but the branches whip back, slicing his forearm.
“Fuck,” he spits, and kicks the wall. “It’s either alive or thick as hell. Maybe both.”
We double back, take another fork. It’s the same. Wall after wall, thicker each time. Sylvian touches the hedge, fingers trailing along the surface as if he can read its pulse.
