Sounds erupt in the forest around me—branches snapping, leaves flailing, the thunder of something massive tearing through the undergrowth.
Panic thrashes beneath my skin. The shadowy wall has faded into the distance, but I don’t know whether I’ve escaped its influence yet.
My foot catches on a root, and I stumble. When I scramble up again, a dark blot fills my vision, off to my left. The Shadow, just seconds away now.
Instinct takes over, my gaze snapping sideways. The Shadow charges on all fours, his claws tearing at the ground, his golden eyes empty of anything but hunger.
For a split second, hesitation binds me to the earth. Surely he’ll recognize me—I’m hismate. But the goblin I know has vanished. In his place is a monster, fangs snapping, froth dripping from his jaws.
Run, my mind screams.
I spin on my heel and bolt.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t see the door from earlier, and now I flee blindly. I know nothing but my burning legs, my screaming lungs. That at any moment, sharp teeth will sink into my nape and snap my spine in two.
My frantic gaze ricochets in every direction. I need safety. A place to hide. My attention snags on a nearby tree, where a tangle of roots rises above the moss. A gap beckons between them—an undergroundhollow, just large enough to admit me. Small enough to keep the Shadow out.
I veer toward it, my legs pumping. Another roar. Heat blasts against my neck. He’s behind me, now. He’sright there.
I dive for the roots. My satchel lifts, becomes weightless. It follows me through the gap, but I don’t make the plunge cleanly. Something catches at my leg, claws raking down my thigh.
A scream erupts from my throat. I land hard in the dirt and roll sideways, shielding myself beneath a cage of roots. Claws scrabble overhead. Soil rains across my face, stinging my eyes.
Goddess. I have only seconds before he breaks through. I need out. I need to escape this deadly maze.
I grope in my satchel, searching past the orb, then the vial. The Shadow roars as I yank the gyre free.
His clawed hand punches through, slamming into the soil beside me. I yelp, my hands shaking so violently I can barely hang on to my means of escape.
“Away,” I scream. “Take me away.”
Nothing happens.
Razor-tipped claws rummage in the dirt. I try to wriggle away from their reach, but the space is too small, too tight. My throat closes up. Ishanna, please don’t let me die like this.
I shake the gyre, hoping to jar it to life. Then Amriel’s words come rushing back. I have tothinkabout leaving. Focus.
My slippery hands tighten around the metal. My leg is on fire, hot wetness seeping from my leg and soaking my ruined skirts, but I block it out. My mind fills with a castle made of glowing pink trees. With its stupid, intolerable king and his stupid, intolerable white hair.
Light flares between my fingers, illuminating the soil just inches from my face. Relief floods me, but it doesn’t last, because the Shadow hooks his claws into my skirts and yanks. I go sliding across the dirt, bumping over roots as he drags me toward the opening. I lash out with a foot, which only increases his efforts.
But my wanting increases, too. I need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. The castle. Amriel. Safety.Please.
Light pours from the gyre as reality buckles. The Shadow roars hisfury, but the sound goes whooshing away, sucked into a vacuum as I go tumbling through the void.
Nothingness screams past.
A few moments later, I slam into solid ground, the impact driving the breath from my body. For long heartbeats, I can’t move, can’t think. I can only lie there, gasping like a beached fish, my leg throbbing with a fiery ache.
Then air spears into my lungs, reinflating my chest. My surroundings come to me in pieces—the soft, uneven floor beneath me. The ripple of blue light across the ceiling. Late afternoon rays, slanting through the window, and the scent of greenery, thicker here than in the Wildwood.
Because I’ve made it. I’m back in Amriel’s castle. Back in my room.
A sob wrenches from my throat, relief and terror tangled together. Violent shivers wrack my body, and I don’t resist. They’re proof that I survived.
When the tremors finally run their course, I raise my head. The gyre still hums between my fingers, its rings spinning lazily. All except the innermost one, which sits dark and inert. A black film coats the metal.
I frown at it, but I’ve used it up, of course. I went into the labyrinth, got precisely nowhere, injured myself in the process, and burned up one of my escape attempts.
