I bite my lip, cutting off the thought. Amriel’s pounding continues, rattling the door in its frame, now. “What’re you doing? You’re not going into the Wildwood, are you?”
“Yes!” I shriek. “Which you should be happy about! That’s what you wanted!”
His pounding intensifies. Any second now, he’ll kick down the door, so I dive for the satchel by my bedside. I don’t want to take it this time. The bag might throw off my balance, so I dump its contents onto the bed, jamming the half-empty vial into my pocket and hurriedly fastening the orb bracelet to my wrist. Its crystal flares to life, showing me a view of the hourglass, cold and silent and nearly full of sand.
“Sariah! Don’t you dare. Not now. Not when?—”
“When what!” I shout back.“When what?”
Because I trust that he won’t say it, no matter how drunk he is.
And hedoesn’t. He just throws his whole body against the door this time, trying to take it off its hinges.
I have only seconds. I dart to the closet and jam my feet into a pair of black boots, then whisk open another drawer to withdraw a pair of fingerless leather gloves. I tug them on and circle back to the satchel for the last remaining item. The gyre.
The tips of my fingers close around it. I think of the forest, the hourglass. Maybe I can skip straight to the end of the labyrinth. Break the curse, then get back to Aethrolia before the sun comes up.
The gyre hums in my palm. Light flares, and my hope flares along with it.
The lock splinters, the door flying open, cracking against the wall. Amriel barrels into the room, so big and beautiful andangrythat Ialmost falter. He stomps toward me, his face twisted, hands outstretched?—
But the gyre’s whine fills the room, reality bursting at the seams. Amriel’s straining fingers pass through me like I don’t exist, and maybe I don’t anymore, because I’m wheeling through nothing, swallowed by emptiness as I cartwheel through the backside of existence.
Thud.
My spine slams into solid ground, somewhere dark and damp and chilly. A root jabs into my hip, and I roll aside to relieve the pain. Dirt cradles my back as I stare up through a hole in the ground.
“Damn,” I mutter. I haven’t come out at the end of the maze at all, only returned to the same hollow I escaped from. I recognize the trees overhead, their glowing violet leaves.
Apparently, I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. The way Alanna intended.
Grumbling, I tuck the gyre into a pocket, then clamber up out of the hole. And proceed to stare skyward, my neck craned, my mouth falling open. If I thought the Wildwood was beautiful during the day, at night, it steals my breath completely.
Violet light pours down from the canopy, a waterfall of color that drenches the forest floor. The mossy ground glows, too, shimmery and green, while magenta sparkles drift past, as bright and enticing as garnets. I spin around, taking it all in, and?—
Immediately stumble backward, my foot narrowly missing the hole. My hand flies to my sternum and presses against my racing heart.
The Shadow—or Amriel, or whoever he is—crouches a few feet away, clad in nothing but linen pants. He glows, a splash of purple and blue in this otherworldly palette. Even the mark I carved into his shoulder gleams with some internal light.
His sheathed dagger lies on the moss before him, and he nudges it in my direction with a flex of his claws.
“Hello, Princess,” he says with a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 13
My brows dive downward as I glare at the Shadow. “What’re you doing here?”
He considers me from his crouch on the forest floor. He scans my body, just once, then swallows hard before pulling his eyes back up to mine.
I fight the urge to plaster my hands over myself. Clearly, my new clothes have an effect on him, but to my relief, he doesn’t say so. Just, “I needed to see you, but you wouldn’t open your door. I figured if you wouldn’t talk to me there, maybe you’d talk to me here.”
“I don’t want to talk,” I snap. “I just want to run this maze and go home.”
He suppresses a wince. “I know. But I don’t want you in the Wildwood without a weapon. Without a clue as to where you’re going or what you’re doing. Amriel should never have sent you in here without having you talk to me, first.”
“Amriel?” The word sounds almost hysterical, and I can’t help but stomp toward him, glaring down through slitted lashes. I ignore the way his corded muscles ripple beneath indigo skin, but good goddess, why doesn’t he have a shirt on? Or armor? “You’reAmriel.”
His mouth flattens, his fingers twitching as they dangle between his bent knees. “Not exactly. I have no name. No goblin does.”
