My gut clenches. No way out. And while I knew that was coming, it doesn’t make it any less unsettling.
I inch along the passageway, my breath held, halfway expecting something to jump out at me. Then again, there aren’t many places for an attacker to hide. Tapestries unfurl along the walls, bookended by unlit candelabras, but the hall only runs in one direction. No alcoves or branching corridors to contend with.
I creep toward the stairs, the hush broken only by the growl of my stomach. I frown, because…when did I last eat?
Well, over a week ago, technically. But I haven’t sipped from the golden elixir in more than a day, either.
Goddess, no wonder my belly is gnawing a hole in itself. I’m not just hungry, I’mstarving.
I dig into my pocket for the golden vial, tipping a few drops past my lips. The liquid goes down easy, filling my stomach, banishing the dryness from my throat.
My shoulders relax a fraction. One less thing to worry about, at least until tomorrow.
But when I cork the vial, my fingers fumble, the bottle clattering to the tile. It doesn’t shatter, just rolls down the hall, headed for the stairs.
Ice blooms in my chest. I can’t lose it. I dive to all fours, scrambling after the tiny bottle, my fingers straining as it crests the stairs. But I miss, my fist closing around nothing, and the vial goes falling?—
Up?
The tinkle of shattering glass sounds from somewhere overhead. I crane my neck to find the vial stuck to the ceiling, its glass smashed, its elixir spreading across the stone. And that’s not all that’s wrong up there, because I’m staring at yet another staircase, this one upside-down. As I watch, the puddle expands, then flowsupwardto a higher stair, and the next. As if gravity has reversed itself a mere foot in front of me.
Ishanna’s blood. Maybe in this place, it actually has.
I shrink back, squinting through the shadows to the hall below. This close, I can tell it consists entirely of stairs. Not just descending, but marching sideways along the walls, swooping from the ceiling, ascending to nowhere. Stairways climb through and around one another, a dizzying tangle of nonsense.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts. I don’t like this. At all. And while I mourn the loss of my vial, thewayI lost it creates a much morepressing problem. If I step onto those stairs and follow the bottle’s trajectory, I’ll fall upwardinto the ceiling. At which point the impact will shatter me, too.
A threadbare laugh sticks in my throat. I survey the staircases again, my mind churning.
Surely there’s a way through this. I only have to find it.
Then I remember the rocks I gathered. The pebbles drag at my pocket, just begging to be used.
I fish one out and roll it along the floor, recreating the path of the vial. At the top of the stairs, it trembles for half a second, then falls up, whooshing through the air and clacking against the ceiling, right beside my ruined vial.
I sit back, my hands propped on my knees. I clearly can’t go that way without suffering the same fate, but the landing here curves outward, the stairs dropping away not just in front of me, but to both sides, as well.
I roll a pebble off to the left.
This time, when it reaches the top stair, it sails sideways, pinging against a staircase that runs along the wall. It doesn’t travel far—four feet, at most.
My chest fills with a complex tangle of horror and hope. Maybe I can go that way, if needed. Better than splatting against the ceiling, at least.
But I try the righthand option, too. That pebble bounces down the steps, only to swerve upward at the bottom and clack against the ceiling from an even greater distance.
My stomach wobbles. No, thanks.
A left it is.
I creep along the floor on hands and knees, so cautious my progress would probably irritate a snail. When I near the stairs, the air shifts, all my organs canting sideways as gravity tips?—
I fall.
The world whirls as I spin into nothing. A second later, I crash against solid stone, my knee taking the brunt of the impact.
A yelp shoots from my mouth as I clutch at my throbbing leg. I didn’t fall far, but I didn’t think to orient myself so my feet would hitfirst, either. Now I curl on my side, cradling my knee, waiting for the pain to subside.
Only…it doesn’t. Not really.
