The tile accepted him.
I followed, heart pounding, landing beside him as the corridor behind us sealed with a final, echoing sound.
For a split second, I laughed. It slipped out before I could stop it, sharp and breathless and alive.
Arthur looked at me, then he laughed along with me.
We had solved it together.
Hadrian’s remaining men followed, carefully, stepping only where we had indicated. Two of them left.
Fear and exhilaration tangled together inside me, impossible to separate. I was terrified. I was alive. I was doing exactly what I had always dreamed of doing, even when I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve it.
I turned toward Arthur without thinking, my entire nervous system buzzing.
“This place rewards understanding,”I said softly.
His gaze stayed on me, like the danger around us was secondary to the fact that I was here and unharmed.
“Then we keep understanding it,” he said. “And we get the hell out alive.”
24
ARTEMIS
The corridor narrowed until my breath brushed stone.
The ceiling dropped. The walls pinched in. The floor tilted just enough to make every step require attention. Moisture clung to everything, turning the air heavy and warm. It stuck to my skin and made my clothes feel wrong in very specific ways.
The sensory overload was demanding to be handled, but there was no time for that now.
I reached for Arthur’s hand without looking. He took it immediately, his fingers lacing through mine, grounding me just enough so my brain could catch up. We climbed over fallen stone and squeezed through gaps that were clearly not built with modern human proportions in mind. My shoulders brushed rock, and my back scraped against it. The sound echoed too loudly in my head.
“Tell me what you need,”Arthur said into my mind, his presence careful and calm, like he was approaching a startledanimal instead of a woman who had just outsmarted murder tiles.
I swallowed and shook my head, then stopped walking.
He stopped with me.
Before I could wave it off or make a joke, he turned and took my face gently between his hands. No words. No questions. Just his eyes on mine, his thumbs warm against my cheeks.
He inhaled.
I followed.
We breathed together. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Again. Again.
The world shrank down to just that rhythm. His hands. The certainty that I was not alone in my body right now.
Somewhere behind us, Hadrian let out a soft, mocking sound.
“How cute,” he said.
Arthur didn’t look at him. Neither did I.
I nodded, letting Arthur know I was back where I needed to be.
He let go, just as gently, and we kept moving.
