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“You should have gone after them.”

I shook my head once, absolute and final. “You are more important.” The words were spoken without great tenderness norlove, but more as a fact. A fact that would always be true. His life mattered more than words on a page.

Though it didn’t make the loss sting less.

I waited to see if he’d try to say something to make me feel better. When he spoke, it was only to say, “Let me take over rowing. You’ve gone long enough.”

I stood to let him take the oars. Then, because I had to do something with my hands, I drove my knife into a papaya. Juices dripped over my wrists as I passed half to him. Clark took it, but his eyes were on the horizon.

“I can’t see Aksel.”

“You’d be a horrid shiphand. We lost him an hour ago.”

Pure horror entered his eyes. “How will we find the labyrinth without the one who holds the clue?”

I jutted my chin upward, toward the crystal blue skies. A mist still settled over the seas, one as thick as a cloud, and now I understood it. The clouds couldn’t be in the skies. The skies had to remain clear for us to see the clue.

“I’ll bet you fifty coppers his clue said to follow the stars.”

Clark’s brows stitched together. Clark had always been the smart one between the two of us—while I could sail better, he bested me in all else—so I savored the moment where I’d figured something out before him. Then, as my lips stretched wide over my teeth, I said, “There’s stars in the sky, and they form an arrow. They are pointing to the labyrinth.”

He tipped his head back, shading his eyes with one hand while the breeze from the sea made a home in his hair. Clark had always been adamant about his hatred for sailing, and I’d half-expected him to be green in the skin by now, or heaving over the side of the ship. But he wasn’t. His movements were still jittery as if he’d fall apart if he let himself be still, though he’d yet to crumble. Rather, he’d built himself stronger. In these moments where I needed him more than I’d ever needed him, he’d set his hatred for sailing aside to save me.

He wasn’t a steadfast fortress. He was decaying ruins which he tried to hold against the storm for my sake.

He dropped his hand. “I don’t see anything,” he said. I thought I’d hidden my smile before his gaze wandered back to me, but I must have been too slow. A distrusting look made his eyes narrow. “What?”

“Nothing. Look—” I sat across from him, pointing toward the east. “A new constellation appeared between the Weeping Crown and the Fallen Pheonix last night. I kept my eye on it, which is why I can still see the outline. I know where to look.” I tried to point, but his frown told me he didn’t see. My arm lowered. “It’s there. And every time it shifts direction, Aksel shifts too. It’s guiding us through the mass of islands.”

He brightened as if we hadn’t just been tossed in the sea, lost most of our food, and our good weapons. “We are going to find it.”

“If it’s within a two-day sail,” I reminded him. “And then we still need to figure out how to get inside. But yes. We are going to find the labyrinth.”

“We’ll get in. I can feel it.” His rowing quickened.

I couldn’t be as sure. Not until that night, when the arrow hadn’t changed direction in hours, and pointed directly to anisland so small it likely didn’t house anyone, and still remained as we drew near.

Finally, I felt confident enough to tell Clark.

“That’s the one.”

He stood to gaze upon it, bracing one hand against the mast.

“That’s where the labyrinth is?”

“The constellation is unchanging. It leads here.”

As we neared, the thick mist clouding the seas started to rise. As it did, the coastline came into view. A jagged, rocky shore met steep hills, every inch alive with vibrant greens as if spring had already come and gone upon the island. The waves rippled to welcome us in.

And a hundred ships lined the shore. Aksel’s docked among them.

His wife would be pleased. After all these years, Aksel found it.

A fluttering feeling spiraled through my belly. This was it. All those stories we’d heard, all the rumors about the vicious labyrinth. We were about to find out if they were true.

“Welcome to the Quarter Labyrinth,” Clark breathed.

In the distance, I swore a wolf howled.