Page 55

“To the east,” Harald shouted.

Smoke moved through the trees. Black in color, thick in nature, it overpowered everything it came upon. The smoke curled around our bodies until we could hardly see one another.

“Remain close,” Harald kept yelling. We were blindly following his voice. “Stay together!”

I thought of August watching us. He’d never get to know if we would turn on one another.

If he didn’t set the fire, who did?

“Astrid, ask Lady Luck to send rain!” I shouted.

Astrid called out to Lady Luck to save her. The roar of flames only grew.

Then she gasped. “There’s a slide up ahead,” Astrid called out. “We need to drop to a lower level before this one burns!”

A tree fell with a loud crack. Then Harald shouted, “Lead us to it!”

Astrid kept calling, while we followed her voice. Heavy air clouded my throat. I breathed through my shirt and still hardly got air. Clark was at my side…wasn’t he? Someone moved there. I heard the crunch of their boots and their raspy sighs.

“Almost there,” Astrid called. Her voice grew further away. I picked up my pace.

“Jump!” she yelled.

Something came into view—a stone archway, two pillars, and a steep slide leading into darkness. Through the smoke, I watched figures leap onto the slide.

I threw myself after them.

The air cleared almost instantly. I half slid, half plummeted down the slide as it twisted and turned. For almost a full minute, I fell.

That couldn’t be right. It shouldn’t last more than a few seconds.

No one else made a noise. Perhaps they were too far away to hear. I called for Clark to no avail.

A wind tore through my hair. Then a voice.

Remember, guard your heart.

Aurelia Brightspire?

The Stone Gods were playing a game with me.

A light came from the end of the slide. It approached fast, too fast to process, before the slide spit me out upon a narrow parapet with nothing but air below it. I threw my hands to the stone to stop my body from rolling to my death. My chin came down to slam on the hard ground. My legs sprawled behind me.

I stopped inches from a deadly drop.

The Stone Gods, indeed.

The slide hadn’t taken me down. I’d gone up. Up to the top of the labyrinth, too high to see more than distant leaves and hedges below, as hazy clouds sat at my heels. I checked for fire, finding one in the distance. Far, far below me.

If I fell, it’d be a straight drop to my death.

I stood shakily, before a voice made me jump.

“Took you long enough.”

When I turned, Leif stood on the small platform with me, his dark hair shifting in the wind, his knees bent to brace himself, and a deeply bothered expression on his face.

“I would have preferred a Pearl,” he said.