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“She’s guiding us,” I murmured. Finally, some luck in this maze.

But Leif had Dimitri guiding him as well. I’d seen him do it before. Delilah could lead us straight to the center and we still might not get there in time.

I tasted it now though. I could feel the victory.

We were near.

The symbols continued to guide us. Now that I knew to look, I found them everywhere, and wondered how long she’d been guiding us and I’d been too blind to see it. It led us throughthe maze, down paths I wouldn’t have thought to take but each ended up taking us closer to the east.

When the sky darkened, I paused.

“The star is so close,” I breathed. It shone in the sky much closer than it’d ever been, near enough to see it sparkle. Finally.

We could do this. I knew we had a chance, but today I started truly believing it.

Temperatures dipped further, the chill biting through my jacket. The last of the sunrays barely touched the top of the labyrinth’s towering walls.

With the fading light, Delilah’s flower markers dimmed as well. My stomach sunk when they disappeared altogether.

“We need to stop for the night.” Clark scanned our surroundings.

I wrapped my arms around my body to fight off the chill. “But we’re so close.”

“Close or not, we can’t keep going like this.” Clark stepped past me to examine the nearest wall. His fingers trailed along the rough stone where Delilah’s marker had been. Now it looked like nothing had ever been there. His finger fell. “If we push on, we’ll be stumbling blind. We need to rest.”

I didn’t have strength to argue. Exhaustion pulled at my limbs. I glanced at the shadowed corners of the labyrinth where the faint rustle of leaves seemed louder than it should. “Fine,” I said softly. “But where?”

Clark’s eyes landed on a low archway, partially hidden by creeping ivy. The stone above it was etched with faint carvings,so worn by time they were nearly impossible to decipher. “There,” he said, pointing.

I followed him. He brushed aside the ivy to reveal a narrow opening that led into a small alcove. The chamber inside was dry, its walls thick and intact, muffling the eerie sounds of the labyrinth outside. Fallen leaves and soft moss covered the ground, forming a softest ground we’d come across yet.

“This will do nicely,” Clark said, setting his sword against the wall and dropping his pack. He scanned the alcove again, his brow furrowed. “It’s sheltered, at least. Too dark to read anything, but I’ll survive a night without my book.”

I knelt to run her hand over the moss. It left off a putid scent. Still, “It’s not the worst place we’ve stayed.”

Clark chuckled, lowering himself onto the moss with a heavy sigh. “That’s a low bar.”

We worked in silence, gathering what little we had to make the space more comfortable. I lay out my pack to rest upon while Clark pulled the ivy back over the archway to obscure it. As the last traces of daylight disappeared, we settled in. I sat with my back against the wall, hugging my knees as I stared at the twilight. “Do you think Delilah’s markings will still be there in the morning?”

Clark glanced at me, his face half-lit by the faint light. “I’m not sure. She led us here at least.”

I listened for other sounds, but the labyrinth lay quiet. “Do you think anyone else has made it this far?”

“I’d wager ten coppers that we are one of the furthest ones. The center is so close. There can’t be many between it and us.”

A shiver of excitement ran up my arms. It was a new feeling compared to the fear from before. I quite liked the taste of it.

“If we win, we can wager with a lot more than ten coppers. We’ll start wagering ships.”

Clark huffed a quiet laugh, then put on a fake voice as if we were high class. “I’ll wager your fastest ship that I’ll deliver all my wares by the morning.”

“With these storms, not likely.”

“You’d be surprised. The people need their gold, and I’ve got a hundred thousand tons to be delivered.”

I leaned my head back, placing my axe on my lap. “Our ships can’t hold that much weight.”

“Don’t spoil the fun. Twenty thousand then. The people of the Shallows need their gold.”