It was like taking a sharp turn and hoping the ground would still be on the other side. In this case, there was no ground. Only a labyrinth wall against the cliffs, and an impossibly long fall below. I clung to the first handle, feeling my arms ache as I dragged myself high enough to reach the second.

Above, Clark waited for me to find my footing.

I dug my feet into the labyrinth, crawling high enough to reach the third grip. My feet could rest on the first handle now, and my arms didn’t have to support my entire weight.

Now it was just a matter of climbing.

We scaled the wall in silence. The stone slabs weren’t more than the width of my hand, which didn’t leave much room for error, and I wasn’t accustomed to climbing with an axe strapped to my back. I tried to keep my thoughts on each handle, the way my foot would come up to find a place before my hand would move. Repeat. Repeat.

Higher and higher we went. Wind snagged against our tired bodies, threatening to throw us into the rocks below. I didn’t dare look down. I knew what I’d find. Sharp rocks like teeth, ready to snap against our necks. Best to keep climbing.

“The handles are getting smaller,”

Clark shouted. It was the first noise in minutes, and I flinched at the sound.

With my next few steps, I discovered it for myself. The handles had shrunk by a few inches. I had to dig my fingers into each one to get enough strength to haul myself higher.

The Quarter Labyrinth stretched as high as a volcano, and climbing it felt just as exhausting. Like it would never end. Each step took all my strength to hold tight, and every time I moved I held my breath to see if I would slip and fall.

Almost halfway up, we heard a scream.

I jerked my head upward. All I could see was the dirt on the bottom of Clark’s boots, and the way his wavy red hair flopped as he stared above him. Then he threw his body against the labyrinth and shouted.

“Hold tight!”

There was hardly time to press my body against the labyrinth when another body fell from above. A man, by the sound of his scream. He dropped past us like a rock.

I tried to shield my ears with my shoulders, but I still heard the sound.

We stayed planted for a few moments before I spoke.

“The sound will have attracted others, and they’ll be on our tails soon. We must keep going.”

Shortly after, we heard voices below us. Others had found the ladder.

Wind picked up, the kind that only got worse as time went on, and our caution slipped into something desperate. Even the labyrinth seemed keen on keeping us out, withdrawing its handles even further into its clutches until it felt as if we grasped at twigs to keep ourselves going. Swoops of graceful vines swept along our path, playing at our fingers as they struggled to keep hold.

“Let us in, you vile beast,”

I whispered to the labyrinth.

The vines only coiled tighter around my wrists. I had to snap them to get free.

From a scream below, another had fallen.

I shut my eyes to will courage into my blood, then kept going. The top neared. Determination drove my teeth together, and I demanded my weary limbs to hold out for a few minutes longer.

At last, Clark was able to drag his body onto a platform ahead. A moment later, he reappeared to hang an arm over the side. His face was pale and his lips dented with the cut of his teeth, but his voice came steady.

“Grab hold!”

I grabbed his hands and climbed my way to safety.

We both lay on our backs for a moment, staring at the night sky. The breath he took shook a little. I wondered if he regretted coming now.

Another scream below gave me the strength I needed to sit up. We’d made it, but the knowledge was hollow at best. I’d feel better when we’d put a mile between us and this ladder.

“Welcome to the Quarter Labyrinth,”

Clark was saying.

I turned to look.

The scene looked as if ripped from a storybook, the twisty kind with tragic endings that ballads were sung about.

Black stones lined the ground. They led toward two wooden arched doors with serrated edges, sitting beneath a canopy of dark green leaves. The moonlight gave everything a silver glow. Beside the doors stood a figure clothed in a long, black dress that swooped by her feet, her skin pale like stone and her body just as unmoving.

I walked first. If this were a trap of sorts, Clark could have time to run.

My boots clicked against the stones as I neared.

“Good morning,”

I spoke to the statue.

At the sound of my voice, she moved.

Her head lifted first, gray eyes landing directly on mine. Her full lips were twitched upward, her shoulders pressed back, and her fingers clutching a staff. She looked like a grim reaper of death.

“You’ve made it to the labyrinth. Callahan welcomes you.”

I glanced toward the doors.

“We can walk inside now?”

At that moment, another chilling scream echoed as someone must have fallen from the ladder. I cringed at the sound.

But the figure only smiled.

“You can walk inside…if you wish.”

I didn’t cross the seas, lose the letters from my father, and risk my life on that ladder just to look at the doors. I reached for the handle.

“What will we find inside?”

Clark, always the skeptic, asked.

The girl perused him as if just now noticing his presence. Something in her gray eyes flickered at his sight, and her body stiffened. Her words were a touch more strained as she spoke.

“A maze. A challenge. And perhaps a victory.”

“That’s the goal,”

I said, reaching for the door once more. But something about how the girl looked at us made me pause.

“Why do you greet us? Why not just let us through?”

She tore her eyes from Clark, and her body eased again.

“I’m a fortune teller. Callahan places me here to warn those whose future in the labyrinth will not end well. It eases his conscience, I think. They never listen, but I warn them anyway.”

She dug into the folds of her dress to draw out stones, half white and half black, each etched with runes.

“If you want, I can read the stones for you to get a better glimpse of your future.”

I’d seen fortune tellers work before. I never believed them. But something about her felt different, almost like the air moved to her will.

Clark kept like a shadow over my shoulder and the warmth of him felt nice against the cold of the night. He braced a hand on the pommel of his sword.

“But you can tell without the stones that our future is good?”

“I didn’t say that. I can see that the labyrinth changes everything for you both.”

The labyrinth changes everything.

Good. I was looking for change.

She must have seen my eagerness when her eyes met mine, for her hands tossed the stones onto the ground. She knelt to scour over them. Whatever she found, she rose quickly.

“You may ask one question.”

“Easy. Do I reach the center first?”

Her answer came just as swiftly and with no emotion. “No,”

she replied.

“You won’t win this Quarter Labyrinth.”