Page 17

The door creaked louder than necessary. I glared at it.

“If anyone is here, they must have heard that.”

Clark stepped in behind me. We waited for a while in the silence that followed before starting our exploration. The manor held one large room after the other, each laden with dust and empty picture frames. The dirty windows offered a poor view of the labyrinth.

“Let’s jam a door and take a nap.”

I reached for what looked like the door to a bedchamber and opened it.

I was right. A massive bed sat inside.

And someone lay on it.

I would have backed up, but the sickening sight of blood came next. The last person to take nap here never woke.

“We need to leave.”

Clark, though pale, shook his head.

“The smell would indicate the body has been here for a while. Whoever did this is long gone.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t sleep here now.”

He reached past me to close the door.

“We can sleep downstairs. At least rest for an hour while I look for food. You hardly slept last night.”

I hardly slept because someone in the labyrinth kept yelling, and I didn’t inherit Clark’s ability to sleep through a storm. But he was right. If I holed up in one of the rooms on the lower level, I might find some rest before we continued.

“I’ll try, but you need to be safe out there.”

“I will be.”

Clark stayed long enough to watch me settle into a gap between a velvet sofa and the wood-paneled wall, before slipping out the door. I heard its loud creak as he shut it.

For half an hour, if the clock in the house worked properly, I tossed and turned. Finally, I accepted I would get no sleep in the same house as a corpse, and I dragged my way out of the cold manor and into the ceaseless rain.

Other than the rain, a strange sort of silence locked the forest. It sat too still. Too watchful. Shadows grew long in the evening sun. I put my back to the cumbersome manor to sift my eyes along the shrubbery in search of berries we could eat, or pockets of water I could drink from, or anything to feel useful before Clark returned.

I’d wandered for mere minutes before a rustle of branches rooted me. It came from the west.

Slits between budding maple trees affording me a view of a clearing where buttery sunlight rushed to meet stone pavers. The light caught on the sharp angles of a statue there, one of a boy with a face so handsome he might not be real, with his head bent and shoulders drawn down. He held a sword in one hand, and a necklace in the other.

But the statue hadn’t made the leaves move or branches crack together.

That would be the boy who was very much alive, and covered in blood. I hid behind the nearest trunk as this dark-haired boy dragged a limp body to the base of the statue where he dropped him.

The body flinched. Whoever it was, he was still alive.

I tightened my hold on my axe as I debated whether to step in. But from the looks of it, life was fleeing him too quickly to be saved now.

The stronger boy drew a rattling breath, audible even from my hiding spot. A misery clouded it, like his sorrows ran layers deep. It was only after the second ragged breath that I realized he held back tears.

When he spoke, his voice shook with a righteous sounding anger.

“For Luke,”

he declared. Then he raised his blade and finished the job.

I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them, the body was unmoving, and the killer had sheathed his blade.

He fell to his knees, looking up at the statue. As he did, a swath of his dark hair fell away from his eyes, and I could see him clearly.

Leif.

My heartbeat tattoo was pounding fast. At last, it matched my own emotion. This was the boy who stood to gain the same thing I once did—the rights to his father’s trade empire. If he could win the Shallows as well, he’d control all the major shipping routes on the Hundred Islands, completely unchallenged.

More than anyone else, I couldn’t let him win.

Once more, I debated using my axe. I could throw quick, strike true, and not worry about Leif again.

Then his gaze climbed the length of the statue and a pale tear cut a sharp path down his cheek.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I half expected my heart tattoo to stutter, or cease beating altogether. He knelt like a shadow come to life, his figure cloaked in quiet intensity. Dark hair, as deep and untamed as the midnight sky, fell in soft, unruly waves around his face, framing hard-set features carved with a graceful hand.

I’d seen him at the market, with the crowd cheering for him even as he waltzed into the labyrinth with a key they so coveted. He’d been adored, and he put on a big show for his audience. But here in the labyrinth, I saw someone else. I saw someone broken, haunted by whatever this statue meant to him, and coated in blood from someone he’d just slain.

He was the beauty of a dying flame, and I just wanted to get closer to feel his warmth.

That wouldn’t be wise. I should flee.

I took a step backwards, and Leif’s head jerked upward. The tear that had made a home on his cheek was flung to the ground, and his expression hardened. I pressed myself tightly against the trunk of the tree while the tattoo on my forearm picked up its pace again.

It chose a beastly time to make more noise. I begged it to obey as a crunch told me Leif moved.

Away or closer?

My answer came a beat later.

“Who’s there?”

I tried to come up with the wisest thing to do, but the bitter truth was that Leif could outrun and likely outfight me. Running away or fighting it out wouldn’t end well. Option three it was. Slowly, I let go of my axe, abandoning it by the trunk of the tree so I’d appear less dangerous, and stepped away from my hiding place.

“Just a Seaweed,”

I replied. I was wearing my poor status like armor, hoping he would hear it and think nothing of me. It hadn’t worked the last time. Someone had died then. With luck, fate would spin differently this time.

His dark gaze mapped me. He’d appeared like a tortured soul a moment before, but now he looked downright lethal. His hand went to the blade at his waist.

“A Seaweed. Not many of you in the labyrinth from what I hear.”

I wore my best demure face.

“Lucky I guess. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

I inched backwards. It hurt to flee. I wanted to fight, to run, to do something other than act as if I were a nobody. Someday, I’d get to carve a proper name for myself in the world. For now, all I could do was swallow my pride and slink back to the shadows I came from.

Leif’s gaze snagged on my neck before I could, and he pounced.

I ran.

His weight tackled mine, but I didn’t feel the sear of a blade. He rolled me until his body was on top of mine, his arms holding mine beside my head and his knee pressed against my gut.

Once more, his eyes dropped to my neck.

“What is this?”

I glanced down.

“My necklace? It’s a simple token, that’s all.”

“I thought you said you were a Seaweed?”

He looked at me as if trying to memorize every detail, and I didn’t care for the way it made my cheeks heat.

“I am a Seaweed.”

“From where?”

I had the sense to lie.

“Providence.”

“Have you ever been to the capital islands?”

Was that it? He thought he recognized me from somewhere.

“No. I’ve never left home until now.”

His weight pushed further against me, and his words came through gritted teeth.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. Now get off me right now.”

He gave a dry laugh, but pulled his weight back. I only had time to sit before his hand shot out to grab my necklace and pull it—and me—close to his face.

“You’re a liar, or a thief. Either way, I want to know how you have one of the Lord of the Isle’s prized necklaces.”