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Dimitri spared no expense when he showered Delilah with riches—each one meant to mock her for her shallow desires as he stole her sister from her. I hoped she looked upon them each day with fury.

I looked upon them with wonder.

Delilah’s temple sat on the cusp of the garden, facing the north. The brilliance of the golden walls shone with a light of their own. I hoped it meant she was home. I heard no cries in the garden as the tale had predicted.

I didn’t bother to call her name. Delilah was a stone god. She’d know I had arrived.

I felt naked without my weapons, but summoned the courage to wander further in. A sandalwood and myrrh incense drifted down the halls like a ghost wandering through the night. Everything inside glowed with a softer, warmer light. Massive columns lined the hall, each wrapped in spiraling bands of silver and etched with ancient runes. On the other side of them, rivers of gold fed into basins where it glittered like an expensive mirror, while the floors beneath my boots were laid with radiant gold and deep obsidian.

“I’m too poor to be in here,”

I grumbled. Then lifted my tone, for the stone god was either not at home, or being stubborn.

“Delilah, I need to speak with you.”

“Then speak,”

a voice answered, making me ready to abandon my own skin.

“For I am curious why you’ve come.”

I turned to find her in a majestic domed room completely closed off from the labyrinth as if to pretend she were anywhere but here. Dark hair flowed around a white dress that dripped off her shoulders, with flowers strung in her hair as if—despite being surrounded by riches—she was masquerading as a common girl.

My boots pattered against the smooth stone ground as I approached, stopping well before her dais. She had a throne but she kept away from it, standing several feet to the side while eyeing each step I took

The gamble I took rested on my tongue. Once she knew, word would spread.

But word would spread through Leif anyway. If I were to survive, I’d need allies.

“My name is Serenity Montclair, and I’m the daughter of Allison and Gerald Montclair. Rightful heir to the Silver Wings and holder of the Shallows, granddaughter of Callahan, and descendant of Dawson and Alicent.”

Her shoulders tightened, eyes narrowing, breath loosening. Trying to decide if I had come here to fight or bargain.

“And what does a prodigy like you want with the lowest of the stone gods?”

“I have a tender spot for the lowly of the world. I wish to dethrone Dimitri.”

Her smile twitched.

“As you know, Dimitri wishes my line dead. Guard me during my time in the labyrinth. Deprive him of his revenge. Together, let us deny him the one thing he wants.”

A dainty laugh tumbled from her full lips, one I couldn’t quite label. She took a step off the dais. Her feet were bare beneath her gown, and the white skirts swished around her ankles.

For a terrible moment, I thought I’d misjudged her. The story I’d read might be nothing more than fable, and I’d be at the mercy of what she wished to do with me. She flexed her long fingers, each of her nails like daggers, before pausing a pace before me.

The scent of floral surrounded us, paired with my fright.

Then she grinned.

“You were foolish to come here, descendant of Dawson. You’ll be dead in two weeks.”

She turned, already bored with me.

“I have a knack for staying alive,”

I said to stop her. I pulled out my white stone.

“I throw this, and I’m safe. But I don’t want to use it. I want to stay, to win, and for Dimitri to realize too late that I slipped through his fingers.”

Delilah studied me, while I got a better look at the painting on the wall behind her dais. It wasn’t made with the rest of the temple. The colors were too worn, the lines too crude. She’d done it herself, I realized. With pigment from crushed flowers. She’d drawn her sister overtop the jewels on the wall, dancing in a field with her hair let loose and the glow of her skin warm.

This temple wasn’t a temple to Delilah. It was a shrine.

Good. Her distaste for Dimitri had been festering for hundreds of years.

“Her name was Delva,”

Delilah said, following my eyes.

“And he stole her from me.”

“So let us scorn him.”

I could taste the victory already. The pain in her voice when she said Delva’s name…she still ached for her sister. She would say yes.

But Delilah shook her head.

“I don’t care to scorn Dimitri. I don’t care about him at all. I stopped that long ago.”

Before my chest could deflate, she brought a finger beneath my chin to lift my eyes to hers. Pale gray irises bore into me. Her nail dug into my skin.

“And yet.”

I loved that word.

She dropped her hand, and her warmth left me as she stepped back.

“I will protect you, young child, and give you what strength I have to give. Then, when all is done, you will free me.”

Confusion must have been written all over my face. The book hadn’t talked about this.

“Free you…”

“From the labyrinth. You are going to set me loose over the Hundred Islands, or I let you die here to rot with my sister.”

A shiver ran through me.

“I don’t know how to free you.”

“Bleed a body’s worth of blood on the labyrinth walls. You needn’t be inside to do this. Outside works just as well. When you do, drop this into the pool.”

She twisted the green gem at her neck, almost void of color and yet I could hardly look at anything else until she tucked it away.

“Speak my name over the body, and you trade my freedom for theirs. They become a Stone God. I’ll be free.”

My stomach lurched. I’d be more than freeing her, I’d be condemning another.

“Has this been done before?”

She shook her head with a smile.

“Dimitri doesn’t like when mortals mess with the fabric of the labyrinth. But it can be done. And that is the price I demand.”

I’d come willing to offer whatever it took for my life. And I still believed she was the one Stone God most likely to offer me protection.

Without her protection, I wouldn’t stand a chance against Dimitri or Leif.

But this? Could I give her this?

She watched the battle in my mind with a look as if I’d already let her down. I hardened my spine.

“I can do that. I’ll sacrifice Leif to the labyrinth to free you.”

Now that I said it, he made the most sense. If we both survived this, he’d be coming for the Silver Wings. Or he’d have won them, and I’d have to watch him take over the fleet. Either way, I didn’t see a world where Leif and I both lived in the Hundred Islands. One of us had to bend.

One of us had to bleed.

The pastel color of her stony skin took on a new warmth, like she was already becoming human again.

“Very well. Vincent’s son it is.”

She removed her necklace to place it over my head, letting the weight of the thin chain drop onto my shoulders. The gem fell partway down my chest. Long enough to hide beneath my tunic.

With it, a hum rippled through my skin. I smiled, the first real taste of victory I’d had in here.

The labyrinth might be alive, but so was I. And I was learning its language.

“You have my protection. Dimitri will not easily find you now, though he may try. Go, and be safe. But remember, if you fail to free me, Dimitri will be the least of your concerns.”

I lifted my chin.

“I won’t fail you.”

Her head snapped up to look toward the corridor I’d come from. A pause, then she was shooing me out.

“Go, Ren. Another is coming, and he wishes to make a deal too.”

I scurried out of the room, finding the closest window to pitch myself out. There I huddled, peonies crowding my feet, watching through the window to see who had come.

A beat later, Harald appeared to drag himself into Delilah’s chambers.

I desperately wished to climb back in to hear what he asked of Delilah, but Clark would wake soon, and he’d have questions I didn’t care to answer.

Swallowing my curiosity, I took the path back to our camp and laid beside Clark just as he began to stir.