Page 20 of The Infinite Glade (The Maze Cutter #3)

Minho thought about knocking the book out of her hands before pushing Alexandra into the cold, icy water below. The only thing he wanted Alexandra to hold right now was her breath . . . underwater.

Roxy pulled him away. “It’s alright . . . she’s not going to hurt the book by looking at it.”

Minho couldn’t get them to see what he saw, no matter how hard he tried. He looked to Dominic for something, but Dom just shrugged. Brainwashed, all of them.

“Who gave it to you, again?” Alexandra asked Sadina with a false sweetness. “It must have been someone special . . .”

Damn. Minho shouldn’t have said anything. The last thing he wanted was for the Godhead to know about poor Old Man Frypan, not after the way she nearly kidnapped Sadina over her connection to the Immunes.

“It’s fine . . . she can hold on to it for now,” Roxy said, de-escalating the situation.

And just like that they had given over their most prized possession to the lying, murderous, so-called Godhead. A Goddess of Nothing.

The Book of Newt was just a book, and Roxy’s house was full of books back home. But when Minho had steered the Maze Cutter up to Alaska, he’d found Sadina up late one night, reading that thing when everyone else was sleeping—sometimes smiling, sometimes crying.

“It’s more than just a book . . .” he said under his breath and tried walking back to the captain’s wheel, but his legs and feet wouldn’t let him.

He turned right back around to Alexandra.

If he wasn’t able to flat out tell the others what he saw her do in the woods, then he would reveal her fraud in other ways: starting with those damn numbers she claimed did something magical.

Minho tucked Kletter’s captain’s log tighter into his back pocket.

He wouldn’t let Alexandra see it and get any ideas of adding it to her collection.

“Those numbers,” he said. “The ones you mumble to keep yourself from going crazy . . . or should I say crazier . . .” Cornering animals was the best way to hunt.

Orphans were taught to corner wild animals, and Alexandra’s mind seemed like it had a lot of cracks and more than enough corners.

“I don’t think it’s working for you.” He let out what he hoped sounded like a laugh.

“Just some stupid numbers . . . 10, 18, 56. . . . Look, I can do it, too.”

“Minho!” Trish shook her head. “Sorry, Goddess, he’s just someone we found along the way, we don’t actually?—”

“After all, if your numbers are so magic and powerful, why didn’t you use them to save your precious city?” Minho stabbed her with words as the Maze Cutter ’s starboard side scraped along a chunk of ice.

Everyone except Minho startled at the roaring from the ship’s hull.

“What’s that?” Miyoko asked Dominic.

“It’s alright. We’re okay, right, Minho?” Dom asked.

Minho shook his head. “Ask the precious Goddess. She said the waters were deep enough for the Maze Cutter out here, that we’d be safe with her.

Is she wrong?” He waited for her to call him a liar so he could reveal that she’d wanted to leave the group behind and leave in a damned canoe.

He looked up to the sky in frustration, those colors swirling like some haunted dream of a child.

“The digits are sacred, Minho,” Sadina said. “What does it hurt to learn more about all of this?”

“Yes, indeed they are . . . they brought me the Immunes.” Alexandra squinted at Minho. It would take more for her to crack, so he needed to push her.

“Okay. Listen. Why don’t you tell everyone what you were really doing in the woods before we left.”

Alexandra shook her head. Her lips pursed tight. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Come on, let’s get you back to the wheel.” Roxy pulled at Minho but he shook her off.

“You killed a man. In the Berg. Tell them.” He stared into Alexandra’s eyes without blinking.

The Goddess said nothing, but her mouth moved slightly.

Reciting those damn numbers. Minho counted the times Alexandra blinked.

Five times in one second. No one who’s stable can blink that many times in a row.

Alexandra whispered those stupid numbers under her breath like an Orphan trying to remember the number of steps to the rumored underground bunker.

“Even the Orphans of Remnant Nation can count silently in their head . . . you’re just a crazy Pilgrim.

A desperate, lonely, and crazy Pilgrim that ran from the war. Prove me otherwise.”

“Minho, stop . . . please,” Sadina begged.

“That’s enough! Go!” Trish tried to push him away.

“No! She killed someone back there, and the way she did it . . . I could tell it wasn’t the first time she’s killed someone.

She’s crazy. You all trust her, but she only cares about herself, and she’s going to get you killed!

” He made sure Trish heard every word, but she didn’t seem to get it. None of them did.

“That’s it . . .” Roxy pulled at Minho again, but Alexandra held up her hand.

“No, he’s right. I did kill that man.” She paused, making eye contact with each of the islanders before continuing.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, before. He was a terrible person.

The leader of the Remnant Nation. I’m not even sure he was fully human—he’d moved past The Gone years ago .

. .” She spoke softly. “You were upset at me earlier for not showing more grief over my city, but a Goddess does not boast. I killed him to avenge all those who perished. My people, my city, would want me to rebuild, and what better way than with Newt’s descendent. ” She held out her hand to Sadina.

Sadina glowed with awe and grabbed Alexandra’s hand.

Minho couldn’t believe what was happening. “Horseshit. You don’t give a damn about the city—if you did you wouldn’t be here, running away.”

“Minho, that’s enough!” Roxy scolded him. He shrugged. He wasn’t afraid of Alexandra, and he wasn’t afraid of the others being mad at him for the truth he knew that they didn’t yet understand.

The ship’s hull groaned. “I need help!” Orange yelled from the captain’s wheel. The Maze Cutter shuddered a bit.

Dominic and Miyoko ran to the starboard side. “We’re scraping bad here!”

Minho hurried to the captain’s wheel. “See? She sent us on a death trip! There’s only ice ahead. We shouldn’t have come this way. We need to go back to the coast!”

“There’s no room to even turn around!” Roxy yelled.

“You fool, you simple-minded, feral, fool!” Alexandra pushed her way to the captain’s wheel and shoved Minho out of the way.

Stunned, he stepped back. Orange did the same. Sadina, Trish, and Miyoko all looked at him with disappointment, maybe disgust. Dominic and Roxy avoided his gaze.

It was all enough to make him almost miss the old fortress, even the far-bottom level, even the one they called Hell.

“I warned you about the inlets!” The Orphan soldiers were about as useless as Flint, in his life and in his death. Alexandra counted on the digits to guide her. 55, 89, 144 . . .

“Everyone, get down to the cabin!” Roxy shouted. “Stay in the center, away from the sides where there might be impact.”

“Stupid, stupid fools,” Alexandra said under her breath, firmly holding onto the wheel as she recited the principles in her mind.

With each digit she felt the boat hit another ice patch.

55, 89, 144 . . . She could smell the pine trees that surrounded the Villa.

It was just up ahead, like an X in her mind.

233, 377, 610 . . . The Goddess felt the boat slowing down as if it agreed, as if it knew they had arrived at the Villa’s home.

“What’s happening?” Orange asked. “We’re stopping?”

The boat slowed to a complete halt.

“Minho?” The orange-haired girl grabbed her weapon. These feral, wild, un-Flared children . . . none of them even knew what reverence was. The boat rocked back and forth gently as if to shake its own head at their disrespect.

“It’s done.” Minho threw his arms up in the air. “We’re stuck here. Are you happy now?”

He looked at Alexandra with a point to prove, and she wished she could scream at him. Without the Evolution, nothing mattered. Nothing at all. Heat flushed her body. Her every inch stung with impatience.

“Yes, of course I am.” She moved from the wheel and pointed. “It’s right up there.”

Dominic stepped in. “The ice must have taken off the rudder. We’re stalled.”

“A sitting target for the Remnant Nation,” Orange said, her calm voice somehow more ominous than if she’d yelled it.

“Wait, we’re still moving.” Dominic looked over the edge.

“It’s just the current.” Minho leaned over the rail. The natural flow of the inlet moved the ship ever so slightly.

Alexandra paid no mind to the blabber. “The Villa is right there.” She walked along the side of the boat.

“The water is only a few feet deep here. We can wade though the waters and walk over.” She knew this because Mannus had taken every opportunity to complain about it, and they’d been on a boat no bigger than a canoe.

The three others stared at her as if she hadn’t spoken a single word. “It’s shallow enough to walk through to the shore of the Villa,” she repeated herself.

The orange-haired Orphan just looked at her. “But . . . but the water . . . it’s . . . Cold.”

“Cold? It’s freezing. Are you kidding me?” Dominic scoffed. Moments like this really did make Alexandra miss Flint. He was an idiot, but an obedient one.

“Oh, come, now. Are you afraid of a little water?” the Goddess teased.

“It’s no more than a foot deep a few meters ahead.

” Their minds would have to evolve through actions.

“You said it yourself, we’re sitting targets here.

” She looked for the trees lining the back side of the island.

The Villa was well hidden, but as sure as the digits were sacred, it was there.

She actually welcomed the idea of the cold water to cool the heat that pulsed inside her.

Fires of war had infected her mind and maybe all she needed were these icy waters to reset her nervous system.

Dominic looked to Minho as if he were the one in charge. As if they weren’t in the company of the one and only Godhead. Maybe she had lost her momentum.

She didn’t care. Things had come to a head.

“Gather the others.” She made the order in a voice that commanded respect, filled with the influence of all her training and experience.

They’d obey. What else could they do now that they were stuck?

She repressed the smile aching to burst out.