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Kate tried to hide her dread as Patch led the way forward, Kate following as they ran into a forked pathway.

“Left or right?” she asked, her chest tight as she weighed her options.

Left seemed quiet, safe. It was a sunlit path with smooth walls.

The right path, however, shook with the tumble of rocks against one another and seemed far less welcoming by the way the walls of the labyrinth here had turned jagged and sharp-looking.

“Well, left, obviously,” Patch said.

Kate breathed out slowly, letting herself calm and follow her instincts.

Assume nothing in the labyrinth is what it seems...

An idea grew in her mind. If she had a labyrinth, she would guard the path that led to the heart of the puzzle with the most dangerous creatures. The safer path would keep leading the person around in circles or back out.

“Left, then?” Patch prompted.

“No.” She turned toward the left path with a wave of her hand. “That’s what he wants. To keep me stuck at the edges of this thing forever.” Well, she wasn’t going to fall for it. “We go right.”

“ Toward the trolls? Don’t be stupid, girl.” Patch started to walk in the other direction, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her side.

“I’m not scared of trolls.” She’d had her social media accounts targeted by mean girls when she was in high school.

From what she remembered of her mother’s stories, there were various kinds of trolls, and these definitely weren’t of the mean-girl internet variety.

The ones she remembered from the tales lived under bridges and ate goats.

Surely these trolls couldn’t be worse than the morgens?

* * *

They were much worse , as it turned out.

Kate and Patch huddled behind a large boulder as five massive trolls, each more than twelve feet tall with gray skin, slung stones at a sixth that was crouched against the wall opposite where Kate and Patch were hiding.

The labyrinth had opened up into a wide-open space filled with piles of rocks that formed tall, unstable-looking towers of stones.

“Why are they hurting that other troll?” she asked Patch. They kept their heads down and peered through a crack between two boulders to watch the trolls.

The kobold studied the trolls for a moment. “That one’s a runt, smaller than the rest. Trolls are a bit judgmental about things like that.”

“A bit ?”

The trolls were massive, thickly muscled, with round heads and black eyes. They wore leather vests and trousers, and their skin looked like it was covered with a layer of silvery fur. A few had small pairs of horns jutting from their temples.

“We might be able to get around them if we go now.” Patch pushed at Kate’s hip, trying to get her to move.

They had a chance to escape if they stayed on the narrow path between the boulders.

Kate moved along the path, peering between the stones every few steps to keep her eyes on the trolls.

She saw the smaller troll fall to its knees, covering its head from the blows of the others as they threw massive rocks.

She was pretty sure the others were laughing.

They are mean girls, thought Kate.

A flash of memory shot across Kate’s mind.

She was crouched in the corner of her bedroom, listening to Sandra complain about her to her father.

Sandra had never hit her, but she’d been as cruel with her words as the stones these trolls were throwing.

A stab of pain in Kate’s chest made her stop.

She couldn’t just leave. If she had the power to stop someone from getting hurt, she wasn’t going to just run away.

She caught Patch’s shoulder and whispered to him. She nodded to the place where the labyrinth walls seemed to narrow in the direction they’d been moving. “Meet me at the far end of the pass.”

“All right,” Patch said, then halted. “Wait—what?” The kobold whirled back to face her.

“ Go ,” she hissed. Before she could talk herself out of this really stupid idea, she crawled between the two nearest boulders to a place where the trolls could see her.

Then she shouted at the top of her lungs, “Hey! Pick on someone your own size!”

The trolls slowly turned around, some still holding hefty rocks.

Yep, that was stupid. Really stupid . Why had she said that?

“What did you say?” one of the trolls ground out in a slow, gravelly voice.

Kate’s gaze shot across the group of trolls, and suddenly she had an idea.

“I said, ‘ Pick on someone your own size .’” She pointed at one of the other trolls in the group that had been throwing stones at the smallest troll. “Someone like him.”

The troll in question looked shocked, wondering why he had been singled out. The other trolls seemed just as confused.

“Why him?” asked one troll.

“She said because he’s our own size,” said another.

“Yeah, but I’m taller than him,” the first one pointed out.

“And I’m wider,” said another.

“Well, what about him?” asked Kate, pointing out a different troll.

“Naw, he’s not my size either,” said the first.

“He is my size,” said the fourth.

“Yeah, but you’re twins, ain’t ya?” said the first.

At least they had stopped throwing rocks at the small troll. The problem was, if Kate didn’t think of something fast, they might start throwing rocks at her instead.

Then a thought occurred to her. If these trolls lived in the labyrinth, perhaps Roan had some control or influence over them. What if they lived here at his command? It was worth a shot.

Kate crouched down and slipped Roan’s silvery dagger from her boot, then held it up.

“By the command of Lord Arun, I order you to fight each other.”

One of the trolls growled, the sound like thunder, as he weighed the stone he held in his hand.

Shit... this isn’t going to work.

“Lord Arun?” one of the trolls grunted at the leader.

“Yes, it is Lord Arun’s command that you leave that troll alone and fight each other. May the best troll win. He promises a prize to the victor!”

Please... please... please fall for it, she begged silently.

The leader growled again. “What kind of prize?”

“Um... it’s a surprise! The best kind of prize!” Kate lied.

Another slow growl. “We must hold council,” the leader replied. He and the other trolls slowly moved to form a circle.

Kate didn’t wait for them to decide what to do.

They’d just given her an opportunity to act, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

She ran around them to reach the fallen troll.

The poor creature was leaning against the labyrinth wall, its head still covered with its hands.

When she touched the creature’s shoulder, it flinched.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. You need to come with me while they’re distracted.” She shook the troll’s hefty arm.

The beast turned a bruised face toward her, one eye swollen shut, the other staring at her in confusion.

“Oh God... They really hurt you, didn’t they?

” Kate murmured as she rubbed the troll’s arm.

The fur beneath her hand was as soft as silk.

“Listen, I’m trying to help you. But we need to move.

Now.” Kate pointed in the direction she wanted to go with her dagger.

Patch waved at her frantically, jumping up and down.

“Who are you?” the troll asked.

“I’m Kate,” Kate whispered to the troll. “Please, come with me. Hurry!”

The troll’s unswollen eye fixed on the shiny dagger in Kate’s hand.

“Lord Arun wishes me to go with you?”

“Yes,” Kate lied. But she wanted to believe that Lord Arun would have wanted to save this poor creature if he had been here.

He was a dark Fae, sure, but Patch had said that dark didn’t mean evil .

It just meant his powers came from the night, from the moon.

He wanted to protect his realm and all the creatures in it from the Seelie, so it only made sense he’d want to protect them from each other too, right?

I’m probably just trying to make excuses for him.

The small troll got to its feet and staggered a few steps. It was perhaps only eight or so feet tall, far smaller than the trolls that had been attacking it.

“Magda,” the troll rasped, her voice softer than the others. “I am Magda.”

“You’re a girl?” Kate asked as the ring of trolls still held their council.

“Yes.”

“A girl troll. That’s cool.” She held out a hand to Magda. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Magda and Kate hurried away, reaching a frantic Patch at the end of the long passageway just as the trolls finished their discussion and turned around.

The beasts clearly expected to find Kate still standing where she had been.

One scratched his head in bafflement before another spotted Kate and Magda, who were now quite a good distance from the group of trolls.

“Here, squeeze through here!” Patch pointed at the narrow rock walls on either side, which formed a somewhat covered roof with a small bit of light breaking through above them. “They won’t be able to follow us through here.”

Kate saw the trolls in the distance, lifting rocks to throw in their direction. If they didn’t get deep enough into this pass, those rocks might hit them.

Magda watched Kate with dark, worried eyes.

“Take Magda with you, Patch. I’ll be right behind you,” Kate said, encouraging Magda to go. She stood and faced the trolls, who were slowly lumbering toward them. From here, she caught a glimpse of the distant palace above the trolls’ heads.

How did I miss that?

“What are you doing, girl?” Patch snapped. “Do you have rocks for brains?”

The kobold’s shout shook her out of her thoughts.

The ground shook from the herd of trolls heading their way. Kate raced behind Patch and Magda through the slender passage between the walls. The trolls hurled rocks at them, which shattered over the top of the narrow passage, causing debris to rain down.

“Keep running!” Kate shouted at the kobold and troll ahead of her.