Exquisite Ruin (The Labyrinth #1)

Chapter 5

THE STATUES have surrounded Daesra, but they’re not moving, exactly. They change position in fits and starts, too fast to follow even when I keep from blinking. Their unnatural jerking motion makes me dizzy, so I focus on the daemon.

There’s no mirror behind him. It has disappeared like mine did, clearly bait for this trap that we both fell into. Or at least, that Daesra tripped, as it was his idea to go separate ways. No statues are attacking me, after all.

He’s trying to deflect them as they seize him—or, no, shove him—forming a wall of their bodies that pen him in. When he tries to grapple with them, they simply blink out of his grip. When he dodges, they reappear in his path, herding him. Daesra’s tail lashes in agitation. He’s losing ground, and he has a streak of dark blood across one sharp cheekbone, but he’s otherwise unharmed. Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t unleashed his power on them yet.

Perhaps he shouldn’t wait.

Lurching, the statues seem to be shuffling him toward a nasty snarl of roots that curl and tumble out from the base of one particularly massive tree, blocking the path forward. I can spot the limbs of other statues sticking out of the tightly coiled mass, unmoving, as if they’ve been engulfed. Within the trunk rising up from the tangle, I can see faces nearly submerged in the wood, as if it has grown around them, or swallowed them: a nose and mouth, lips parted in a gasp or cry; a pointed ear and part of a cheek; a horned brow and a pair of wide eyes, panic evident in the carved stone. I feel my neck prickle with a nonexistent chill.

Are the statues trying to feed Daesra to the tree instead of them—perhaps as a sacrifice? One the maze has demanded, or born of their own desire? Do these statues even have a will apart from the maze?

Whatever the case, I’m going to tear them to pieces. I take a deep breath, my ribs straining against my chest harness, and I flex my foot, causing pain to flare through my leg, stirring my power within.

But before I can lift a finger, Pogli starts barking in a cacophonous stream and charges the group of statues. I’m moving before I reconsider, diving after him. As the chimera jumps and nips ineffectually at one marble figure—where is his lion’s roar now?—I hurl a fireball at the ground beneath three of them. It throws the statues off their feet, blowing the legs off two. The other one wheels on me, jerking toward me faster than a blink, its speed terrifying. I recoil, but it— she , a woman in a long tunic—only stops, freezing a few paces from me, her stone-eyed gaze locked with mine.

Does the statue want Daesra, but not me?

My attack has given the daemon time to do something awful and powerful of his own. Most of the other statues have crumbled to rubble—evidence of an incredible use of aether—and an invisible force hurls another into the roots. It doesn’t try to move afterward, but then its foot already appears to be stuck in a curl of wood.

I suppress a shudder, almost feeling bad for it.

Daesra rounds on me. “Don’t harm that one,” he says, pointing at the woman. There’s a snarl on his lips instead of thanks. “What are you doing? I had the situation well in hand. You should have gone ahead.”

I gesture at the rubble-strewn ground. “You were surrounded—they were going to feed you to the roots!”

“ I was going to feed them to the roots, all without using much effort. I saw the faces in the tree and thought it an easy solution. I was leading them to where I wanted them, not the other way around.”

He’s making me feel the fool for even trying to help him, just as I feared he might. “But I heard you cry out.”

“They surprised me when they started moving, that’s all.”

“ Twice , I heard you.”

“Another surprise.” He swipes at the streak of dark blood on his cheek, where I can see no wound. “I didn’t know they would be so strong. And yet I’m entirely healed already.”

“I…” I don’t quite know what to say. I pinch my lips together and settle for glaring.

“You were worried about me?” At first, he sounds snidely disbelieving, but then his expression darkens. Before I can answer, feeling all the more foolish, he mutters, “No. I’m not doing this again.”

“Doing what ?” I demand.

“Never you mind.” A slow smile spreads across the daemon’s face like a stain. He flicks a fleck of stone off the back of his hand with a long black nail and says, “Anyway, you needn’t worry. This was all to get away from you, and it was well worth a try.”

He turns away from me just like that, extricating himself from the worst of the roots. He places his hooves carefully, seeking a path where he doesn’t have to step on any of them. I follow, scooping up Pogli as I do. I don’t want the chimera anywhere near those roots. My wariness doesn’t stop me from shouting at the daemon’s back.

“How can you be so cruel, after everything?”

“You think this pathetic rescue attempt is enough to make up for what you’ve done?” When he looks back at me, the hatred in his eyes is startling enough to stop me in my tracks.

And yet it doesn’t shock me quite as much as the statue of the woman that’s nearly closed half the distance to us already. She’s unmoving again.

I turn sideways so I can keep an eye on both her and the daemon. I don’t recognize her, of course, but perhaps he does—he told me not to hurt her. Something about her unsettles me deeply.

His hatred for me does, too. It feels… imbalanced. Unless the weight of my past actions, hidden from me, is somehow enough to justify it.

“What have I done?” I cry, becoming less sure that I actually want to know.

“Aside from binding me, you mean?” He waves a hand, as if trying to wipe me away. “You thought you could steal my power for yourself, you greedy witch. You tried through binding me, and when that failed to satisfy you, this was your grand idea.” His gesture widens to encompass the maze. “A trial you arranged with a god by dragging me to that wretched tower. You challenged me to this trial.”

“What challenge?” I ask, holding my position between the statue and Daesra, equally alarmed by both. “I thought we were allies.”

At my query, I hear a grinding clatter behind me. A chunk of rubble cuts loose from a smooth expanse of the black wall and shatters on the ground in a tumble of rock and skittering pebbles.

Daesra nods at it, the tines of his horns pointing for him. “We are. It’s the both of us, together, against this place.” His eyes don’t meet mine as he says it. “Just as when the hedges shifted, I think if we take too long or choose the wrong way, whether together or alone, the maze will at best want to chase us back on the right path, or worse, punish us. Even the stone.”

“So you chose wrong, with the mirrors.”

“Or you did, by doubling back.”

There’s something that still doesn’t make sense to me, not if he so eagerly wished to go separate ways. Something he’s not telling me. I can sense it in his avoidant gaze—an evasion with regard to my past or the trial of the maze. Or both.

“But if we’re allies, why do you keep me at a disadvantage?” I persist, perhaps foolishly, feeling like I’m prodding a bear. “Why can’t I remember anything, and why do you pretend , at least, to know everything? It’s not as if you need any advantage. I’m only mortal and you’re… you’re—”

He holds out his arms as if presenting himself. “Amazing? Awe-inspiring? Stunningly powerful? Immortal? ”

“A daemon,” I spit. I was, in fact, about to say immortal until he said it with that dripping arrogance.

“ I wanted your memory taken away, witch,” Daesra says. My mouth falls open, but before I can say anything, he adds harshly, “Because you took mine after you bound me. I didn’t know who or where I was, or how long—” He bites off his words, swallowing something evidently distasteful. “It made me easier to manipulate, and it’s why I barely remember how we got here. Now, fair is fair, and besides, you claimed you could handle it, undergoing this trial on the same uneven footing you left me, once upon a time.” He cocks his head, his horns tipping sideways. Curious. Malicious . “How does it feel?”

I asked him the same earlier, how being debased felt, bound in this daemonic form, and now he’s turning the question on me like a dagger.

“Not great,” I admit. I can give him that much.

“Good,” he says, turning his back on me once more. “Our debt isn’t settled, not by a long stretch. I’m an immortal with an immortal’s memories. You’ve only forgotten a few miserably short human years. Maybe if we reach the end of this in one piece, I’ll condemn you to a near lifetime of imprisonment here, then I’ll kindly take those memories from you and call us even.” He twists to meet my eyes, his face alight as if he’s discovered the solution to a grand problem. “How does that sound?”

He looks so bright, so beautiful, and I hate his beauty all the more because of what he’s saying.

I can’t believe this is the same being who held me like a lover would have, just a short while ago. If he ever had a care for me, it’s buried deep under a mountain of loathing.

Which is probably why he felt so unsettled by the forced intimacy. There was something in the way he held me that plucked at my body if not my memory, and it stirred something within him, too—a feeling that wasn’t hatred. Something he didn’t like. The thought that he can’t allow himself to feel the slightest bit kindly toward me, despite being my supposed ally, is both bitter and frightening, so I gather up my rage like a protective cloak.

“By all means, go, then!” I cry, gesturing at the obvious: There’s nowhere else to go at the moment. “You’re not bound by me anymore.” I pause. “How did I bind you?”

He spins again on a hoof, marching back to me, practically spitting, his sharper teeth flashing. “Do you really think I would tell you and allow you to do it to me again? It was my mistake—one I don’t intend to repeat.” His voice drops, laced with honeyed poison. “Fool me once, kindly fuck yourself. Fool me twice, then I myself should… ah, but you do enjoy helping me out with that. At least, you did.”

Heat floods my face. I grate out, “How dare you—?”

“Speak the truth?” His smile might as well be lined with thorns. “Why, my honor as a daemon demands it!”

I’m horrified to hear the cracks in my voice. “We could never have shared… intimacy… based on how you treat me. Even I’ve been kinder—”

“I don’t want your kindness!” the daemon shouts, veins standing out in his neck, making me flinch. “I want you ruthless , because then I would know what to do with you, at least! This is pathetic!” He throws his hands to either side of me. “Either you’ve gone soft and weak without the benefit of your memory, or your behavior is a ploy to fool me once again. Whatever the story, it hasn’t endeared me to you any more than before. If I had my way, I wouldn’t be stuck in here with you. I wouldn’t breathe the same air as you. As I haven’t yet learned how to do that, I believe I’ve finally had enough of your presence.” He bows in an exaggerated fashion. “So I’ll take my leave.”

“We’re going the same way!” I shout right back at him. “Never mind that the maze doesn’t like it when we split up.”

“I have my doubts about that.” He regards me, his lips pursed, calculating. “Still, on the off chance you’re right, perhaps we can travel the same path merely a short distance apart, and the maze won’t get angry.”

“Why risk it?” I ask, but even as I do, I know why—because most of the risk will fall on me . The mortal.

“You’ve already asked a different version of that question, my dear Sadaré, and I hate repeating myself.”

“Yes, yes, you despise me. But you also need me alive, supposedly, my ever-so-reluctant ally.”

“You’re correct that I need you—though you don’t know when or how or where I need you. And you’re wrong that I’m your ally.”

I freeze. “What?”

Daesra raises his arm and, with the black nails of his other hand, rakes long scratches down the pale bluish skin on the inside below his red rope cuff before I realize what he’s doing. Recognize the sacrifice for what it is, in the welling of that dark blood. For him, a daemon, to offer so much beyond the binding of his soul, he must be asking for something immense.

“Hold Sadaré,” he says, his gaze on something—someone—behind me.

Utterly unyielding arms come around me, taking me completely by surprise, distracted as I was by the daemon in front of me. I look down to find limbs of white marble trapping me from behind. The chimera rounds on my assailant, only then barking in warning. Helpful, indeed . Although I suppose I shouldn’t fault him. I myself wasn’t looking over my shoulder.

I look now, expecting the stony expression of the woman looming at my back, but—it’s Daesra . I only get a glance at his face, but a white marble version of him appears to be holding me. The daemon must have changed the statue to look like him. Just as aether can heal or demolish something, it can also mold. Shape. Control.

The power required would be vast. It would take far more than scratches for me, as deep as they look on Daesra’s arm. What’s more, his wounds are already knitting closed without any help.

Even pinned in place by stone, I stare at his arm hungrily, his skin now smooth under bloody dark smears. Maybe I catch a glimpse of why I once proposed this trial—to become that . Immortal. Endlessly powerful.

Although, not exactly like him. I could only do better than someone who has tricked me and turned on me, even after I came back to help him. The absolute bastard . I struggle against the stone bands of the arms around me. They don’t budge even when I apply more force than a normal human could.

“What are you doing?” I snarl as Daesra steps farther away. Not that I can reach him like this.

“Keeping you here while I get ahead. I lied when I said it’s the two of us against the maze. We’re against each other as well. Unfortunately, I can’t just kill you—that’s against the rules, as it would be too easy for me—so I’ll leave it for the maze or the monster to manage.”

Leave me. Fear claws up my throat. “You’ve been lying to me this entire time!”

“Fair is fair, since you lied to me for much of the time I knew you.” He turns away from me.

“We don’t have to keep trading blows forever!” When he doesn’t appear moved, I can’t help the note of panic that leaks into my tone. “What if you’re wrong? What if the maze collapses on me as soon as you leave?”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” He has to raise his voice over my renewed struggling as he gestures to the statue. “But I believe he has enough of me in him for the maze to think I’m keeping a fair proximity to you with him following you, if that’s what it wants. He’ll be your company. You once wanted me as a pet, no? That’s what I used to look like as a demigod, before I made improvements. How handsome and pure. How innocent and calf-eyed. Maybe he can carry you when you inevitably tire too much to walk, like a faithful steed.” The daemon scoffs at Pogli. “Unlike your other pet.”

Once again, I’m glad he doesn’t know what threat Pogli might pose to him—if indeed there is any—or what shame his words bring me. A fallen half god is still a powerful entity, as evidenced by the stone figure at my back, though I don’t let myself look at that Daesra. And to think I dared to put a collar around his neck.

I don’t want the daemon to know how badly I feel about that. Or to know how much his betrayal stings now. He’ll only use my vulnerability against me, either to trap me in this place… or worse.

I try to keep my voice cool. Unafraid. I stop struggling, since it’s not helping and I’m not quite yet willing to blow the arms off the statue. Its eyes were strangely kind, unlike the daemon’s red glare before me. Besides, I don’t want to hurt myself in the process.

“You were satisfied at least pretending we were allies,” I say. “What changed?”

I think I know. It was when he began to feel something other than hatred for me. But I doubt he’ll admit it.

“I’m figuring this out as I go, same as you,” he says. “The puzzle of how to best you according to the maze’s peculiar rules. You think that separating means danger. I think the danger lies in trusting one another. Both may lead us to ruin. We have to walk the blade’s edge of this trial until we reach the final challenge at the end without slipping too far to either side and falling.”

“Never mind that remaining on a blade’s edge means cutting ourselves the entire way.”

“Well, this maze was your idea, and you always did like pain.”

My jaw clenches. “What exactly was my idea?”

He shrugs. “I told you, I don’t actually recall the details very well—thanks to you. But whatever game you’re playing out in this maze, I’ll never trust you, Sadaré.”

“And you’ve been lying to me! About being allies, about knowing everything—”

“I know more than enough. I know you’ll only betray me, just like before, so I’m merely beating you to it.”

“I won’t—not without reason!” I can’t help the heat that rises in my voice. “You’re wrong about me.”

He shakes his head. “As soon as you recall yourself, you’ll become the same execrable witch you’ve always been.” His smile is slow and poisonous. “I can’t wait for you to realize it. If you manage to squeeze a bit of remorse out of that shriveled heart of yours, I hope it’s enough for you to choke on.” I can only gape at him, while he nods at the statue. “After I leave, you’re free to move. But keep an eye on her.”

“Goat-fucker!” I snarl.

He gestures at his horns. “These are a bull’s, actually, and I didn’t fuck it. By all accounts, that type of behavior is more to your mother’s taste.” He tips his head and gives me a wink. “I did, however, fuck you.”

I screech in pure frustration as he turns his back on me. “You’re insulting my mother now? Why should I believe anything you say? She would never, whoever she is, and I refuse to believe you and I did… that !” I can’t resist the question that follows behind him. “How could we?”

As the daemon vanishes around a bend ahead, only his laughter answers me. I shout more obscenities after him until I’m calm enough to think.

Keep an eye on her.

Daesra’s final command gives me an idea. The daemon is not yet too far for me to reach. I bite my tongue—not my favorite source of pain, but it’ll have to do with my arms pinned. I feel the connection snap into place when I close my left eye, cutting off half my sight—another sacrifice.

Whenever I close that eye now, I can see over Daesra’s shoulder behind my lid, as if I were following him. The double vision disorients me, but it still makes me smile with satisfaction. While I wait, held imprisoned in marble arms, I note the paths he takes, if the decision isn’t already obvious.

Eventually, the statue releases me. I turn to glare—and can’t help but marvel instead.

He’s beautiful. Daesra the daemon is beautiful as well, but this Daesra has a genuine softness to his countenance, despite being carved of stone. He’s lacking the horns, the hooves, the tail—all aspects of a bull, apparently, not a goat. I wonder why Daesra adopted such things as a daemon. If he had any choice in the matter.

Since he seems to be wholly driven by a need to control everything, I assume he did. Besides, bulls don’t have red eyes or pale bluish skin. That must have been all Daesra—or perhaps a previous gift from his divine parent?

Again, I wonder which god it is. He already told me at some point in the past, if he can be believed. I’m not sure he can. Especially not if he thinks we both…

We couldn’t have , I think fiercely. And my mother does not fuck bulls.

I let out a snarl, spinning away from the statue, and start marching onward. Briefly, I close my left eye, making sure I’m not missing any of the daemon’s turns. The statue is supposed to direct me so I stay on the right track, I’m sure, but I don’t intend to wait around for it.

Pogli waddles along at my heels, oblivious to my fury—or everything, really—and I glance back only once to see the statue of Daesra-the-demigod following. He doesn’t move as eerily as he did before, walking more like an awkward man instead of in blinking, unnatural jerks. I wonder if the daemon changing him had something to do with that—making him more like Daesra himself. Except, of course, for the statue’s mild, pleasant expression. I begin to find that a touch eerie, and I wonder what, exactly, is behind those eyes.

Daesra told him to keep an eye on me. Maybe it’s not only the statue watching me. Perhaps the daemon had much the same idea that I did, and he himself is spying on me through that blank, stony gaze. He’s only using the excuse that the statue will keep me safe from the maze so I don’t get rid of him. I resist sneering back at the statue. Rather, I make a show of paying him little attention.

But I do pick up speed. Pogli, trotting and wheezing, shoots me nervous, bug-eyed glances but manages to keep up.

Without giving any noticeable warning, I round a corner of the maze—the statue a fair bit behind me now, moving stiffly—and I scoop up Pogli, taking off in a painful sprint, my rope binding still tight on my calf. I’m heading the way the daemon went, so if he’s spying on me, the statue will be able to follow me by following him. Which means I need to risk taking a wrong turn to lose the statue for good. Even if the statue manages to track me, I’ll be able to ambush and destroy him myself if I can’t sneak past him or shove him into some roots.

I might trigger a punishment from the maze in going the wrong way, but hopefully the statue can receive it in my place and I can get back to trailing Daesra— without his spy.

I reach a dreaded two-way fork I knew was coming, and I go the opposite way Daesra did, trading pain for speed and strength as I leap over tangles of roots and around large chunks of glassy black stone that—disconcertingly—seem to have tumbled loose from the towering walls. But at least they provide some cover that won’t try to suck my blood.

I don’t want to wander too far in the wrong direction to have a chance to make it back. Ducking behind a large boulder, I crouch down with Pogli, out of sight.

I wait, holding my breath.

The chimera, unfortunately, can’t hold his. He continues wheezing as loudly as before, practically snoring while wide awake. He sneezes over half of my face for good measure, spraying it with a fine mist.

I debate smothering his flat face with my hands, but instead I stuff a wad of fabric from my dirty tunic into one of my ears and grind my bound shin into the stone. It’s enough of an offering to throw a bubble of quiet around me, like a muffling cloak. It will mute any sound I—and by extension, the chimera—could make. Consequently, it will also dull any sound to my ears, even beyond the blockage created by my tunic, but I can’t help that.

I close my left eye to see where Daesra has gone. He’s stopped, holding entirely still. The bastard must be spying on me if he’s now focusing all his attention on something other than navigating the maze.

Unfortunately, I’m doing the same, and I realize too late that the sacrifice of my senses might cost me my life. I don’t hear the creaking of stone and rattling of falling pebbles until a few land on my shoulder. By the time I look up, the sound is a shuddering, earsplitting cracking that I can feel vibrating through the soles of my sandals.

A massive chunk of the black stone detaches from the wall above me. With a roar louder than thunder, it drops, breaking through the trees in its path, shattering their towering trunks like twigs.

I move without thought, putting every bit of my pain into leaping up and running as fast as I can, back the way I came, the statue be damned. Pogli screeches as my nails dig into him—I’m more holding a handful of his fur than I am his body—while I make powerful, bounding strides. I have hope that I’ll make it out of range until a splintered chunk of tree collapses in front of me, taller and wider than a carriage.

I leap over it but land wrong, my foot turning on a chunk of stone. Stumbling, I fall, unable to regain my balance at such speed. I bounce and tumble over the ground, scraping elbows and knees, trying to keep Pogli clutched safely to my chest. By the time I skid to a stop, I have no time to protect myself other than curling into a tight ball before the massive piece of wall—more like a whole section of the wall itself—touches down behind me.

A tidal wave of dust and wood shards and stone explodes outward with a force I’ve never seen. The tree trunk at my back protects me from some of the debris, but the massive cloud of dust spits out a fragment of wall big enough to crush me in entirety. It spins like a colossal discus through the air, heading right for me.

I don’t think to use my power. I squeeze my eyes shut and hold Pogli tight, sheltering him with my body.

I hear the impact rather than feel it—another horrible crack, if smaller than those that came before. I wait for the pain.

And wait.

Eventually, behind my closed lids, I realize I don’t feel anything other than Pogli squirming against me. I certainly don’t feel dead, however that might feel. The chimera starts licking my chin, his long tongue angling for my lips. Avoiding him is enough encouragement to lift my head and open my eyes. I look above and nearly cry out.

Daesra the statue is braced atop me, holding himself—and the fractured piece of black rock tented above him—away from me and the ground. His eyes and smile are still placid. But the marble of his shoulder is chipped, a deep crack running down his chest. His arms—the only thing between me and death—are shuddering.

I take one breath, two, and then scramble as quickly as possible out from underneath him, throwing Pogli ahead of me. I’m tempted to keep running, but the wall is no longer collapsing behind me. For now. So I stop, looking reluctantly back at the statue. He’s still braced under the crushing weight. Losing the battle.

“Godsdamn you,” I snarl. I bite my tongue again. Hard. And godsdamn Daesra yet again, for taking my needles. Tears spring to my eyes, but I don’t bother to wipe them away before I curl my hand into a fist. An invisible force like wind explodes out from me, parting around the statue and blowing apart the folded stone slab atop him, sending chunks flying.

“Come on!” I shout, and then I run, not bothering to see if he follows. If he’s too broken to move, I won’t be able to help him, anyway. I snatch up Pogli as I go, distantly noting the blood running down my forearms. Right. I lost the skin on my elbows during my tumble over the stone cobbles back there. On my knees, too, I feel with the squelch of blood in my sandals and between my toes. I don’t feel the pain right now, but it will come later.

I only stop when I’ve rounded the turn I was supposed to have taken and continue a few paces beyond that. Then I bend over, chest heaving, setting Pogli down and nearly resting my hands on my bloodied knees before reconsidering, leaning on my thighs instead. For a moment, I simply breathe, sweat and more blood from somewhere dripping off my forehead to patter on the wide stone tiles underfoot.

I’m satisfied with that much, pleased that I’m even still standing. My body wants to crumple into a jittery pile of flesh and bone, but I should probably keep moving, in case more of the walls want to collapse.

When I straighten, the statue is behind me. Chipped, cracked, not moving, smiling peacefully at me.

Weirdly—maybe I’m delirious—I feel one corner of my mouth lifting in return. He did just save my life.

I start considering a name for him. Just as I did for Pogli, I think of options that relate to his physical attributes. Stone-man? Too unwieldy. Handsome? Daesra would gloat. I remember the daemon’s strange expression—jealousy?—after I admired that other statue, back when I first woke up in the maze. Perhaps he wants to force me to admire a statue of him now, and I refuse to admit defeat. Demigod is a little too grandiose, but… Deos.

“Of a god”—everything a daemon would want to escape. Not terribly creative, but the name might irk Daesra, at the very least, and that’s good enough for me. He inflicted this all-too-tangible ghost of his previous self upon me, so I’m happy to remind him of his unwanted past if it brings him just a little pain.

Never mind that I can’t help but be grateful—to Daesra as well as Deos. I doubt the statue would have saved me without his influence.

“Deos,” I say. “You have my thanks.”

Deos tips his head. You’re quite welcome, Sadaré.

It’s his voice—the daemon’s. Deos, if he could talk, would never have sounded so sardonic, not with that expression. His stone lips, of course, don’t move.

If I had any more jump left in me, I would have jumped. All I can say is, “So that was all you?”

There’s a pause, as if the daemon is considering. No. The statue—I’ll die before I call him that name—has somewhat of a mind of its own. I gave it an objective, which it can fulfill as it sees fit. I would love to take full responsibility for saving your life and to receive your abject groveling in return, but alas… I’ll simply have to accept a lesser degree of groveling.

“I already like Deos more than you,” I say, emphasizing the name, as I continue on. “And I was thanking him . As for you, can you just… be silent?” Now my knees and elbows hurt, my joints a burning howl of agony as I move them, making everything else an added irritation.

And yet, I need to hurt more. At least I’ll have knees again, once I heal myself. Pain can only serve me as long as my body isn’t falling apart.

Now I know just how to manage it. I swore I would never kneel again, but sometimes the occasion simply begs for it. I nearly laugh at my own terrible joke.

“Perhaps I can demonstrate my gratitude to you, Deos , for saving me.” I turn on the statue, forcing him to stop. And then I drop to my knees.

I nearly scream, but I fold over to smother my mouth, pressing my elbows into the stone for good measure. Making the pain mine as I multiply it tenfold with my surrender.

Sadaré. The daemon sounds irritated. You should only kneel before one who is deserving.

“So you can see me as well as hear me,” I gasp into the ground through my tears. I hoped this would make him give himself away—if he even cared to hide it. “But I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Deos, and I beg him to accept my thanks,” I add with exaggerated fervency.

I feel my power then, a bright core inside me, and I send it flooding through my limbs. Soon, the fire in my knees and elbows dwindles and the blood stops soaking my tunic—not that I can tell at a glance, as I haul myself to my feet.

Gods, my legs are drenched in blood. I pause briefly to try to mop some of it up with the skirt of my once-white tunic. But with me bent over like that, Pogli tries to lick my lips, and my efforts only make me look more like a butcher, so I give up.

A pity you can’t heal your pride after such an unfortunate display , Daesra’s voice says.

I toss my hair, now streaked with even more red, out of my face, and I keep moving. “A pity we can’t all be daemons.”

Good thing. I love being superior.

I ignore him. “You know what, I don’t mind kneeling for someone who truly deserves it.”

The daemon doesn’t say anything. I hope he’s even more irritated as I start braiding my hair with practiced motions as I walk—too tight, of course. It will build to a nice headache that I can use, serving the same purpose as my chest harness. My hair was too much in my eyes, anyway.

I prefer your hair down , says that interminable voice.

“I prefer you dead.” I can’t help it—after the words are out of my mouth, I snort.

Something about the panic and fear from nearly dying, giving way to relief, and the sensation coursing through my limbs, both good and bad, has made me jittery, giddy… Somehow, my body recognizes this state, sinking into it even as I feel a distant flare of alarm. I need to stay especially on my guard, like this.

Did you just laugh—if you can call that graceless animal noise a laugh—at your own lack of cleverness? If Deos could have arched an eyebrow to match that tone, he would have. Instead, his marble head only turns to regard me.

I snort again. “Maybe.”

You’re pain-drunk, Sadaré. Daesra can no doubt hear it in my voice.

“To my health, then.” I raise an invisible cup to the statue and actually bump his marble shoulder with my fist.

Daesra barks a laugh of his own. I like you like this. Perhaps I’ll endeavor to keep you in such a state.

I resist the urge to shove the statue away from me, because I know that’s not actually the daemon. I settle for a glare, which Daesra can at least receive.

Besides, how could you truly wish for my demise? he continues. Your pitiful human existence would be hopelessly boring without me. And you’ve never wanted peace and quiet.

“No, I suppose I haven’t.” I don’t know much about myself, but I can guess that much is true.

I’m a pain-seeking witch who once bound a daemon, after all.

“What about you?” I ask, before I can think better of it. “While you can’t die, have you ever thought about hanging up your sword or your claws or the like and living a less horrible existence?”

I do have a sword, you know , he says, not answering my question. A rather lovely one.

“Oh? I haven’t seen it on you.”

I only use it on special occasions.

I’m actually curious—especially about whatever weapons he might possess—but he doesn’t elaborate. Of course.

“So? You didn’t answer my question.”

Let’s play a game. An answer for an answer. Perhaps we can rebuild the trust we so lack.

I know he can’t be serious. “Amusing of you to suggest that right after saying you’ll never trust me again and that trust is dangerous—which you demonstrated well by betraying me.” And then I shrug. “But why not?”

I have nothing else to occupy my time as I follow him, and besides, I don’t have much to tell him, seeing as I remember next to nothing.

In answer to your question: once. I considered a more peaceful life once.

“Dare I ask when?”

It’s my turn to ask a question. What did you feel when we held each other close, back there?

So maybe I do have secrets I want kept.

When I don’t respond, he says, And it’s a truth for a truth—not just any answer, or I’ll give you any answer I please in return.

I hiss a breath through my teeth. “I felt confused.”

That’s not enough. Why?

“Because I felt both afraid of you and… warm. Safe.” I feel my cheeks heating, and I hope he can’t see.

That’s all?

I nod, willing it to be so.

Then you’re an absolute fool if you feel safe around me. Before I can snap back at him, he says, As for when I considered a more peaceful life, it was shortly before you dragged me to that wretched tower and then into this maze. And now, in repayment for that, I will be as horrible as possible for all eternity. Especially for the short duration of your miserable existence.

I scoff. “I’m certain you were entirely at peace before I interfered, living happily ever after with some woman or man or monster instead of wreaking ungodly havoc.”

He’s silent for a moment. I was with a monster, to be sure.

My heart starts beating faster. He can’t mean… No, don’t ask , I tell myself. He wants me to ask, and that line of questioning can’t end well. He only wants to distract me with more lies. I just need to keep walking. Talk about anything else.

“How is it that I’m not hungry?” I blurt, glancing around at the high walls and towering trees. “I don’t think I need food here. Or to relieve myself, or sleep, even if I get exhausted. It’s odd.”

Odd that you should ask something so mundane, and it’s not even your turn. But I’ll give you this one for free. This isn’t the mortal plane, remember? It’s not the gods’, either. It’s somewhere else. Time passes differently. Who knows how long we’ve been in here? Why, we might be considered very well acquainted by now. Or should I say re acquainted?

He’s bringing us back around to what I don’t want to consider: that we may once have known each other quite well. Worse, that he might know me better than I know myself, because he can remember a past that I can’t.

Maybe I shouldn’t want to remember.

I think he’s going to press his point like a nail into my flesh, but he surprises me by saying, The way is to the right, not the left. The sound of his tongue clicking in disapproval somehow comes from the statue.

I blink, looking around. He’s correct, I realize. I confused the turns, probably because of my muddled senses. I was starting down the left, but he went right himself, at the fork in the black stone walls I’ve reached, though he doesn’t know I know. I’d prefer him to remain oblivious to my spying.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I demand, when I really want to ask, Why did you?

That’s a second question out of turn, so you’ll just have to trust me. His voice has only a thin coating of innocence again, failing to disguise what’s underneath. Would that be so difficult?

“Yes,” I say, even as I take the right fork. I’m being honest myself. “And I’m taking that as your question.”

Deep down, I know he has no reason to trust me, either.

Let’s try something else , the daemon says, and Deos halts, making me reluctantly stop as well. Turn around and face me.

It’s less a suggestion and more of a command. But I turn, eyeing the statue warily. Would he—Deos—still try to hurt me after saving my life, and my saving his?

Close your eyes , Daesra says.

“You can’t be serious,” I say.

Quite. This will prove you can trust me.

I keep my expression fixed in suspicion, but inside, I’m smothering a grin. I’ll be able to spy on him all the more while pretending to acquiesce.

Giving him—well, Deos—one last frown, I close my eyes.

Daesra, the daemon, fills my sight behind my left eyelid. And he’s looking directly at me, somehow focusing on that spot over his shoulder from whence I was spying. He, too, was hiding a grin, now visible, the tines of his horns and his pointed teeth looking particularly sharp and malicious.

“Since you’ve proved yourself so trustworthy,” he nearly purrs, “I thought I would make sure you knew where to go.” He points a long-nailed finger at the quicksilver surface shimmering next to him with smug, catlike satisfaction.

There are four paths branching in front of him, I see. With the mirror filling one, hanging vertically again like a liquid curtain, I would have known which way to go without his help.

“Here is where you will find the answer to your most pressing question.” As he turns to cross through the mirror’s surface, he glances back, red eyes flashing. “Oh, Sadaré? You’d better run.”

My eyes fly open, because I hear something not on his end. A shuddering, grinding, shrieking crash that reverberates through my entire body.

The walls are collapsing behind us both. Perhaps Daesra passing through the mirror triggered it. Chunks of glossy black stone as big as the previous one, except many more of them, are cutting loose. The entire wall, on both sides. Just like the hedges had folded in on themselves, churning as if by a plow, so, too, are the walls. The only difference is these are immensely thick, towering stone, lined with colossal trees instead of mere hedges—and even the hedges could have killed me. Statues are swallowed up like pale insects. The grinding gyre of jagged boulders and splintered trunks rushes toward me in an oncoming maelstrom of death.

Terror washes through me, leaving me surprisingly clear-headed. Unless Pogli is somehow a god in disguise, which I seriously doubt, no roar of his will stop this. He whimpers at my feet as if in agreement.

I snatch him up by the scruff of his neck, ignoring his yelp, and I run for my life. I run faster than I ever have before. I would sacrifice my elbows, my knees, a limb, to keep ahead of what is behind me.

I do my best to remember the way, taking turns at breakneck speed. Daesra can’t help me with directions now, even if he wanted to—I left Deos behind, though he’s trying to keep up. I would sacrifice the statue, too. I can’t exactly carry him.

Pogli is heavy, but I pour energy into my limbs—every bit of my pain. I barely feel his weight. My entire focus is narrowed to one task: run.

Run, run, run.

My memory, perhaps sharpened by the bracing wind of destruction at my back, leads me unerringly to the four branching paths. I don’t hesitate before hurling myself straight into the mirror’s liquid surface.

I don’t know if Deos will make it. But I did, and that’s what matters most. And Pogli.

There’s little room in me for relief. Only vague apprehension as the unearthly substance closes around me like a cold, all-consuming embrace. Daesra told me I’d find my answer here.

I wonder what the question might be.