Chapter 3
Alette
Day comes with a grayness that makes it hard to say if it’s really morning or the pale ghost of night refusing to leave.
The hedge overhead doesn’t let sunlight through so much as it filters it.
When I wake, I can’t tell if I’ve slept an hour or a year.
My eyes burn, and every part of me aches, but I’m alive, and so is everyone else, at least for now.
Sylvian’s arm is still flopped over my ribs.
He’s so deeply asleep that a black beetle has made a nest in the pit of his collarbone, and he doesn’t even twitch when I flick it off.
Cassius is gone, but I’m sure he’s not far in this terrible place.
Oberon sits near the edge of our little clearing, sharpening a stick with a chunk of river glass.
Ashton is awake too, already grinning at me like it’s a private joke that I’m still breathing.
But best of all, both of them are dressed.
“Up and at them, princess,” Ashton sings. “The birds are singing, the dew is dewing, and you look like the wrath of god.”
I pull the blanket tighter and make a show of rolling my eyes, but inside I’m grateful for the jab.
It’s easier to be angry than scared. Getting up, my blanket wrapped tight, I grab my now-dry clothes, bag, and weapon, and I turn a corner to hide behind the hedge, just far enough to be sure they can’t see me, before getting dressed once more.
Back in my clothes, bag slung over one shoulder and dagger at my hip, I finally feel a bit more like myself.
Heading back to our campsite, I spot a small black carcass on the edge of the firepit, picked clean.
A half dozen black crows fuss over it, stabbing and shrieking.
Meat is cooking on a couple large rocks that have been placed near the fire.
Probably crow meat. Which is creepy. Oberon’s eyes never leave the hungry crows.
“Breakfast,” he grunts. “If you want it.”
I take some reluctantly, eat the stringy gross meat as quickly as possible, and dig out a piece of dried fruit from my stash. It’s sticky and sweet, washing away the awful taste of crow, delicious after feeling never quite full enough on this trip. The food helps to bring me back to myself too.
Sylvian rises and dresses without shame near the fire, while I try not to stare, then he cleans up his bedding from the night.
He grabs a hunk of the crow meat and chews it like beef jerky.
I’m guessing it’s not very tender. Thinking about everything in front of me makes it easier to not think about Sylvian.
Or our naked bodies pressed against each other. Or the taste of his lips on mine.
Stop thinking. Stop going down that route.
None of us talk much. No one seems eager to bring up the fight, or the wolves, or what Sylvian and I almost did under the hedge. Instead, we finish eating, Cassius returns, and we pack up and start moving.
“I don’t like it,” Cassius says. “Nothing is alive in this place.”
“Except the crows,” I say.
He nods, expression unreadable. “That’s all that’s left.”
The crows follow us as we walk. They’re not always the same ones, but they look alike, eyes like hard seeds, beaks crusted with filth. They hop from branch to branch, keeping pace, sometimes flying ahead and landing in our way, waiting as if to guide us somewhere. Or maybe just to watch us starve.
Is it because we likely ate one of them this morning? Or is it the goddess’s work?
Everywhere we go, the paths narrow. The hedge rises higher on each side, the air pressed and sharp. I keep thinking I hear the scrape of claws on bark behind us, but every time I look, it’s just Ashton, whistling, or Oberon snapping twigs underfoot.
We hit our first dead end before noon. The corridor pinches off in a wall of roots and leaves that looks intentional. Like the whole damn labyrinth. Oberon tries to push his way through it, but the branches whip back, slicing his forearm.
“Fuck,” he spits, and kicks the wall. “It’s either alive or thick as hell. Maybe both.”
We double back, take another fork. It’s the same. Wall after wall, thicker each time. Sylvian touches the hedge, fingers trailing along the surface as if he can read its pulse.
“It’s changing,” he mutters, more to himself than the rest of us. “Reacting.”
“Reacting to what?” Cassius asks.
Sylvian stares at me, and I don’t like the look in his eye. “Maybe it wants something.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Oberon snaps. “It’s a plant, not a person.”
Sylvian says nothing, but his face says everything.
By late afternoon, we’ve run every path in our quadrant of the maze, and every one ends in a snarl of roots. The crows are thicker now, filling the air with noise. One lands on Oberon’s head, tangling in his short brown hair, and he swats it off so hard that it squawks loudly, as if offended.
I’m so tired I could sleep standing up. Ashton is the only one who doesn’t seem bothered. He’s humming, picking crows’ feathers off the ground and tucking them behind his ears. It’s like he sees no difference between being in the labyrinth or being at the castle.
We regroup in a tiny clearing, hedges pressing in so close it feels like a fist closing around us.
“I say we burn through,” Oberon says. “Light the fucker up. If it’s alive, let’s see how it likes fire.”
Cassius shakes his head. “You’ll trap us in here and light everything on fire.”
Oberon glares. “You want to sit here and rot?”
Ashton perks up. “Maybe there’s a door? A secret passage?”
“Checking for a secret passage does seem better than burning alive,” Sylvian offers with a shrug.
With no better ideas, everyone goes to the latest dead end and starts pushing around at the hedges.
I walk the perimeter, running my hands along the hedge.
At first, it’s just the normal texture, bristly, sticky, with the occasional thorn.
But after a while, I notice a stretch where the branches are softer, almost spongy, like peat moss. When I press, the wall gives a little.
“Here,” I say, not sure if I’ve found something or not.
Ashton is at my side instantly, hands on the hedge with me. “You feel that?” he says. “Like a giant’s lung.”
I nod, and for a minute, we’re both pressing into the soft spot, grunting with the effort. Oberon and Sylvian come over to watch, but neither helps at first. I’m pretty sure they’re deciding whether or not this is another dead end, so to speak.
“It’s pointless,” Oberon says, but even as he speaks, Ashton digs his heels in and slams his shoulder into the wall right beside where I’m pushing.
There’s a sound—wet, tearing—and suddenly the hedge splits open.
I tumble through and hit the ground hard, and then another body lands hard on top of me.
“Ow,” says Ashton, breathless.
He rolls off me, laughing even as he cradles his elbow. I scramble to my feet and look around. We’re in a clearing, but not the same one as before. The sky above is a weird, flat gray, and the walls here are higher and more tangled than before.
Behind us, the hole in the hedge is gone. The hedge is clean, seamless, as if it never existed.
I immediately panic. “The others—”
“They’ll get through,” Ashton says, brushing leaves from his hair. “Give them a minute.”
I stare at the hedge, waiting for someone, anyone, to crash through after us. But the silence is absolute, not even broken by the sounds of the creepy crows. Ashton doesn’t seem concerned, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched. Or that we just failed some kind of test.
“Let’s try to go back to them,” I suggest.
Ashton shrugs, and we start pushing at the hedge again. But on this side, it isn’t spongey. There’s no give at all. It’s exactly like every other part of the hedge.
Which is concerning.
“We shouldn’t be split up,” I say, leaving the hedge behind and pacing the edge of the clearing. “Should we? That… that makes things more dangerous, right?”
He grins, lopsided. “You don’t have to worry when I’m around, Little Human.”
I don’t answer, because I am worried. I walk the perimeter again, running my fingers along the hedge. Every inch is knotted, thick, impassable.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. The light never changes, so it’s impossible to keep track. Ashton sits in the dirt, making little sculptures out of sticks and rocks, humming to himself. I resist the urge to scream at him. Instead, I press my face to the hedge and shout, “Sylvian! Oberon! Cassius!”
No answer.
I try again, louder, until my voice is raw. Ashton stands and joins in, but it’s useless. The world is too quiet, too thick. If there’s anyone on the other side, they’re as lost as we are.
Eventually, Ashton sits back down, patting the ground beside him. “Might as well wait it out. The boys will figure it out. They always do.”
I want to believe him, but my heart is hammering too hard. “What if they don’t?”
He shrugs. “Then it’s just us, Little Human. Could be worse.”
He says it like a joke, but I catch the look in his eyes, he’s serious and maybe even a little worried.
I sit beside him and wrap my arms around my knees, staring at the blank sky. The crows are gone, replaced by an empty hush that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. This is wrong. All of it.
“Do you think we’re going the right way?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. “Depends which way the right way is,” he says eventually.
We sit in silence, two pieces of something broken, waiting to be put back together or left behind.
I try not to think about the others, but it’s impossible. I imagine Sylvian, furious at being left. Oberon, punching his way through the hedge until his knuckles bleed. Cassius, quietly deducing where we could have gone, cold and alone. I wonder if they’re even on the same path anymore.
Maybe they’re not even trying to reach us.
Ashton offers me a crooked smile. “I know you hate us,” he says, picking up a stick and drawing shapes in the dirt. “But you’re not alone here. We’re here to keep you safe.”