Page 139 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

I had missed his heart and impaled his shoulder instead.

No.

“Doe, listen to me. I’ll slow you down, and you can’t help me.” Tears fell from my eyes and I started to shake my head in denial. “You can’t,” he said again, and deep down I knew it was the truth. “Help yourself, for all of us.”

Nathaniel started to push my hand away from his wound and I brushed my tears away with the back of my hand, slowly accepting what he demanded of me, as I pushed to my feet.

One last look passed between us that felt strangely like a goodbye, before I took a hold of the hem of my dress and began to run on my still shaking legs through the gap that was about to grow closed with vines.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

ARCHER

“Why is the bloody maze moving?”Jesse yelled as we rounded the maze for any form of entrance after we had watched the original entrance grow closed by thorny vines.

“It’s Anwir,” Kane answered. “There’s a spell in the Book of Shadows that allows you control over nature. I don’t remember the words for it; otherwise I could reverse the effect of it by speaking the spell backwards.”

“That’s a thing?” Jesse asked, his stamina already faltering as we rounded the maze.

“You have no idea what all is a thing in sorcery, Berkshire.”

“Obviously, I don’t,” Jesse pointed out.

I watched the outside of the maze, praying to the stars to give us a damn entrance to get inside. And perhaps they actually listened for once because the vines shifted open only metres away from us.

“There!” I pointed out, quickening my pace and slipping through the gap, the others behind me.

“We have to hurry,” Mai said in panic, hugging herself in an attempt at protection. She does this every time when she’s scared since we’ve been little kids.

But it didn’t help anyone at the moment.

The maze shifted again, and we ran through every open gap, not even trying to think logically because none of this had any logic behind it.

My mind went wild, not knowing whether my friends were safe or not.If they were alive or not.

Mai hadn’t said a single word after she said that she saw Nathaniel in that vision.

I knew what that meant. But I didn’t want to believe it.

“You’re just making this harder for yourself, Dorothee!” Anwir’s voice called out from somewhere far away, and I tried to turn toward the direction where his voice had come from.

We stood at the beginning of a long path with no gap between the hedges and I contemplated turning back around when suddenly the vines shifted at the end of the path.

My heart jumped a beat at the sight of a girl with fiery hair running towards the new gap.

“Archer?” She called out to me in surprise, her voice raspy and her pace slowing down. As the shadow behind her came closer and closer.

I started to run in her direction, feeling like the gap was becoming further and further away the faster I ran.

While I ran for the girl who was the owner of my heart alone, I started to pray to the stars for them not to take her from my arms, to make her be mine for ever. But it seemed that they had stopped listening to me because the gap started to close again, vines growing thick from the ground, starting to bind a net over the free space.

No.

We were so close. I could see her face clearer, her hands and dress covered in blood. Her reddened throat and fearful expression.

I could see Anwir right behind her.

The vines almost closed the gap and in the last moment we reached for another, our fingertips brushing, but before I could take a hold of her hand and pull her into the safety of my arms, Anwir caught her by the waist and dragged her back as she screamed in terror.

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