Page 66 of The Infinite Glade
“Is this one even alive?” a nearby soldier questioned. “She hasn’t moved.”
“Doesn’t matter! Fifty lashes to the traitor’s corpse. Now!”
Why her? Not him?
Minho witnessed Orange’s beatings just as he had been out-of-body for his own. Eyes closed, he counted two, three, five lashes . . . before the soldiers suddenly stopped.
A sudden silence descended on the Maze and its broken walls.
The unexpected haze of quiet made way for a sound that he had trouble placing. But it jolted something, floating far away in his memory.Wind through the sails of the Maze Cutter. Seagulls on the open ocean. Freedom. The sound of faint laughter on the ship’s deck as Dominic sang about nothing and Orange hummed along.
Humming.
The sound of beautiful, peaceful humming grew louder and louder until all the pain in Minho’s body returned at once, as if his senses had awakened.
Orange.
Her melody grew stronger until Minho realized she’d had a soldier’s plan all along. Playing dead . . . until she could throw the Remnants off the walls inside their own minds. He wanted to smile, but could only manage a cough. Orange added words, now, sang a beautiful song with emotion and strength that would have earned her fifty more lashes from any Grief Bearer had there been one. But it only distracted these stupid Orphans and worthless soldiers, all of them frozen in confusion as if she’d come back from the dead, maybe possessed by some evil they didn’t understand.
Minho only wished she’d carried out the distraction sooner. Maybe then he could have stabbed a soldier or two . . . but with his hands tied behind his back and his body near its last breath, there wasn’t much he could do but listen to her sing. She’d given him one final gift.
It sounded beautiful.
The Orphan named Minho had been born with nothing, but he’d die with so much.
Pain pulsed through every part of his body as he waited for the soldiers to snap out of it and end what they’d started with Orange. And with him. But her voice still danced and echoed between the stone walls of the Maze. She found some reserve of strength to sing even louder. He wanted to lie still, enjoy every second of it, but a shadow had darkened the space, obvious even with closed eyes.
He blinked them open, struggled to see anything through the swelling and the blood. There wasn’t much there. Just the new shadow, a person of average size, squatting directly in front of the fire, leaning toward Minho. Then the shadow spoke.
“It’s Kit. Remember me? I’m going to get you out of here, Minho.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Delirious Daze
Isaac’s brain almost broke itself right then and there as he stepped out of the Berg. The air smelled like rotten meat from a rotten animal who’d lived a rotten life. Next to a lake of blood, it was all just perfectly rotten.
“What the hell?” He turned to Old Man Frypan. “Is there a war going on here, too?” More than anything, he couldn’t believe the color of the water.
“Never saw anything like that before.” Frypan climbed off the Berg’s ramp and steadied his walking stick while looking at the blood-filled crater.
Erros explained like it was no big deal. “The Lake of Promise. It’s the mark of the Sequencers. Some kind of weird mineral or whatever makes it red. Who the hell knows.”It looked like a mark of death,Isaac thought asErros handed him a box of supplies to carry. “Can you handle this?”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t sure if Erros was referring to the heaviness of the box or the lake filled with blood, but the weight of everything together was starting to add up. Kletter. The dead bodies on theMaze Cutter. Being kidnapped by Letti and Timon. Lacey, Carson, Alvarez. Finding out about the Remnant Nation. Finding out the truth about the Godhead. Cowan in a coma. The Griever hunting her or helping her. Ximena’s Village. Hollowers and half-Cranks. The sacred site of the Maze in flames.Trish. Isaac’s arms weakened at the thought of Sadina being alive without Trish or worse—being dead with her.He shuffled the weight of the supplies and took a deep breath. “It’s heavy but I think I got it.”
Such a criminally simple thing to say when all the things of his life filled his mind.
“Thanks. Here.” Erros handed more supplies from the Villa to his brother. “Careful. You know how precious they’ll be about these.”
“Why don’t you carry them, then?” Cian replied. The man was incessantly annoyed.
Ximena stepped off the Berg last and avoided eye contact with anyone. Isaac waited for her to chime in with some know-it-all thing about the lake or her second-sight feelings, but she was unusually quiet. Jackie and Miyoko couldn’t take their eyes off the red liquid. “Is there blood in it? What’s going on?”
“Oh the color? It’s always like that.” Cian shrugged. “My doofus brother said mineral, but it’s actually algae. Sometimes it’s more pink, sometimes more red.”
Erros tried handing a box to Jackie but she was too distracted by the lake. “Relax, the algae doesn’t bite.” He held the box in front of her until she finally looked at him and took it.
Isaac at least knew a little about something for once. “We have algae on our island back home, but it turns the water green. Never red.” He took a breath and turned to Jackie. “You good?”
