Page 54 of The Ordeals
His hands move lower, to the dip at the base of my spine, and I’m suddenly aware of what I’m doing.WhereI’m doing it.
Oh gods.
We leap apart, staring at each other in shock. I wipe my mouth, hiding the slight tremor in my fingertips and blink up at him. All I’m aware of is the lack of raw magic, how the air is devoid of light and honey gold … and how every hopeful is stock-still, staring at us.
I flush, breathing hard. ‘You need to learn control. You nearly died!’
‘Ineed to learn control …’ he mutters, shaking his head. The heat in my cheeks intensifies as he raises his eyebrows, a smile twisting that gorgeous mouth. ‘No need to throw yourself at me, DeWinter,’ he says so only we can hear, a grin breaking through the exhaustion limning his features. ‘Fuck, if we weren’t here right now—’
The ground shudders beneath my feet and I skitter, nearly tumbling over. Glancing around, I see the ground is rippling, the hedges closing in, as if they’re furious waves, ready to submerge us, ready to drag us deep beneath the earth. When I look across the lawn, to where Richards still holds that axe aloft, I see the ground shifting and moving.
Then it swallows him whole.
‘Let’s move!’ I say, already racing for the hedge to our right. ‘This isn’t an illusion! This damn maze doesn’t want us to leave. Alden, a little help …’
He blasts a hole before me, twigs and leaves snapping back as he races past me, breath coming in ragged bursts. ‘Can’t do that many more … times …’
We hurl ourselves through the hedge, Tessa and Greg hot on our heels. I turn just before we disappear, seeing the hopefuls scatter, aiming for different paths leading off the lawn. We’ve done all we can. ‘Good luck!’
Then we’re through, and we’re running, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. The whole maze is shifting now, the hedges slamming together, and it takes all Alden has left to blast us through two more hedges.
‘Don’t … stop … running …’ I say, breathless, the air burning like fire in my throat. We skid around a bend in the path and find the edge of a cliff. I cry out, dropping to the ground as my feet skitter stones off into the waves below.
Alden is next to me, panting furiously and I throw out a hand as Tessa and Greg careen to a stop behind us. ‘It’s real! There’s no magic here. It’s a dead end …’ Then I see what’s behind us. The maze, closing in, as though we’ve been kicked out. ‘Get back inside before it closes up!’
Tessa and Greg scramble backwards and Alden reaches the hedge at the same moment as me. I leap into it, twig and leaf scraping and snatching at my skin, my hair.
‘Sophia! Hold out your hand to me!’ Tessa cries, but the sound is muffled, as though far away.
I whimper as the limbs of twisting trees press into me, leaving me no room to breathe, tothink… then suddenly, a hand grips mine and I’m dragged through, sharp twigs scraping against my skin. I fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs next to Alden. Tessa crouches beside me, already pulling me to my feet, saying we have to move, fast.
‘I can’t get us through the hedges. My magic, I wielded too much all at once,’ Alden says quietly, eyeing the hedges closing in further down the path. ‘We’re going to have to run.’
I take the lead, taking us down the paths that don’t shimmer or glint, past misty, dank-smelling dead ends and eyes that peer out from dark paths. The light is fading around us, and I realise that if we don’t find the heart, we’ll be stuck in here at night. And now I’ve seen those unblinking eyes, I can feel them too, burning into me. There’s a hunger in this maze, an unnatural will to break and tear and devour …
‘Tell me we’re not going in circles?’ Greg says from the back as I skirt another clearing, another lawn seemingly far too enticing.
‘Possibly, I’ve lost track,’ I say, trying to catch my breath even as my limbs ache. A scream is quickly cut off and we all turn towards it, but all I see in the gloaming are looming hedges, thickening mist and paths with no end.
‘If we split up …’ Tessa says.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘We stay together. We all leave heretogether.’
‘Can anyone else see the full moon?’ Greg says in a strangled, pained voice. ‘I … I’m trying to hold it in. But the wolf inside me …’
Oh gods. I look to Tessa, and her eyes are wild, terrified as she pulls him by the hand, physically dragging him through the maze now. ‘Just get us out of here, Sophia. That’s one strong illusion.’
‘And only he can see it …’ I say. Of course. If the illusions of this maze are so cleverly woven, tailored to each of our fears, then we’re battling against our very selves. ‘Stop,’ I say, raising a hand. ‘Stop moving, just take a breath. It’s playing on our worst nightmares, making them real, scattering our thoughts.’
Everyone pauses around me, eyeing the twisting shadows, Greg screwing his eyes together, whispering under his breath about themoon, the howling. I press my lips together, reaching for Alden’s hand as I steadfastly avoid the pale face in my periphery, flickering with magic. I know it’s not real. It’s not a cold one. ‘Distract me. Make me forget the cold ones, and this maze … everything. I have to find the right way through.’
A ghost of a smile lifts the corners of his mouth. ‘Are you asking me to kiss you, DeWinter?’
I huff a laugh, eyes only for him. Not on the hedge, closing around us, not the terror, pounding in my chest. Just him, those eyes, the strange magnetism of this man. I place my hand on his chest, and feel the stirrings of raw magic again, of golden, honeyed light. I look up, past him, seeing a trailing thread, a whisper of magic, dancing away from us. It’s the sign I needed and hope flares afresh in my chest. ‘This way.’
I break away from Alden and follow after it, taking a turn down a path and find myself in front of a fork. Two paths, both shrouded in mist and silence. I scrub my hands down my face, willing myself to concentrate. We’ve come this far, we’re all still alive and I’m the only one who can see the illusions and lead us away from a trap. But these paths … they seem so alike. Then I pick out a glint, a whisper of magic drifting over a section of hedge. I squint, angling my head and find it’s woven, just like the cobwebs of magic over Lewellyn’s window. And in this maze with no clear direction, I know in my bones this is the way.
‘Follow me!’
