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“I call to you,” she said in a meek voice.
The creature’s beady eyes snapped toward Paige, his head tilting as he studied her, staring down his almost-nonexistent nose.
“Who are you?”
Paige swallowed hard and lowered her chin. “Paige Turner, Shadow Harbor Librarian.”
“What do you seek, Paige Turner?”
Paige’s forehead crinkled, and she recalled the words on the plinth. “I seek to complete the test and return to the real forest.”
“So be it,” the creature said, waving a clawed hand in the air.
A shimmering sparkle filled the air in front of Paige, and the world began to disappear.
When her surroundings reformed, she found brown brick walls surrounding her. She spun in a circle, searching the new area.
“Wait!” Paige called out. “What am I supposed to do?”
Her shoulders slumped, and the sword scraped on the ground as her mind sought a solution. She approached one of the walls flanking her and stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer over it.
It proved an impossible task. She tried to hop but caught little more than a glimpse.
With a roll of her eyes, Paige dropped the sword and dug her fingertips into the grooves between the stones. She wedged her feet against the rough wall and fought her way up, then she wrapped her arms over the top when she reached it. With a final push, she scrambled up and stood on top of the stones.
Her jaw fell open at what she witnessed. Stone walls rambled across the landscape, forming a large labyrinth. Light glowed from the center.
“This must be the test,” Paige surmised. “Make it through the maze.”
She slid back down the wall and retrieved her sword. “Okay, you can do this, Paige. You have a good sense of direction.”
After a glance back and forth, Paige selected a direction and started down the passage.
“Except that one time you got lost and ended up trapped in a werewolf’s mansion.”
She stared up at the sky, searching for something she could use to help navigate. A bright moon shone overhead.
“The moon is on my left. That should help, right?”
An opening in the stone wall on her right revealed another corridor.
“This is right. I need to move that way.”
She ducked through the break and into the next passageway.
“So far, so good,” she murmured as she found another opening leading farther into the maze.
She wound around corridors for another thirty minutes before reaching a dead end.
She stared ahead at the stone wall preventing her forward progress with a deep scowl. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
With a sigh and slumped shoulders, she spun on her heel and sauntered back in the direction she’d come.
“Ridiculous,” she said, turning the opposite way at the first fork.
Another few minutes of walking brought her to another dead end. Her head fell back between her shoulders before she began to retrace her steps again.
After a third dead end, she tossed the sword down and scrubbed her face with her hands. “Unbelievable. I’ll never get through this.”
