Rafael picked up the scorched map with shaking hands, then grabbed the rosary. He held the map close to the light, his face going pale.
A hole the size of a fist had burned straight through one corner. Char marks spread from the edges, obscuring lines and pathways.
"How bad?" I asked, though I could already see the answer.
"Bad." His finger traced the burned section. "This was the junction near the center. Three, maybe four pathways converge there. I can't tell which lines are which anymore. The fire ate right through them."
"Can you work around it?"
"I don't know." He folded the map carefully, as if that would somehow repair it. "Maybe. If we can figure out where we are when we get close."
"We just have to make it to the center," I said, trying to sound more confident than I was. "We know that much."
"Yeah." Rafael tucked the damaged map back into his jacket. "We just don't know which path will actually get us there."
Behind us, the pit yawned like an open mouth. Ahead, the corridor stretched into darkness.
Constantine's laughter echoed through the maze from somewhere to our right. The stone walls made it impossible to tell how far away he was. Could be fifty yards. Could be five. "Very good! I wasn't sure you'd make that jump. Well done, boys. Though I do hope you didn't damage anything important in that landing."
The pathway continued ahead into darkness. Rafael pulled out the map and held it close to the rosary flame, squinting at the damaged sections. His jaw clenched as he studied the burned area.
"We're here, I think." He pointed to a spot on the map. "But this whole section—" His finger moved to the charred area. "I can't read it anymore. We'll just have to hope we can figure it out when we get closer."
Caesar shrieked somewhere in the distance. Not close, but close enough to make my skin crawl.
"We need to keep moving," I said.
The pathway branched. Rafael pulled out the map and studied it in the dying rosary light. "Right," he said, but there was doubt in his voice.
"You sure?"
"No." He met my eyes. "But left doubles back toward the entrance. Right is the only option that makes sense."
We took the right path. The corridor sloped downward, the walls narrowing until we had to turn sideways to fit through with our shoulders scraping stone. My shoulder throbbed where I'd landed after Rafael carried me over the pit. The chain had rubbed a raw spot on my ankle, and every step sent a spike of pain up my leg.
Rafael was limping too, favoring the shoulder he'd landed on. His breathing came harder in the thin air.
The passage opened into a small chamber with four exits branching off in different directions. Two torches still burned here, their light enough that we could actually see.
Rafael pulled out the map again and held it up. His finger traced the paths, stopped at the burned section, and backtracked. His jaw clenched.
"What?" I asked.
"I think we're here." He pointed at a junction on the map. "But I'm not sure. This chamber could also be here, or here." He indicated two other spots, one much deeper in the maze than the other.
"Which way do we go?"
"If we're here—" He pointed to the first spot. "Then we need to take that exit." He gestured to the passage on our right. "But if we're actually here—" His finger moved to the second spot. "Then that's the wrong way entirely."
My chest tightened. "What happens if we go the wrong way?"
"We get lost." Rafael folded the map and tucked it away. "And we might not find our way back."
Caesar shrieked from somewhere above us. The sound echoed off the chamber walls, disorienting, impossible to track.
"We have to choose," I said. "We can't stay here."
Rafael studied the four exits. His remaining eye moved from one to the next, weighing options we didn't fully understand. "Right," he said finally. "We go right. It's the best option either way."
