Birdcages.Dozens of them, hanging from hooks at different heights, and inside them were birds made of what looked like brass and copper.Mechanicalbirds.
Their wings were folded, their glass eyes dark. They hung perfectly still in their cages, and the only sound in therewhen the echo of our footsteps faded was the faint creak of the chains that held them.
“Guys…”
“This wasn’t here before.”
“Did we take a wrong turn?”
“Therewere no turnsto take!”
I recognized the frustration in Levana’s voice because I felt it. I felt the exact same terror and panic and shock. My mind was trying to break itself searching for sense while the other bickered because this was senseless. It was absurd. It was the same door, same place, same?—
“The Labyrinth shifts.” Silas’s voice pierced through the dark cloud in my head like an arrow and landed in the very center. He sounded exhausted, but he still continued, “The tunnels rearrange. The rooms move. It’s not...it doesn’t stay the same.”
Sentient,whispered a voice in my head.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t stay the same?!” asked the others almost in unison.
“The same way it caved that floor to take us away from the Timekeepers,” March said. “It wanted us to get away. To find Silas.”
Rotten, rotten seconds…
“So…does it want us to get out of herenow?” asked Russ.
Silas didn’t have an answer.
“The seeker,” he said instead. “See if it still works.”
The device that was still firmly in my hand. I’d completely forgotten about it.
“It’s pointing…”left,I wanted to say first, but I looked to my left—to where March and Russ were holding Silas up—and realized “…atyou.” It was pointing at Silas.
“But I thought Kohen said hecouldn’tcalibrate it to Silas,” Erith said in a shaky whisper.
“A basic seeker recognizes the biggest concentration ofmagic, which would be me in your midst,” Silas said, his eyes closed as he thought it through. “It won’t be much good until we’re close to Kohen and the others.”
“So, what now?” asked Seth. “Are we…are westuckhere?”
“No,” I said, as if I knew it for a fact, when I didn’t. “We keep going. Even if the rooms change, we can still get to the edge of the Labyrinth if we keep going.”
Silence for a moment, as we all waited to see if someone would either tell me I was wrong or offer a better idea.
Nobody did.
“Let’s keep moving then,” March said with a nod.
So, we did.
We went through the birdcage room quickly. We kept our eyes open, though, our ears strained. That’s why, as we passed, I could have sworn—I could haveswornthat one of them turned its head a fraction of an inch as Seth walked beneath it. Just a fraction.
My breath caught. My step faltered. My mouth opened to scream or whisper or warn someone, but…
Nobody else noticed. Which made me think I’d imagined it. Made mehopeful.
I said nothing, only bit my tongue and kept going, wiping the sweat on my brow.
Memory said that the next room would be where the talking flowers were. The door to it looked the same, too, but now, it was something else entirely.
