That had to be true.
It hurt to watch that tear fall and to not know why. It hurt toknow that Saeldian, here, in this place where they could not lie, was revealing this pain at last.
Kell waited silently. He couldn’t fix this. Nobody could. But Saeldian might never get to cry about this again, and he wouldn’t take it away from them.
When it was over, they swiped at their eyes; they lifted their face. “I understand that you have no reason to believe me. But this I declare, under the sky and its stars—”
What?
Saeldian smiled through the tears in their eyes. “I will not betray you. I will not abandon you. I will help you and your friend get this job done as much as I’m helping my friend Jubilee. You will return to your home. She will save hers from falling. We all win, or nobody wins.”
Tiny lights winked and danced around them.Illusion? No. Not here.The maze’s magic was listening. Saeldian’s vow made fireflies to hold it.
Kell had to answer. “I will not betray you. I will not abandon you. I will help you and your friend get this job done so she can save her home. I will stay with my family, and Lorzok will become brothers with Verandil the way he is with me. We all win, or nobody wins.”
The fireflies wove around them both. Saeldian swiped at their eyes again, then put out their hand. “Shake on it?”
Their grip was firm, and the fireflies became a ribbon of light, leading the way out.
But when they stepped out of the maze, Shuahn rushed forward and grabbed their hands. “What took you so long?” she cried. “There’s no time. Get back in the cottage. Run!”
Chapter Fourteen
Beer, Bread, and Cheese
Where Saeldian Saves Kell from an Awkward Denial
Shuahn made them run back to her cottage as fast as they could, slamming the door shut behind them before rushing to the parlor and the relentless waiting hourglass. She collapsed on her mushroom-clump sofa when she saw they’d made it back inside with only a few dozen grains left to fall. Saeldian watched the last one drop and swayed against a wave of drowsiness that threatened to knock them down, but as the pile of sand settled, the fog cleared.
“You barely made it back in time. You don’t know how lucky you are. I nearly left you both.”
“What would have happened if we hadn’t made it?” Kell asked.
“Dear boy, I am quite exhausted. Find your way back to your rooms,” Shuahn said, not rising from her mossy couch. “It’ll be a long walk tomorrow, so be ready.”
That wasn’t an answer, and Saeldian didn’t want to find their way back to their rooms. They didn’t want to dream again. Didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t want to think. But Kell ushered them out of Shuahn’s cottage and halted just outside, looking like he had a hundred questions he would never dare ask.
He had been so eager to push Saeldian into this dream trial.Gleeful, even. But Kell looked like he had paid more of a price than he expected, and the cost wasn’t just measured in gold. Whatever Kell had faced when he picked up the leather ball he had chased to the center of the maze, it had taken the ground beneath his feet. He didn’t look certain anymore. He didn’t simmer when he looked at them either.
What had taken him so long to snap out of it back there?
Kell had jumped at the chance to force Saeldian to face something in their life, as if they never spared a thought for anything they did or how it affected anyone—as if Saeldian just ran around betraying people left and right! Confidence games aside, of course.
But if Kell wanted Saeldian to realize how they hurt people, he didn’t need to force-march them into a dream-maze to face the truth of their actions. He’d already pushed them to understand that back in Waterdeep. The maze didn’t have anything to show them that they hadn’t already suspected.
Whatever you offer, you can never have it again.
Making it to the center of the maze felt like the kind of dream where you knew what was going to happen, but there was no way to stop it. Saeldian went to the center, picked up their ball, and understood the choice their vision offered. They dropped the ball back into the bowl before five minutes had passed. Once back in the maze, they’d touched their amulet again, but it still felt oddly absent.
It had felt vividly real in the vision, though. Saeldian kept rubbing its odd nothingness and waited while Kell took nearly all the time they had.
“I have no idea what one does after a magical ordeal,” Kell finally said. “Do you?”
“Is small talk something we do now?”
“Come on. We said truce.”
“I’m not jousting,” Saeldian said. “I just thought you’d rather stick to business.”
