Page 140 of Find My Way Down to You

“I know.” He stands. “Now love yourself. And let others love you too.”

Inhaling raggedly, I say the other thing I’ve needed to tell him for too long: “Goodbye, London.”

His face brightens. A jeweled sun in my darkest moment.

“Goodbye, August.”

Then he backs away. Toward the mirror. The glass takes him like a wave swallowing a sandcastle.

And I’m alone again. On the floor of a labyrinth I still don’t know how to escape. But the emptiness I’ve carried in my chest for two years slowly begins to fill.

A wound finally beginning to heal.

I stay there for minutes. Maybe longer. I will myself to do what London asked me to: Carry on. I need to get to my feet. Run.

The voices are getting closer again.

“August.”

I hear them. Like they’re right above me. Floating down from the thick roof of leaves overhead. Their footsteps echo. Dread pools in my gut when I realize I’m too late.

Whatever souls that have been following me are already here.

When I look up, it’s not the gray-faced man from before. The bloodstained woman who Milos banished with a flick of his wrist.

It’s Cary, hair falling around his face. Dark eyes shadowed. His mouth pulled into a stubborn pout.

He reaches a hand down to me. “Come on. This is not your end.”

After helping me to my feet, Cary starts determinedly down a passageway. He barely glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m behind him.

I am. Open-mouthed, confused. Ignoring the burn in my thighs as I try to keep up with his long strides.

“How are you in the labyrinth?”

“My brother cannot resist a bargain,” he says, eyes forward.

“Youmade a deal? You never make deals!”

“This was an exception.”

“This or”—I swallow—“me?”

He doesn’t answer. That little flex in his jaw does. My stomach tangles in a knot of shock and relief.

Cary came to find me.

But this is Milos. Nothing with him is ever simple. We turn down a corridor, and I ask, “What did you bargain?”

At a fork, Cary examines the options. He lands on going right. “I gave up…something,” he replies through clenched teeth.

“What?”

“It does not matter.” The way he says it…Cary gave up something valuable, important. Just to save me.

I hide my smile from him.

Down the passage is a mirror against one wall. Its gilded thorns wink in the light. Cary exhales loudly, striding past it.