Page 28 of The Labyrinth and the Threaded Daughter

Her gaze lingered on him then with something like sorrow threading through it. “No.”

“How do you know?”

“You will have to trust me on that fact, heir.”

Corin leaned back, staring up at the endless sky, his world irrevocably altered. More answers covered in half-truths in confusion.

“I think,” he said slowly, “you’re going to have to tell me a lot more.”

Ariadne didn’t argue. She only said, “We have time.”

He shot her a glance. “Do we? I need to get out of here soon. I only have three days and nights to get out of here, and I’m sure a day has passed already.”

“I–” she cut herself off with a shake of her head. She busied herself with a fallen piece of cloth that did seem out of place, but certainly didn’t warrant that much attention at a time like this.

Frustration ran through Corin as he watched her patter around the chamber completing odd tasks instead of answering him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, wishing he could force her to speak, force her to tell him full truths and answers. If she wasn’t going to answer him…

“You have to help me leave.”

Ariadne, who had been rinsing the stone bowl in a shallow basin fed by water Corin hadn’t seen before, stilled. She didn’t turn around.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Her spine stiffened. “It is not the way.”

Corin pushed himself to his feet, steadier now than he had any right to be. “You know the paths. You know the rules. You’ve watched every heir that’s ever come through here.”

“That does not mean I will help them,” she replied. “Or you.”

“Then you want me to stay,” he shot back, his brows turned inward. “That’s what this is.”

She turned then, eyes flashing. “No. Do not twist my inaction into that.”

“Then what do you mean?” Corin demanded. His fingers itched to reach out to her, but he shoved his hands into his tunic pockets to distract them. “Because everything I’ve been told—everything—says the only way out is blood. And if that isn’t true for me, then what am I supposed to do?”

“Everything,” Ariadne echoed with a sharp scoff. She studied him before answering. “You leave. The same way every heir does.”

“What does that mean?”

“You solve it,” she bit out. “Yourself. Just like every heir before you did. You find your own way out.”

Her words settled between them, heavy but undeniable.

Corin exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. Without her help—and without any weapon now—he was unsure how he could beat this maze. He paced the chamber once, twice, boots echoing against the stone. Above him, the sky remained mercilessly bright. Too bright. Taunting him with its glow.

“You said killing the Minotaur has worked before,” he repeated the haunting thought, attempting to keep his voice even, “but it won’t work for me.”

“That is correct.”

“Why?”

Ariadne’s gaze flickered toward one of the darker entrances to the side, then back to him. “Because the Labyrinth does not seek the same thing from every heir.”

“And what does it want from me?”

Her voice softened, but her words did not. “As it wants for all you heirs: a sacrifice.”