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A root breaks through the dirt beside his boot. Thin, white and new. It curls across the ground toward the maze exit—toward her.

I stomp on it and the root jerks under my boot. I grind harder and it snaps. Black liquid seeps from the broken end.

Rhett crouches and touches it then brings his fingers up. “Blood?”

”No.” Malakai answers too quickly and Rhett looks at him.

“Then what is it?”

Kai doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

I remember. I remember everything.

The table. The drums. The red ribbon.

For one terrible second, I’m back there.

Her screams tears through the field as she calls my name. Roots writhe beneath her skin. The ground opens under us, and no matter how hard I hold on, her fingers slip through mine.

I can still feel them leaving.

I haven’t spoken her name since that night and I won’t start now.

“Ezra.” Kai’s voice drags me back.

My hand aches. I look down and realize my fingers are wrapped around the knife at my waist, gripping the handle hard enough to turn my knuckles white.

I force myself to let go. The blade isn’t a prop. It never has been. “Communion doesn’t start.” I say.

Kai’s expression doesn’t change. ”It already has.”

”No.”

”The Cup.”

My stomach drops.

“She drank.”

I know. I watched her do it.

“The Table,” he continues.

Food. Hundreds of people eating over ground that once drank something far worse than cider and grease.

“The Mask.”

Sage flashes through my mind, disappearing into the maze with that cream-colored mask covering half her face.

Kai doesn’t need to say the last one.

My eyes shift to Rhett. For once, he refuses to meet mine.

“The Hunt,” Kai finishes quietly.

Four rites. Four fucking rites performed under string lights by people who think they paid admission for a Halloween attraction.

Kai lowers his hand. “They don’t have to know what they’re doing, Ezra.”