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“Is he speaking to you so that you can survive?” she asked. “Or is he telling you to save me?”

Xerxes’s shoulders squared as he settled his stare on her. He suddenly poked her forehead. “And they say I’m crazy.” But there was no humour to his words, or on his face.

Ryn dragged a step back, ankle bells tapping. “He is, isn’t he? He’s helping you.”

Xerxes put his hands on his hips, shifting his belt and tilting his head. “Fine. He wants to save you. Because you won’t save yourself.” The cool breeze tossed his hair, his scarlet hem.

Ryn didn’t have the strength to gasp as his words settled in. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or furious. This was what she wanted—to bring Xerxes and El together.

Xerxes didn’t give her time to decide; he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the path. “You know what would be better, Ryn? If we were both listening to your god,” he said.

Ryn’s teeth clenched behind her closed mouth. “I can’t hear him right now,” she stated. “At all.”

Xerxes nodded and tore the crown of roses from his hair. “I know.” He tossed the crown toward a bush, a ting sounding when it hit the wall and fell out of sight behind the leaves. They came to a crossroads with three openings as he shook his dark hair free and drew a scroll from his robe. “Defiant little Adriel,” he said. “You’re lucky I can hear him.” He dropped her hand to open the scroll, and he studied a messy drawing. He turned it sideways, then looked ahead and took her hand again. “Come on, Ryn. We have to run to beat all these horrid heroes to the end.”

“Divinities, Xerxes, are you smiling right now?” Ryn cast him a look.

Xerxes bit his lips together, but the corners of his mouth still pulled. “I’ve been on a chain for weeks, Maiden. So, if I’m being honest, I might enjoy this chase, just a little.”

Ryn tsked. “You really are a monster, Xerxes.”

“You really must have the intelligence of a brick if you’re only figuring that out now, Adassah.”

Ryn grew dizzy. Every white wall led to a black one, then back to a moss-covered white one. The cold air turned icier as the hours passed, and eventually the bright sun sank to a reddish golden hue that painted the walls sepia. Her stomach curled with hunger, and she glanced at the fruit trees, slamming her mouth closed every time she thought about eating or complaining or speaking at all while Xerxes navigated with his mysterious map. She wasn’t sure her voice still worked anyway with smoke trapped in her lungs.

When a scream lifted in the distance, Xerxes’s eyes narrowed in that direction.

“Sounds like that snake got loose.” He grunted and gave his attention back to his scroll, striding toward a jungle of ivies hanging in strings. He pushed them aside and stepped into a circular clearing where a polished fountain spurted water that drowned out the sound of their bells.

Xerxes paused, glancing back they way they came. Suddenly he shoved Ryn into a wall beneath a canopy of hanging flower plants. Crimson petals brushed Ryn’s cheeks as she went flat, Xerxes’s warm body caging her in beneath the net of blossoms. Ryn inhaled the smoky bloom oil scent on his neck as they went still. Sandals tapped over the stone floor by the fountain area, followed by voices:

“I can’t find those Per-Siana animals anywhere. The Prince’s execution reward for them is slipping through my fingers.”

“Animals?!” Xerxes growled in a whisper, and Ryn threw a hand over his mouth. His blue eyes sailed down and locked on hers as the strangers passed by.

“Should we try to beat them in this race instead? The finish line isn’t far from here and no one else has made it this far.”

“No. Once they’re part of the Museum, they’ll die only by the King’s hand. And you’ve seen how he values his Museum.” The second voice was female and silky, and Ryn inhaled quietly. “I don’t wish for either of them to make it that far.” A nearby tree rattled as though someone slapped a branch, and through a gap in the flowers, Ryn saw a plume of red leaves scatter over the stones.

Their footsteps whispered down a path, the fountain’s bubbling water the only sound remaining. Ryn’s fingers slipped off Xerxes’s lips.

“I’m not surprised there’s a bounty on us,” he muttered. He adjusted himself, a hand sliding down Ryn’s back she didn’t realize was pinched between her and the wall. His fingertips paused along her spine, and she glanced up, wondering what he was waiting for until he took a large step back, pulling her out of the tangle of blossoms with him. His hand slid off, and he turned to face six wall openings evenly spaced apart around the fountain. Ryn’s spine tingled with warmth, and she cleared her throat as she stepped to his side.

“Do you know which way is next?” she asked.

He nodded and lifted a finger toward a path that looked like a dark, open mouth with curled black branches for a ceiling, thick thorned roots covering the ground. “It’s going to hurt, but we need to run.” Xerxes glanced up to where the orange sun was setting, turning the sky gray.

“Why?” Ryn took a step toward the dark opening.

“Because we don’t have a torch,” Xerxes said. “And if we’re in there when the sun disappears, it’ll be pitch black and we’ll have to feel our way through. That will cost us time we don’t have. But first…” He caught her wrist, and she lurched to a stop. Xerxes’s frown deepened, his brows coming together as he studied her. “Ryn, when are you going to admit why you really came to B’rei Mira?”

Ryn’s lips peeled apart. “What?”

“I want to be flattered that you came here for me. But there’s more. Something happened back in Per-Siana, didn’t it?” His gaze searched hers as he unpeeled his fingers from her wrist. Ryn swallowed, crushing any answer she could come up with inside her throat. When a quiet moment passed, he went on, “I haven’t seen you so rattled since your Folke friend Matthias died.”

Ryn stilled. Xerxes took a step back, and the subtle tugs of his face as he observed her made her want to tear away and run for the dark opening.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Xerxes—”