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“It’s called a team. And I picked you for your personality,” Jillian said, snickering.
“No, I mean I just tried to walk away from you on purpose. The other direction. And the maze routed me right back here,” I said, not even sure why I was bothering to explain it to them.
“Let me try,” Darnell suggested.
I shrugged as he rose and strode away into the labyrinth.
Jillian offered me a handful of mushrooms. I shook my head, and she pouted for a few minutes before chucking them over her shoulder.
Raising an eyebrow, I bent to look at one.
“Fucking kidding me,” I repeated to myself, realizing she’d tried to give me a different type, one that would have induced extreme vomiting and diarrhea. “Bitch.”
“Cunt,” she answered sweetly.
“Shit,” Darnell said, appearing in the exact same hedge opening he’d entered in the first place. “She’s right,” he said to Jillian, like I wasn’t even there.
“Guess we’re stuck with each other, then,” she said, grinning at me and crossing her eyes like a demented five-year-old.
“Are you two done resting yet? We could map out more of the labyrinth with all this moonlight.” I gestured to the triple moons, still mostly full. I wasn’t tired at all, and I didn’t see any reason why we should follow a bedtime routine like kids with a curfew.
“There’s no rush, silly. But if you have too much nervous energy, we can always arrange a little bloodletting,” Jillian offered, flipping a knife between her fingers.
“Taste my blood again, and I’ll feed your brother to the gobbelins,” I said, giving her a mild look. I paced for a while longer, but it finally became apparent that neither of them was going anywhere.
So I took off walking again, testing my memory and the mist as I found my team again and again. The mist was gathered in each corner of the maze, and I scented Nicolas on the breeze, but he never materialized.
I knew it was pointless to keep moving like this, tiring myself out, but Jillian was right about one thing - I had nervous energy.
Something big was happening in Saori Sang, and everyone who had challenged Merden was locked away in this funhouse. She wouldn’t take care of my people if the gobbelins attacked. She might even take her noble friends and flee to the Vault, leaving the competitors to deal with the mist and the city to deal with a rabid army of vicious undead creatures.
I couldn’t risk standing still - not with that much at stake. Even though Jillian and Darnell thought we’d figured out the game, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were still missing quite a few rules.
And if we were missing rules, we might be missing loopholes, too.
CHAPTER NINE
