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Keep your eyes open.
Feel it in your bones.
Draw it from your blood.
I’d heard mages talk about their magic—they all seemed keen to do so around those of us who couldn’t perform such wonders—but I’d never understood what it meant to draw it from your blood. My blood was hot and racing, but it didn’t feel laced with power.
My feet mercilessly marched toward the door. She would force me to open it, force me to enter. And I could do nothing to stop it. I would be lost forever.
My mind churned. A growl rose from low in my throat. Every step was labored as I fought to resist her magic. Physical strength was part of this game. If I could just push hard enough, I could break her magic. She was already tired, after all.
With every ounce of my energy, I ground my heel into the leaf-strewn earth. My muscles trembled. Words I wanted to shout bottled up in my mouth and throat.
The Labyrinth door loomed ahead of me. It stood without walls, and no prison was visible behind it. The Labyrinth’s walls were part of the mystery—they were entirely invisible, leaving us to wonder if the magic that held the great prison together had broken, and all the monsters had burst into our world. But King Geoffrey assured his people that the Labyrinth was unbreakable, maintained by the king of the beasts, a monster created by the Labyrinth for the Labyrinth.
A monster whose sole aim was to tear to pieces the sanity of those tossed into the maze.
My feet drew near to the door. My hands shook.
Archer’s face swam before me. Danny’s smile. Our little sitting room, with a fire in the grate. Mother humming as she patched one of Danny’s pant legs again. I would never see them again if my feet crossed that threshold.
Only madness waited within.
“Why?” A single word croaked from my pinched throat. I could hardly do magic at all, and I had never performed mind magic in my life.
The woman’s voice shook slightly, as if strained from the effort, as she answered from behind me. “You conspired to hide your affinity from the king. If it was discovered that your affinity was meddling—as it was today—I had my orders from the king to bring you here. As I brought your grandmother and will likely bring your brothers, should they manifest any signs of magic.”
My heart sank so deeply that I tried to clutch my aching chest, but my arms didn’t move. My brothers. The king was watching them too.
“In fact,” the woman called out as I stumbled toward the Labyrinth door, “you can ask your grandmother all about it. That is, if she’s not dead already.”
Nan was in the Labyrinth? I’d attended her funeral. My head whirled around, and rage exploded. “Fates curse the king!”
The woman’s eyes widened, and the hold on my muscles tightened. But I wasn’t taking this anymore. Like opening a heavy door, I pushed with all my strength against the magic controlling me. Eyes watering from the effort, I took one slow step toward my captor.
She barreled toward me, anger distorting her features.
A prickling sensation snagged my ankles and wrists, and the burn against my skin grew unbearable. A faint hissing sound accompanied my yelps of pain.
“You’re not what you think you are, little quarter. And it’s better if you never found out.”
With that, a force like a boot to my stomach sent me pinwheeling backward. My shoulders slammed into the wooden door, and my head ricocheted forward. My mind fuzzed, and my resistance to her magic fell away.
The door gave way behind me, and I fell into the Labyrinth.
4
The first sensation was blind panic.
The second was the wind being knocked from my lungs as I landed on my back.
Momentarily dazed, I writhed on the ground, slinging leaves and snagging even more on my lace dress. All the myths, all the fears, and all the nasty stories children concocted to scare each other flooded my mind and numbed my awareness.
I scrambled to my feet and took in my prison.
I could see no walls, which made it so much worse. A prison without walls tricked the mind, making it feel like escape was possible. But the most powerful mages in the world couldn’t escape this place. And I’d just been locked in—before I could even tell my family goodbye.
A hollow ache gnawed at my insides, and I bent forward, clutching my stomach and gasping as my brothers’ names fell from my lips.
