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“Thank you for taking care of her,” I whispered, glancing back up at Nan.
“She’s the reason we’re still alive.” Edith touched her sister’s shoulder.
Living in this place with my loved ones, constantly fearing for their lives—that would drive anyone to madness. A renewed respect for Edith settled in my bones.
Ash’s dark shape moved around the clearing below, and my heart flipped inside my chest. I clumsily made my way down the rope, dropping when my hands gave out to land with a painful jolt on the uneven ground.
Hands reached out to steady me.
I spun around quickly to face Ash, blood thrumming excitedly in my veins.
Nan’s words about him—he carries deep wounds—rang in my head. I grabbed the edges of his vest before he could release me.
I whispered, quietly so Edith might not hear, “She knows who you are.”
His expression was hard to read in the shadows under the platform, but he gave a small nod. “She’s a smart woman.”
Ash stepped away, but I kept pace with him as he edged across the clearing.
“Tell me about the war,” I said. I didn’t care that he had wounds. It only made me more eager to know what they were, to offer him a chance to heal.
He ran a hand down his face. “I took men’s lives.”
A long breath escaped my lungs. “Like you said, it was war.”
“Not every life I took was in defense of a noble cause, Vera. Taking lives leaves a mark. Those I killed with my magic haunted my mind endlessly, until I locked those thoughts away. You broke open those memories.”
I cringed as the image of the decimated battlefield flooded my mind. I recalled the strange vision of a woman’s face I’d seen another time Ash was near. But I didn’t want to ask about her. Not with the memory of his kiss still blazing on my lips. So I said, “Teach me how to control it, so I don’t hurt you again.”
And if I learned to hone my magic, maybe I could unlock a spell that would finally allow us to escape. But I kept this part to myself, not wanting to give him a reason to say no.
After a long pause, he grumbled, “Not here. The Labyrinth will test you again if it senses you’re doing magic. We can’t put the others at risk. Follow me.”
I trailed Ash through the thick forest, the trees like pale skeletons and the mist a phantom. Every flicker of the writhing fog lifted the hairs on my arms. Edith’s words about the Labyrinth turned in my head. There is sentience here.
A huge fallen tree up ahead forced us to angle to the right, toward moss-covered stone walls that I hadn’t noticed before. The mist thickened, and there was only one way to go: a small space between the walls that appeared like a dark doorway.
“This way,” he muttered, ducking through the narrow opening.
We entered an open space surrounded by moss-covered stone walls. The sunlight shone through the trees at an angle, creating pockets of bright light and deep shadow. Perhaps more of the afternoon had passed than I’d realized. Ash paced in the small clearing beside a crumbled stone structure. It might have been an abbey once, with its pointed windows and simple rectangular shape, but there was no ceiling, and the stones, at least those visible under spiderwebs of dead vines, were scorched black. I didn’t think any buildings existed in the Labyrinth, but clearly, I was wrong.
With his back still to me, he said, “Everyone experiences magic differently. You might see it, or you might hear it. Some people smell it, like Edith does, and others taste it. Once you determine your lens, it’s much easier to focus on the magic.”
Part of me wondered why Edith hadn’t mentioned this, but I couldn’t let myself worry about that now. I had plenty to worry about as it was.
The blood in my veins trilled from a jumble of antagonizing forces: my fear that some monster would emerge from the ground and eat my ankles, my dread that Ash would decide never to kiss me again, and my own quiet terror that I might never escape this place and my brothers would be left to the whims of the king.
I concentrated on Ash’s words. I wasn’t some magicless quarter-mage, but a true mage. A mind mage capable of terrible and powerful things. The very thing I’d never wanted to be and yet always secretly hoped to be. And I was a key, capable of dismantling magic few others could, thanks to the blood of my grandmother. All my life, I’d hoped to be like my grandfather—a fire mage. But somehow, now that I knew I had Nan’s magic, a feeling of pride welled within me that overpowered the fears trying to steal my focus.
Ash stopped pacing and moved only his eyes toward me. “Still nothing?”
It took me a moment to realize he was asking me a question. I’d been too distracted, both by his jawline and the whispering wind in the trees.
I shook my head.
He sighed. “Then tell me everything you’re sensing right now. Any odd colors? Smells? It could even be a breeze or a subtle shadow or maybe heat or a musical sound.”
He walked closer as he spoke, until his boots nearly touched mine and he towered over me. Heat flared up my neck, but I schooled my expression. His nearness didn’t scare me. Or at least, it shouldn’t, and I didn’t want him to think I was inexperienced at staring up into the faces of handsome men.
