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No response.
“I can feel the outside. It’s so close, Ferrier. I can get us out. I just have to break through.”
Her breaths were featherlight and fast. Still no response, but her fingers clutched mine tighter.
“You need to trust me.”
I felt her hand tugging against mine even though I couldn’t see her. She was shaking her head, violently.
“Edith said not to trust anyone who said that!”
Her hand yanked from mine before I could tighten my grip. She took off farther down the pitch-black tunnel, running so quietly I feared she’d vanished. I tore after her, but my movements were slow from the cold.
Soon, I heard another sound over my footsteps and breathing.
Cantering.
The tunnel wraiths had returned.
Dirt began to rain down over my head. Twice, I heard Ferrier whimper, but I couldn’t catch her. Blast my frozen feet! I tried to call out to her magic, tried to find her mind with my own and slow her steps, but I had no idea how to do magic like that. If only I could keep her sane while I broke us out of here.
But I hadn’t learned enough magic yet. I could feel the Labyrinth’s magic all around me, now that my mind had latched onto it, but I couldn’t feel Ferrier’s mind. The magic of the Labyrinth felt like an ocean of cold, a sea of infinite glass shards crashing endlessly into my consciousness, uncomfortable but mesmerizing. I ran slower than normal not only because of my tired, cold state, but because my mind was so consumed by the discovery of this magic.
Ferrier’s muted footsteps and fearful breaths drifted further ahead.
“Ferrier, stop!”
The sound of the wraiths was coming from up ahead. There must be a web of connected passages down here.
When the cantering stopped and a sickening snarl paired with a high-pitched scream, I knew I had no other choice.
I pulled the entire tunnel down on top of us.
15
Dirt rained down on my head. Its weight crushed me. I fell with a thump as air was pushed from my lungs. My limbs tangled, and my frozen skin burned from unexpected heat.
Absence of fear is a strange thing when one is dying. I lay there until the dirt settled, and the only noise I heard was the faint rustling of the breeze through the trees.
I was out of the tunnels.
I lifted my head, dirt running in rivers off my head and down my neck. It was day.
“Ferrier,” I coughed, spitting out clumps of moist earth. I heaved myself up and climbed atop the mound of earth. Blue mist swirled in hurricanes, while shards of silver fog pulsed from my body into the air, mingling once again with the Labyrinth’s magic. Stone walls rose on either side, and skinny trees grew in the narrow path, reaching up to the sun high above. My hair fell into my eyes, along with tiny specks of dirt. I coughed and rubbed the dirt out of my eyes.
The space between the walls was wide compared to the tunnels, and my eyes burned as they adjusted to the light of day.
“Ferrier!”
I glanced around, and even as I looked, the dirt from the tunnels sank into the earth. Soon all the ground around me was flat.
“Ferrier!” I screamed again. I began to run, but at the first step, shards of pain in my calves brought me back to the ground. Tiny knives stabbed my frozen muscles. I stayed on my hands and knees for a few moments, breathing heavily.
“Ferrier?” I called, my voice weaker. I crawled forward.
Had she even been real? Had she truly been with me?
My reason began to crack, the fracture splintering outward, growing larger and larger.
