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“They’re coming,” Ash said.
Ferrier whimpered and grabbed ahold of Edith’s dress. “The wraiths,” she whispered.
“They won’t get to us.” I closed my eyes. I knew I didn’t have long. None of us had long.
I looped my hand under Ash’s arm and muttered against his ear, “Let me in, one more time.”
He did. It was only a second, a pair of heartbeats, and yet it was so full of pain that I recoiled. But I found what I’d hoped to find: a locked chain surrounding a blurry, dark shape. In Ash’s mind, I tore off the chains.
This time when I opened my eyes, a similar door to the one I’d seen at the entrance of the Labyrinth stood in the center of the crossway, only it was covered in cobwebs and black with mold.
Edith screamed and jumped backward. “Where’d that come from?”
Ferrier lifted a finger and pointed at me. “She can conjure doors. She can manifest. I’ve never met anybody who could do that!”
“It was already here,” I said with a shrug, not sure what to do with the compliment.
Ash stared at the door. In the pale, bobbing light above our heads, his face took on a ghostly appearance, but I sensed it had more to do with the turmoil inside. Blue mist swarmed around him like a horde of angry bees, but around the door, the mist fled, leaving a space vacant of Ash’s magical haze. I stepped into this space and reached for the door.
“Vera, no. That’s the door to death. I know it. That’s where I placed it. I placed it right here. I remember now.”
“No, listen,” I said. The cantering sounds of the wraiths’ skeletal horses grew louder. I couldn’t tell which tunnel they were coming from or if they were coming from all four directions. The ground beneath us began to tremble, bits of dirt and rock fell from the tunnel ceiling and clattered onto the stone floor. Ferrier pinched her lips.
Ash muttered a few words, and a blue-tinted barrier burst across each tunnel, silencing the sounds of the approaching wraiths.
Edith’s eyes grew wide. “The only way out is to go through that door?”
“Will we die if we do?” Ferrier squeaked, her confidence from earlier gone.
“No. No, we won’t. That’s what the maze wants us to think.” I stared at Ash as I spoke. He needed to hear this more than the rest of us. “Ash, when you built this place, you believed that you deserved to die, that this place itself was a mercy of sorts. But the truth is that none of us can pay for what we’ve done. I used to think that I was good, and that I didn’t deserve to be in here. But if all of us have to pay for what we’ve done, not one of us would ever pay enough. Nan’s actions, my mother’s, my own—none of us could claim that we were free from guilt. We have to go through that door. We have to be willing to accept that the only thing we have to pay with is our lives. This door summed up what you felt when you made it, that death is the only way out, and yet, you told me you made everything here to both lie and tell the truth. It’s an exit, Ash. It is the way out, just not in the way you thought.”
He lifted a hand and wrapped it around the back of my neck, pulling me toward him. His warmth pushed away the cold air of the tunnels and all the fear that had built up inside me. Here, I was safe. Even in the darkest part of this Labyrinth, with monsters bearing down on us, I’d never felt more alive. I’d finally found someone whose arms felt like home. Whatever was coming down those tunnels, I didn’t fear them as much as I feared losing him. Learning to survive the Labyrinth with Ash had forged a bond stronger than anything else I’d ever known.
Before he pulled away, his arms tensed. A wave of apprehension flooded my senses.
“I will find you when this is over,” he said, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Now unlock it.”
I spun toward the door and let my magic slip into the keyhole. I found the spell and, as I had with the monsters, I dismantled it. A feeling like being thrown from a horse pushed me into Ash, and at the same moment, his protective spell around us dissolved.
The tunnels began to shake. The walls were crumbling around us. This time, I knew that if they fell, I would not be climbing out of the rubble.
The thundering hooves of the wraiths drew closer, faster than my beating heart. Chunks of dirt and rock collapsed, covering the tunnel floor and knocking against my shoulders and my upraised hands.
This place wanted to bury us.
The snouts of the wraiths’ horses burst into view, converging from all four tunnels. Beneath the echoes of the hooves came deep, ragged snarls. More than just wraiths headed our way. Silver-blue mist clashed against itself in the pale light around us. I lunged toward the door.
“I’ll go first,” I shouted.
But before I could take another step, the ground beneath me shook so hard I fell. Warm air seeped from beneath the door, caressing my knuckles.
A single breath escaped my lips as I scrambled for the door handle once more, but a creature launched itself from the darkness of the tunnel and crashed into Ash.
The wraith had the long limbs and upright body of a human, but its skin was a dusty gray. Its hands were tipped with cloudy black claws.
A silent scream clogged my throat even as my fingers closed over the knob. If we could walk through the door, all of this would end. I shoved my shoulder against the door, and it swung open, bleeding a bright light into the collapsing tunnel. When I cringed away from the sudden brightness, something grabbed my ankles and pulled hard. I yelped and lost my breath as my chest hit the ground. Despite digging my nails into the tunnel floor, I was pulled away from the door, away from my freedom.
Edith and Ferrier both screamed, but I couldn’t see them.
