Immortal Consequences(42)

“I just kept thinking how helpful it would be if I had a weapon,” Emilio mumbled, seemingly still in a daze. “It’s like it heard my thoughts.”

Irene glared at the hedge. “Maybe it did.”

The maze might have helped Emilio, but she still didn’t trust it. She was convinced that nothing good ever came without a price, and she wasn’t inclined to stick around to find out what the maze wanted in return.

She pushed herself onto her feet. “We should keep moving.”

“I say we go left.” Olivier grabbed Emilio by the arm and walked forward.

Irene turned away from them. “I’m going right.”

Emilio glanced up. “You’re—you’re not coming with us?”

He seemed genuinely wounded, his brows lifted in surprise. And for a brief and horrifying moment, Irene couldn’t help but feel a sting of regret.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’d rather be alone.”

Olivier scoffed. “Are you serious? I was almost strangled by a plant and you were almost eaten by a troll and now you want to risk the rest of the trial on your own?”

“This isn’t a team sport.”

“Christ, Irene.” He shook his head, disappointment burning in his eyes. “It won’t kill you to trust people.”

“You’re wrong,” she muttered.

“Irene—”

“I want to believe you’re right.” The words poured out of her as she staggered backward, distancing herself from them. She couldn’t stand to see the earnestness in their eyes, to hear the concern in their voices. “I want to believe that people are worth trusting. But you’re wrong. Trust will destroy you.”

Emilio had stepped forward, as though he was about to speak, when a cacophony of noise rattled farther down the path, cutting him off. The three of them glanced up in unison and watched as two figures sprinted toward them.

Georgia Lynn and Carter Rowland. The nominees from Fiddle House. At first all Irene saw was Georgia’s distinctive bright blue hair. It was pulled back into a ponytail, sweat clinging to her pale skin. Next to her was Carter. It was easy to tell it was him even from a distance by the tattoos covering every inch of his skin. The two of them were infamous among the students—notorious rule-breakers. But their nomination wasn’t all that surprising. Despite their penchant for testing the Housemasters’ limits, it was well-known that Georgia and Carter had two of the highest rankings when it came to reaping assignments in the Ether.

They were practically legends.

As Irene’s vision refocused, she noticed that the pair of them were yelling something, though it was hard to hear, their voices muffled by the wind. It was only when Irene spotted the thick black plumes of smoke rising like a charcoal wave behind them that their voices became clear.

“RUN!”

The word echoed deep in Irene’s chest as her feet hit the ground. She sprinted in the opposite direction, clutching her bleeding wound, as chaos erupted at her back. Behind her Georgia screamed, the sound sending a flurry of goose bumps down Irene’s arms.

Unable to resist, Irene glanced over her shoulder.

Emilio and Olivier were running a few paces behind, hands clasped together. Farther back, Carter had tripped over a tangled root and was scrambling to get back onto his feet. Pausing beside him, Georgia reached down, trying to pull him to safety as the smoke slithered, impossibly fast, toward them. Only a few more seconds and it would overwhelm them both.

Help them, whispered a terrible voice in the back of Irene’s mind.

But she couldn’t. There was no time to worry. No time to go back. Irene just had to keep running. She reached the fork in the maze and veered left, eyes fixed forward. Olivier and Emilio had passed her while she’d been turned around—she wasn’t sure which way they’d run, but it didn’t matter.

She just needed to keep moving.

To save herself.

To—

Irene tripped, her body flying to the ground, and smacked her head against something sharp and hard.

The last thing she heard before passing out was the sound of somebody screaming.

16

Wren

The hedge spat Wren out without warning. Her body hit the ground, hands landing palms down on the dirt. Behind her, the vines slithered away, retreating into the hedge. She gathered herself onto her feet and tried to make sense of where she was.

It was definitely the same maze, but Masika and Liza were nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t even hear them. Just an eerie silence blanketing the air and the rustle of the leaves against the wind.

For a second, Wren found herself rooted to the ground, unsure what to do next.

But then Masika’s words echoed in her mind: We keep moving.

She was right. There was no time to panic. She just had to keep moving.

Wren continued forward. The farther she ventured into the maze, the deeper the darkness around her grew, the silver glow of Blackwood fading as the twisted branches thickened above her, morphing into a canopy of prickly vines and rotten twigs.

With nothing but the eerie silence of the hedges to accompany her, Wren found the reality of the situation dawning on her.

This is the Decennial.

Despite the anger she felt over Silas’s concealing the truth from her, she supposed his promise to nominate her hadn’t entirely been a lie. She had been nominated. Technically speaking. He’d just happened to leave out the fact that there would be others this time around.