Never (Never, #1) (91)

He looks up at it, his eyes pinching. He looks almost annoyed. “It’s the one about Theseus.”

“Ah,” I say, my eyes pinching too, trying to see what he does.

Peter holds out his hand, offering me a bunch of berries.

I take them from him, pleased. “Thank you!”

“He’s not real, you know,” Peter says, watching me.

I look over at him. “Who’s not?”

“Theseus.”

“Oh.” I nod, indifferent. “No, I hadn’t thought he was. He’s a legend.”

Peter gives me a look. “Some legends are true.”

It’s then I realise I’ve eaten half the berries before I’ve even offered him one.

I hold my open hand out to him. He looks down at them, shakes his head, and his face goes funny—right as my head does.

“Peter?” I say, as the sand starts to slip beneath me. “What’s happening?”

The edges of my vision start going black, but he looks down on me, fallen in the sand, beaming.

“Let the games begin!”

Crowing. That’s what I hear first. My eyes aren’t open yet. They feel heavy, like feet stuck in sand. Is that Peter, or is it birds?

My face feels sticky. I’m sweating. Why am I sweating? It’s hot. Am I outside? Where am I? This feels like a dream. Not a good one. There are these few seconds hovering before me before I lean in to being fully conscious, and I hold them dear because I don’t know what I’m about to find next.

In those few seconds, I could be still asleep with Jamison by the fire. In those few seconds, I could be curled up next to Peter in the nest.

Both thoughts are thought in vain, but I give myself the courtesy of hope anyway.

When my eyes peel open, he’s right there in my face. Am I relieved? Am I afraid? For better and for worse, I suppose I’m both.

His head flops to the side once our eyes meet.

“Took you long enough.”

“What did you give me?” I frown, looking around. I can’t really see for the four suns are at noontime, beating down on us.

“Well, I didn’t want you to say no and me to get angry at you, so I just gave you some s?maberry’s.” He shrugs with a pleasant smile.

“Peter—” I stare at him, a nervous pit growing in my stomach. “Say no to what?”

He thumbs to the clouds. “Those sneaks were trying to give my surprise away because they think they’re the only ones who can do surprises because they’re in the sky, but they didn’t realise you were stupid and didn’t know that you don’t know your Apollodorus very well.”

I look around quickly, because unbeknownst to him, I actually do know my Apollodorus rather well. I just didn’t realise I was being shown a precursor for my day.

I’m tied to some sort of monument or an altar. There are hedges every which way. Bones scatter the ground.

“Are we in a labyrinth?” I ask him at the same time as I realise another terrible thing. “Peter, am I tied up?”

He beams at me, pleased.

My hands are bound behind my back, ankles tied in front of me.

“Peter,” I say nervously as he stands, and that’s when I see it charging at us from about a hundred metres away. A minotaur.

The minotaur, I presume, actually.

Peter takes flight and looks down at me. “We’re going to have the best day.”

He soars through the air, knocking the minotaur backwards.

It’s only down for a second before it’s back on its feet, and my view of it is now completely unimpeded, though I wish it still were.

The head of a bull, white and brown fur, crazy eyes. You know how cows have so much white around their eyes? This has that. A giant ring through its nose. Horns the length of my forearm, and then the most unsettling part: the body of a normal man. The biggest, strongest man you’ve ever seen—ever—times infinity. He’s Goliath. Pitifully white and alarmingly scarred, wielding a double-headed axe that catches the light of one of the suns no matter which way he swings it, and he’s running towards me, fast as I’ve ever seen anything move.

I reckon with it quickly that I’m very likely about to die, and it bothers me that the last sound I’ll hear is an axe grinding as the minotaur drags it behind him and the grunting it’s making that sounds quite like a bull. To be expected, I suppose, but then he is part human, so I suppose you never know what to expect in a situation like this one.

The minotaur gets about two metres from me before Peter soars through the air feetfirst, kicking him backwards.

“Don’t worry, girl!” He looks back at me valiantly. “I’ll save you.”

The minotaur lets out a furious, frustrated growl and beats his chest before thundering towards me, swinging that axe around like a helicopter blade.

Peter rushes him, but the minotaur dodges him, axe swirling above his head, and I can tell he’s coming for me. I can see it in his eyes. I’ve never seen that before—a decision that you will die. The minotaur has decided that, at his hands, I will die.

He takes an almighty swing, and I throw myself to the side and onto the ground, missing it but barely.

The axe grazes my cheek right as Peter shoves the creature back with a strength that I find surprising, impressive, and unsettling all at once.