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Lil careened up a set of steep stairs, dragging Kat with her. The way was dark and a moment later she felt her head hit the ceiling. It smarted with pain and she crumpled into a crouch on what seemed to be the top step. She reached frantically in front of her, a small handle fitting into her palm. She said a silent prayer and twisted it to the side. A short door swung open. The air seemed different, fresher somehow, and she yanked Kat through. As Sydney pulled Charlie out, Lil ran blindly forward. She slammed into what felt like the edge of a table or a chair. She stumbled to her knees.

“Help!” she shouted, wondering if they had come out of the mountain or if they would end up at another test. “Help, someone!”

She spun in the darkness as Kat moaned next to her. Lil’s heart pounded in her ears. She felt the wall and ran her hands along it, feeling for cool air. Feeling for an exit. But before she could, a door was opening in her hand. She was stepping back. A small light entered the chamber. A silhouette of a person in a cloak stood before her.

“Oh, thank heaven,” a woman’s voice said. Was it Athenia or was Lil dreaming?

She rubbed her eyes. A creak came from the other side of the antechamber and Lil jumped, moving back the other way.

She stopped halfway across the room as she saw two figures enter from another door. It was Trudy—she could see her silhouetted hair in the moonlight—and by her side, Colleen. The counselors.

“A light,” Athenia said from behind her. “Flip the light!”

Trudy lit a match and held it to a wick next to the door. The antechamber burst with candlelight. Lil shielded her stinging eyes.

She looked up at Athenia. “Help,” she said, grabbing at her sleeve.

“Get Aestos and Atticus up here, now!” Athenia shouted.

Lil watched Colleen disappear into the dormitory.

Athenia slammed a hand under the table, and hinges yawned. Lil turned to see the door that they had just come through, a small square at the base of the wall, close. And as she looked just above it, she found herself staring into a set of familiar eyes. A picture of her mother’s face. She shook her head and blinked, reaching to it.

“Lilith, I need you to stay calm,” Athenia said, pushing her arm down by her side.

“Mom,” Lil said, but she couldn’t find her breath. Her heart was moving too fast. Her head spun. The picture faded. The room melted into darkness.

• • •

Lil slept like the dead and dreamed she was among them. Deep in the caverns of her mind she ran the labyrinth again. Arrows flew. Monsters of times past erupted from the walls. Assassins waited in the shadows. Flashes of lightning shattered the chamber. Dead eyes stared at her. Blood ran from the walls. She woke to light. Aestos’ face. Then plunged into darkness. Woke again to light. Athenia sat by her side. Then she again plunged into darkness. Woke to Atticus’ kind eyes. Then darkness.

The sheets twisted around her. Hugging her waist, shoulders. The neck of her shirt wound itself into a noose and squeezed her throat. She gasped for breath, clawing at it until her fingernails dripped with blood, sending rivers down her chest. The rivers bled together and became the corpse sea, and everyone was in it. She saw herself, her mom, Sydney, Charlie, Kat, Bente. The disk spun in front of her. A coin with a side made of fire and a side made of soot. The spiral sucked her in. The labrys chopped her to pieces. A rope circled her waist. And she ran through endless corridors, looking for her mother’s face. That man’s voice rang through her dreams. A tribe of murderers. She pushed her hands over her ears. But the farther she plunged into the depths, the louder it got. Soon the walls faded and she reached a pit, where she leaned against a wall and thought of nothing.